An old mining town in Montana finds new gold in film

BUTTE, Mont. – Paige Layne was several weeks into her new job as a security guard – standing watch outside the civic center in her hometown of Butte, Montana – when she found out exactly what it was she had been guarding.

Inside, a team of people was busy working on a set for “1923,” a multimillion-dollar prequel to the hit television show “Yellowstone.” And as word spread, it soon became the talk of the town that the production would be filmed in Butte.

The city was once the largest in the state and home to a copper mining boom a century ago that earned it the nickname “the richest hill on earth.” Since those days, however, the population has declined to about 36,000; the government has undertaken a massive cleanup of mining waste; and, for some locals, good-paying jobs have been hard to come by.

Now the town was abuzz with rumored sightings of Harrison Ford imbibing at local watering holes and Helen Mirren shopping at Walmart.

The 2022 debut episode of the Taylor Sheridan-created show, a Western drama about conflicts in ranching and mining and with immigrants and Native Americans, was viewed by an audience 200 times the size of Butte’s population.

When filming began, it was regarded in town with a heavy dose of skepticism, to say the least. Residents like Layne were wary of other Hollywood producers who had already begun dropping into town to film projects such as “Last Survivors” (2021), “Ghosts of Devil’s Perch” (2022) and “Father Stu” (2022). They feared that the productions could worsen a rise in prices the city had seen after a wave of remote workers moved to Montana during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We don’t like outsiders unless you have a really good reason to be in town,” Layne said. “This is our town; we love our people.”

But as filming continued, she and others said, many people changed their minds. Locals were hired for jobs, the cast and other employees were spending money in Butte, and the celebrities expressed interest in the town’s history and businesses. It seemed that every bartender in town had tales of Ford or someone else coming in and buying a round for the house.

“They came in, and they ruffled some feathers – man, they really did – but by the end of it, they were contributing to our local community,” said Layne, who also filled in as an acting extra for a few days.

Part of Butte’s appeal to filmmakers is its rugged natural beauty and the fact that so many of its historic buildings remain standing. This is especially true in the Uptown neighborhood, with its mansions and tall brick facades that still carry old, faded advertisements for cigarettes or a “fireproof” hotel. Filled with vestiges of yesteryear, the Butte historic district is one of the largest in the country.

Hollywood production crews have shot scenes in diners and bars, at the Carpenter’s Union Hall and inside the courthouse across the street. They have also used the streets themselves: For “1923,” one main road was shut down entirely while the cast – and a host of extras – rode through on horses.

People in Butte say the town benefits not only while the crews are here but also when they leave. After all, they cannot take everything with them. A load of props was donated to a children’s theater, and a local rescue mission received a wealth of food.

At Front Street Station, a train depot turned into a dining and event space, owners Tom and Janel Madrazo sipped wine on a recent night and pointed out the many vintage-looking items that the “1923” crew had left behind after filming in the century-old site.

There was a sign advertising coffee and large pieces of old wood furniture. The Madrazos, who both grew up in Butte, said they rented out the expansive depot for about a month and watched each day for a week as the crew filmed inside and outside. The couple said they were surprised to see the crew’s attention to historic detail. Madrazo recalled learning that an actor paying for his coffee in one scene used a 1923 dime and got a 1923 nickel in exchange.

In one particularly dramatic move, the “1923” crew had a steam locomotive brought in on a truck and then lifted by a crane onto the tracks near the station.

Still, there have been some headaches with the arrival of the film industry. J.P. Gallagher, CEO of the combined city-county government of Butte-Silver Bow, said there had been some gripes about road closures or about local events being canceled to make space for filming. And some residents said they felt a bit disappointed when they realized that while “1923” was filming in Butte, the city was being used as a stand-in for Bozeman, the much better-known city where much of the series purports to take place.

Part of the lure for Hollywood has been a tax credit for film productions that Montana began offering in 2019.

That year, the state saw a boost in filming activity with 122 total productions, up from 89 the year before. One analysis found that between July 2020 and June 2022, productions in Montana spent $77.5 million locally. Even as overall film employment dropped during the pandemic, it rose in Montana and continued to rise afterward – the biggest portion of it, in recent years, in and around Butte.

But some worry that the state will lose out on productions in the future unless lawmakers increase and extend the tax credit to keep pace with states like Texas that have larger tax credits.

Lynn-Wood Fields, a filmmaker and president of the Montana Media Coalition, an industry group, said she hoped that lawmakers would increase the cap, currently set at $12 million, next year. The increase, she added, should come with additional incentives for Montana-based filmmakers to ensure the credit does not get used up entirely by large Hollywood productions.

“I’m very concerned that all of this workforce that we’ve created is going to go away,” Fields said. “We don’t just have a housing crisis, we have a wage crisis, and I really think film is the solution.”

Jim Keane, a former Democratic state lawmaker who represented part of Butte, said he was able to see the film industry’s operation firsthand when a crew for “Last Survivors,” an apocalyptic thriller, used a cabin he owns just outside of town. But he was blown away by the amount of resources that “1923” put into its filming in Butte – and the number of local people the project hired.

“This is what makes this valuable,” he said of the state’s tax incentives. “The truckers, the crane operators, the caterers.”

Among the workers are many local film producers in Butte who feel that they lucked out when the film industry suddenly came to their town.

Joe Sullivan, a production assistant who grew up there, said he once felt that he might have to move far away to start getting film gigs. He went to Montana State University in Bozeman and then was doing special effects makeup, athletic team promotions and real estate videos before he got a call about working as a production assistant on “Yellowstone.”

Working on that show, which premiered in 2018 and led to the “1923” prequel, felt like his big break. It was supposed to be just a five-day gig, he said, but has instead turned into seven years of working on bigger projects.

Sullivan said he sometimes sees crew members wearing a clothing patch that says, “I don’t care how they do it in California,” a nod to Montana’s go-it-alone mentality. At the same time, he said, it was good that young people interested in the film industry could be exposed to some top players in the industry. He never had the chance to take film classes in high school, he said, but he hoped that more young people in Montana can look at film as a possible career.

“This isn’t L.A. This isn’t New York. It isn’t normal to us,” he said. “This is magic to us.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.