Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917

World War I–era Butte was a volatile jumble of antiwar protest, seething labor unrest, and divisive ethnic tension. Against that explosive backdrop, the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company’s Granite Mountain shaft. Michael Punke recounts the tragic tale and heroic actions of the miners who fought to survive. Punke is author of Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917; Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West; and The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge. Now a resident of Missoula and vice president of Global Public Policy (AWS), Punke is also former United States Ambassador to the World Trade Organization. (Recorded by TVMT at the Montana State Capitol, September 21, 2017.)