Industry
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During the annual Miners' Union Day parade on June 13, 1914, spontaneous rioting broke out and the Butte Miners' Union Hall was ransacked. Butte miners then voted 6,348 to 245 to secede from Butte Miners' Union No. 1 of the Western Federation of Miners and organized a new independent union under local control. The defeated Western Federation of Miners, accused of serving the "copper trust" and failing to represent rank-and-file workers, refused to surrender control and sent its president, Charles H. Moyer, to Butte in a last effort to maintain jurisdiction. Moyer called a meeting of loyal members at the hall on June 23, where about 100 members entered while thousands crowded the surrounding streets. At 7:30 p.m., pistol shots from inside the hall sparked a gunfight that killed one onlooker and wounded others. The Western Federation members escaped through a back door, and although the crowd panicked, it remained. Men brought dynamite from the nearby West Stewart Mine, and repeated explosions struck the hall through the evening until, just before midnight, the fifteenth blast shook the massive building from its foundation. For the dynamiters and onlookers, the hall's destruction symbolized the eviction of the once powerful union from Butte.
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Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana · United States
