Amazon ceremony in Butte celebrates new delivery station

Multinational e-commerce giant Amazon celebrated Tuesday the company’s new Butte delivery station on Ascension Drive.

Speakers included U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Montana, and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Montana, along with Karen Byrnes, community development director for Butte-Silver Bow County.

Amazon officials included Sarah Rhoads, Amazon vice president of Worldwide Workplace Health and Safety and a Naval Academy Graduate with ties to Butte.

Amazon invested $11 million in the facility, which is about 12,000 square feet. It employs about 50 people and works with 40 or 50 contract drivers. The station has been ramping up since its opening in August.

Zinke, Sheehy and Byrnes all struck notes of optimism about Butte’s present and future. The city’s mining history and access to critical minerals could play a role in that future, they said.

Zinke referenced the divisions affecting the country and said anger prevents progress.

“In Montana, we settle our differences over a beer,” he said.

The ceremony included a donation by Amazon of $25,000 to the Southwest Montana Veterans Home Foundation.

Meanwhile, at least two Amazon customers in the vicinity of rural Toll Mountain Road and Rader Creek Road have complained that delivery of packages has been haphazard, at best. Amazon spokeswoman Nissa LaPoint said she would find someone to address the customers’ complaints.