Butte's ethnic communities invited to tell stories of family heritage

The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives has received a National Endowment For The Humanities Common Heritage grant to help several of Butte's ethnic communities tell their stories.

The Archives is partnering with the Montana Preservation Alliance.  Their work will begin in the spring and continue through June, 2020. No city in Montana attracted people from more diverse backgrounds.

The Butte Public Archives has already digitized cultural information from several of Butte's ethnic communities-Croatian, Serbian, Lebanese, Norwegian, Chinese, Cornish, Greek, Irish and Italian.

Now it's reaching out to more of the tapestry that made Butte 'The Richest Hill on Earth.'  Butte Public Archives assistant director Nikole Evankovich said the Archives will collect stories from Butte's Jewish, Hispanic, German and Finnish communities.

"We tell the story of their immigration," said Nikole. "We tell the story of their work."