Verdigris Project

FAIN: ZR-256731-18

Butte America Foundation (Butte, MT 59703-0394)
Clark Grant (Project Director: February 2017 to May 2024)

The continued digitization of Butte oral histories and the subsequent creation of podcasts and radio shows showcasing the history of Butte mining and culture.

The Butte America Foundation, license holder for KBMF 102.5FM, is proposing the creation of Verdigris, a collection of radio series produced in collaboration with the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives and the Butte High School History Club. These programs would make use of primary source materials to create new and engaging radio content about Butte’s mining, industrial, and cultural heritage. The Archives possess hundreds of oral histories on cassette tapes that largely focus on mining, miners and their families. This grant would fund the continued digitization of these oral history collections, which are remarkable in scope and detail. They provide first-hand accounts of underground mining, explanations of the day-to-day work in Butte’s numerous mines, the implementation of the Berkeley Pit, and anecdotes about Butte’s nightlife, labor struggles, and prosperity.

Media Coverage

Butte indie radio station foundation receives $30,000 grant to create documentary series on Mining City history (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Annie Pentilla
Publication: Montana Standard
Date: 8/10/2017
Abstract: "Butte indie radio station foundation receives $30,000 grant to create documentary series on Mining City history"
URL: http://mtstandard.com/news/local/butte-indie-radio-station-foundation-receives-grant-to-create-documentary/article_2b0b2b88-cce8-5a26-91f9-b0352d7b1441.html

Associated Products

Life Underground Episode 10 - The Pumps (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Life Underground Episode 10 - The Pumps
Writer: Clark Grant
Director: Clark Grant
Producer: Clark Grant
Abstract: These in-depth, hour-long radio programs tell the story of underground mining and other important chapters in Butte, Montana's history by drawing from archival recordings and new oral histories from independent miners, Anaconda Company men and women, and a diverse cast of characters from mining-adjacent industries and professions within the once-booming city of Butte. This program covers a pivotal moment in the history of Butte, Montana, when pumps servicing the underground mines were turned off, resulting in the flooding of 10,000 miles of underground tunnels. This led to the creation of one of America's largest Superfund sites, the flooded Berkeley Pit.
Date: 06-01-2021
Primary URL: https://www.verdigrisproject.org/life-underground-blog/life-underground-episode-10-the-pumps
Primary URL Description: Episode 10 of the Life Underground series, a history program about Butte, Montana.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio
Format: Web

Butte, America's Story - Episode 6 (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Butte, America's Story - Episode 6
Writer: Richard Gibson
Director: Clark Grant
Producer: Clark Grant
Abstract: Butte, America's Story is a radio series of three hundred bite-size history lessons about Butte’s culture, architecture, and mining hosted by Richard Gibson. This series draws from Gibson’s extensive research at the Butte-Silver Bow Archives over the last decade to illuminate Butte’s most memorable places, characters and events. As writer Edwin Dobb has said, “Like Concord, Gettysburg and Wounded Knee, Butte is one of the places America came from.” This episode covers the Anaconda Road Massacre in 1920.
Date: 03/01/2019
Primary URL: https://www.verdigrisproject.org/butte-americas-story-blog/butte-americas-story-episode-6
Primary URL Description: Episode 6 of Butte, America's Story, featuring the Anaconda Road Massacre.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio
Format: Web

Mining City Reflections Episode 1 - Perdita Duncan (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Mining City Reflections Episode 1 - Perdita Duncan
Writer: Marian Jensen
Director: Marian Jensen
Producer: Daniel Hogan
Abstract: This radio series focuses on women’s history and immigrant stories in Butte, Montana. Host and writer Marian Jensen is a retired university administrator and author of four novels. Mining City Reflections looks at the formation and activities of the Women’s Protective Union, as well as ethnic minority women’s personal stories. These programs tell the tales of the boom-to-bust mining town from the voices of those who lived it.
Date: 08/01/2020
Primary URL: https://www.verdigrisproject.org/mining-city-reflections-blog/episode-1-perdita-duncan
Primary URL Description: Episode 1 of this radio series Mining City Reflections features the story of Perdita Duncan while exploring the experience of African Americans through an oral history, recorded in 1980 by Montana historian and professor Mary Murphy. She interviewed Perdita Duncan, an articulate and self-assured voice for those who endured discrimination --- not for their ethnicity or national origin but for the color of their skin. Perdita was born in Butte in 1927, the second of four children in the Duncan family. They were among the Mining City’s small black population that hovered around two thousand, a scant two per cent of the total. While Jim Crow laws did not exist in Montana, African-Americans were not fully accepted in Butte.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio
Format: Web

Oral History Recording of Frank Palakovich (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Oral History Recording of Frank Palakovich
Writer: Frank Palakovich
Director: Clark Grant
Producer: Clark Grant
Abstract: The Verdigris Project's oral history collection preserves the memory of Butte, Montana’s bygone neighborhoods, underground mines, and industrial might. Our goal was to preserve these stories for future generations, including the family members of the narrators, but also researchers and historians who might make use of these materials for future projects. The living memory of underground mining in Butte is fading away, but these recordings preserve that memory. We gathered these oral histories to help us remember what Butte once was and better understand how it continues to change. This recording with Frank Palakovich is one of nearly a hundred oral histories captured for the project.
Date: 09/07/2018
Primary URL: https://www.verdigrisproject.org/oral-histories/frank-palakovich-smelterman
Primary URL Description: Oral History Recording of Frank Palakovich
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Digital File
Format: Web

Verdigris Project Music - String Quartet (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Verdigris Project Music - String Quartet
Writer: Charles Nichols
Director: Kier Atherton
Director: Charles Nichols
Producer: Clark Grant
Abstract: Dr. Charles Nichols is a composer, violinist, computer music researcher, and Associate Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the School of Performing Arts and a Faculty Affiliate of the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, at Virginia Tech University. He composed the musical themes for the Verdigris Project using as his premise a harmonica recording from Project Director Clark Grant’s late father Eric Grant. The music was arranged for string quartet and performed by the Great Falls Symphony’s Cascade Quartet on April 10th, 2021 at the Carpenters Union Hall as part of celebrations for the Verdigris Project.
Date: 04/10/2021
Secondary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbYZeio2bU
Secondary URL Description: The piece, commissioned for the Verdigrs Project, was performed on the second floor of the historic Carpenters Union Hall in Butte, Montana, and features the Cascade Quartet from the Great Falls Symphony. The Cascade Quartet is Megan Karls and Mary Papoulis - Violins, Alyssa Roggow - Viola, & Thad Suits - Cello.
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Radio
Format: Digital File
Format: Web

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