Hidden Fire: The Great Butte Explosion

Butte, Montana has more gnarly history in its brick-lined back alleys than you can read in three lifetimes.  But when it comes packaged as a Montana PBS documentary, it’s worth setting aside some viewing time in your present incarnation.

Mine tragedies and murders and mayhem in old Butte have always carried headlines. But it was a hidden cache of illegal explosives that caused a disastrous industrial fire in the city’s warehouse district and took the lives of 57 men including 13 firemen. 

The 1895 fire devastated Butte’s young fire department, leaving only two remaining members. Read more about this story at the Montana PBS site. And watch the documentary when it airs a second time on March 5.