Headframes

Dotting the landscape and skyline of Butte are fourteen tall, black steel structures. Variously called "gallows frames", "gallus frames", or headframes, these mark the remnants of mines that honeycombed the Butte hill. Cables from a mine's hoist house passed over sheave wheels at the top of the frame, lowering miners to their work, transporting mules, equipment and supplies down the shafts and most importantly, bringing up load after load of ore. Seven of the fourteen headframes have been outlined in red lights, part of a campaign to memorialize all of Butte's historic headframes.