Gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch in the 1860s and soon the city of Helena was born. Today Helena is the State capitol of Montana. Helena still has much of the charm of a 19th-century mining town. Many of the old buildings have been renovated, and hundreds of 19th-century Victorian homes and mansions fill Helena's old neighborhoods. Helena is one of the best-preserved mining towns on the Western frontier. Copper was discovered In Butte and the surrounding areas in the 1870s. Vast quantities of copper were mined, leaving behind the largest Superfund cleanup site in the history of the nation. Copper is still mined at the continental pit in Butte. Missoula is the largest city in Western Montana and the second-largest in the state after Billings.