Destination: Butte, Montana

Butte, Montana, was once the richest hill on earth, a source of amazing wealth and the copper that eventually wired America. In Destination: Butte, Montana, Colleen Clancy Hansen tells the stories of Butte's early years through the lives of her ancestors from Wales and Ireland. From the late 1800s forward, the Johns, Davises, and Clancys witnessed firsthand the War of the Copper Kings, the Tong Wars, the Granite Mountain Mine disaster that killed more than 160 men, the Spanish flu pandemic, and two world wars. A retired secondary school teacher of English, Clancy skillfully weaves the families' personal tragedies and triumphs into Butte's grand drama, following the rise and fall of copper barons, the emergence of America's labor movement (and the violent backlash), and the tapestry of ethnic communities that proudly produced more than half of the country's copper.