Butte and Superior Copper Company check register, 1906-1911

The Butte and Superior Copper Company, Ltd., was organized in the year 1906 and began development operations in 1907. J. B. Becher was the trustee at that time, and the transactions recorded in this register are in his own handwriting. During the early history of the company's operation, its ownership and the direction of its affairs were largely controlled by an association of interests having headquarters in Duluth. The basis of this company's development was a group of claims embracing about eighty-nine acres in the northerly portion of the Butte district in Montana, from which considerable quantities of comparatively high grade silver ore lying near the surface had been mined in the early history of this district. It was supposed that these enrichments in the shallower portions indicated underlying copper deposits similar to other claims of this region. After the main shaft was developed, it was discovered that instead of being underlaid by copper bearing ores, the principal value of the veins under development lay in zinc, and other precious metals.