Mule Ranch and Anaconda Range
by Rick Graetz
At one time owned by the Anaconda Company (Amalgamated Copper Mining Company) in Butte, this historic ranch, now managed by Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks and part of the 56,151-acre Mount Haggin Wildlife Area is where mules retired once their careers working in the Butte mines concluded.
Records incicate that in the early 1900s as many as a thousand mules towed ore carts in the mine tunnels beneath Butte. Most of these animals worked for about five years before they were brought to pasture at this scenic place in the Mill Creek drainage and below Mount Haggin and the Anaconda Range. And they were cared for.
Mount Evans, 10,620’, and a summit in the Anaconda Range watches over the ranch.
