Meaderville

The panel's Italian kitchens had a capital on Main Street. Teddy Traparish, Peter Antonioli and Louis Bugni opened the Rocky Mountain Cafe at 53 Main by the late 1920s, in the shadow of the Leonard Mine's headframe, and by about 1935 it was drawing national attention. The first building burned in 1940 and the cafe moved down the street. Traparish closed it in 1961, at seventy-four, as the mining closed in. By the early 1970s at least 488 Meaderville buildings were gone, moved or demolished, and in 1974 the Leonard headframe was toppled into the pit.

What the plaque says

Meaderville Butte's reputation of being boisterous, boastful and rough was built on the stories and lives of the earliest mining prospectors who found gold on the Silver Bow Creek. Butte grew to be known as "The Richest Hill on Earth," "The Mile High City," "A Wide Open Town." Booze, women and gambling were common activities in the area and Meaderville was the host. Located in the county rather than the city, saloons kept the bar open and the tables set twenty-four hours a day. Men worked hard underground and played hard above ground and the best fun was in Meaderville, named for Charles T. Meader a miner who arrived in the late 1870's. He was an innovative mining man who settled the small suburb of Butte. The area soon became home to the Italian immigrants who brought their skill in the kitchen to the small camp. Mining technology changes saw the town disappear when open pit mining began in the 1950s'. To this day Meaderville lives in the hearts of the Italian community.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mai Wah Museum — 3.2 mi
  Two brick buildings left from Butte's Chinatown, and a store whose goods came home after seventy years away.
• Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine Memorial — 3.4 mi
  An overlook above the shaft where the 1917 fire began, and the letters some of the trapped men wrote while they waited.

More markers nearby

• The Boulder Batholith and the Richest Hill on Earth — steps away
• Butte — steps away
• The Great Divide Trophy — 9.3 mi
• Keep Watching The Skies! — 15 mi