O'Caithniadh
Marcus Daly was truly Butte�s man of vision. In June 1881 when the Anaconda Mine silver was seen to be dwindling, Daly approached his syndicate of owners back in California and proposed the switch to mid-grade copper mining. Potential profits were high; but just getting into the copper business required a huge cash outlay and re-tooling. Unlike most silver, copper was mixed in with other metals; such as zinc, etc. Thus, concentrators, smelters and refineries were required to make a go of copper mining. The syndicate finally said �yes� and during 1882-84 Butte recorded transporting 37,000 tons of high-grade ore to smelters in Baltimore, Maryland and, as far away as Swansea, Wales. The expense would eat up the early profits. But, once again, Daly came through. In 1883, construction began on a huge concentration and smelting works at Anaconda. One year Anaconda was wilderness; the next an established city where the Anaconda Company employed 1,200+ men (Malone 28-30). By the �80s Butte had become a treeless landscape (trees were needed for timbering to hold up walls in the mines AND stoke the smelters) with air so thick from the sulphurous fumes of smelters that residents couldn�t see across the street at midday. They were forced to cover their noses and mouths so as not to inhale the arsenic-filled smoke (Murphy 4). Butte was also a noisy place; as boilermakers, blacksmiths and others, repaired and maintained the busy rail yards. Steam cylinders operating hoist engines hissed and clanked. Despite this daunting environment, Butte boomed with saloons, restaurants, gambling halls, and a busy red-light district. Mines operated 24 hours a day along with in three daily shifts. Cable cars plied the hill carrying passengers up the hill from Butte to Walkerville. Incorporated in 1890, Walkerville boasted 4,000 inhabitants during its� heyday. Three of the largest silver producing mines were located there: the Alice, the Moulton and the Lexington. And it was Walkerville, not Butte, where the O�Grady�s would settle; while the Lavelle�s made their home down the hill in the City.
James and Catherine Lavelle and Daniel and Catherine O�Grady are now registered with the Montana Genealogical Society as belonging to the �First Families of Montana�, having arrived in Montana prior to 1889.
