A Labor of Love: NPS Approves Expanded Butte-Anaconda NHL
On October 24, 2005 the Landmarks Committee of the National Park Service Advisory Board met in Washington DC, and unanimously endorsed an expanded Butte-Anaconda National Landmark District, urging the full NPS Advisory Board to recommend it to the Secretary of the Interior Gayle Norton for final approval. On January 13, the NPS Advisory Board did just that, and now, the last remaining step in Butte-Anaconda’s 14 year odyssey to gain broader NHL recognition is for Secretary Norton to sign her approval of the new landmark boundaries.
 
The proposal expands the Butte National Landmark District (established in 1961) to include Walkerville, historic areas in Anaconda, and the BA&P Railroad corridor between the two cities. Historian Derek Strahn’s narrative focused upon the industrial, residential and commercial resources that tell the story of Butte and Anaconda's great contributions to America's industrial progress, labor history and national growth. Staff of Butte-SilverBow and MPA compiled the enormous amount of documentation required for so large a district with support of SHPO, NPS and Anaconda-Deer Lodge historians. In all, some 50 professionals contributed to the effort.

Chere Jiusto, Montana Preservation Alliance, told the panel that the landmark "has a cohesiveness and poignancy of landscape" not found anywhere else, while Ellen Crain, Butte-Silver Bow archivist, emphasized the broad local support for the proposal and fielded questions about the results of Superfund cleanup, which she said “set the table for us to launch heritage tourism efforts.”
 
Several landmark committee members praised the nomination. Ronald M. James, Nevada State Historic Preservation Officer, noted that the Virginia City, NV archives has many letters from Irish miners in Butte urging their friends to come to Montana when the Nevada mines were playing out. And Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilberg, an archaeologist at UCLA, recalled living in Butte for a few years after World War II, and her "vivid childhood memories of a place of romance, fascination and a little danger."
 
The landmark designation will spur economic development projects currently underway, including the Copper King Express, a tourist train recently launched by Rarus Railroad of Anaconda. And as Dr. William J. Murtagh, former Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places noted, "Preservation should be the engine of progress, not the caboose."