Anaconda Stack Celebrating 100 Years
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ANACONDA STACK CELEBRATING 100 YEARS PHOTO BY STEVEN CORDES, THE MONTANA STANDARD 2 | AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years THE MONTANA STANDARD Join us in Anaconda, Montana! ANACONDA SMOKE STACK 100TH ANNIVERSARY August 8 – 12, 2018 Anaconda, Montana is a town teeming with history and surrounded by natural beauty. It is also home to the iconic Anaconda Smoke Stack, the largest free-standing masonry structure in the world—and that is something worth celebrating! Enjoy a week of family-friendly culture, food and drink, and history at the Anaconda Smoke Stack 100th Anniversary Celebration, a birthday bash a century in the making! August 8 August 10 Wednesday Friday 3-5PM Music by Smokey, George Fiddler and Joe Strelnik STACK TOURS: Kennedy Common 9AM, 11:30AM, 2PM and 5:30PM 5:15PM Performance by the Anaconda Aislings Meet the bus at the Stack Park. Kennedy Common 5-7PM Alive After Five 3-8PM Children’s Games Kennedy Common August 11 6PM Parade – Line-up at Courthouse 5PM Saturday The Forest Service Mule team is leading the parade, along with an STACK TOURS: appearance from the Wells Fargo Stage Coach. After the parade, 9AM, 11:30AM, 2PM and 5:30PM there will be keynote speakers and music at the Kennedy Common. Meet the bus at the Stack Park. 8-10PM Ian Thomas & The Band of Drifters 9AM Fun Run – Registration at 8AM Kennedy Common Washoe Park Tennis Courts August 9 2-7PM Smeltermen’s BBQ and Brewfest Thursday Chamber Lawn 2p2p ppmm STACK TOURS: Free Music, 5 Breweries and AWAAWNWNWN 9AM, 11:30AM, 2PM and 5:30PM a BBQ Competition Meet the bus at the Stack Park. 5-7PM Art & Wine Walk August 12 Start at the Copper Village Sunday and follow the map. 6PM Shakespeare in the Park 7PM Adam Miller Folk Concert Washoe Park Pavilion – Free Kennedy Common Love’s Labour’s Lost Bring your lawn chair and enjoy the music! Sponsored by the Friends of the Hearst Free Library Movies at the Washoe Theater every night at 5PM QUESTIONS OR INTERESTED VOLUNTEERS Please call the Chamber of Commerce (406) 563-2400 or (406) 560-3582. Sponsored by the Anaconda Community Foundation, 100th Stack Anniversary Committee and Southwest Montana. KEN MILLER THE MONTANA STANDARD AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years | 3 LAW FIRM OF KNIGHT Celebrating & DAHOOD the thth 100100 Wade J. Dahood Jeff Dahood AnniversaryAnniversary Nancy Dahood, CLA OF THE ANACONDA Melissa Dahood, R.N. SMOKE STACK! Ann Wareham Stephanie Vankirk 113 East Third Street Anaconda, Montana 406-563-3424 In MT 1-800-823-3424 www.kdesdlaw.com 4 | AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years THE MONTANA STANDARD A look back at the Anaconda Smelter Dangerous work that bors drinking beer on the hood of “There were jobs for everybody. standing masonry structure in the their cars together, homes with You could learn a trade.” world. (see related column). gave life to a town huge families, and a place where Also remaining is more than people knew who lived in every Ellen Tocher, who worked in the Anaconda Company’s 300 square miles of environmen- SUSAN DUNLAP house all the way down the block. general office in the late 1950s tal damage and 130 acres of the [email protected] A place where everybody looked waste byproduct, the mound of t was hot. It was dirty. It was out for one another. black slag lining Highway 1. dangerous. But it was a job for They remember an era when They also say that getting a job century. This year is the Anaconda I thousands. making $19.90 a day was good “on the hill” was just what you did Those who are still around re- Stack’s 100th birthday. And this Anaconda’s smelter was money and a $52 a month pension if you lived in Anaconda. Many count stories of bad accidents is the story of that stack and Ana- a lifeline to immigrants and the after 45 years of heavy labor was lament that the Anaconda Com- that took individual lives. They conda’s Washoe Smelter, gathered lifeblood of a town that depended nothing to complain about. They pany is no more. remember drinking — lots of from the memories of the people on the jobs it provided — even as could buy homes for $6,000, and They wanted to retire with the drinking — both on the job and off. who made it work, 24 hours a day, the toxins it produced shortened many did. company. They wanted to send After a little prodding, they seven days a week — the workers some workers’ lives. They reminisce about a day their kids to work there just as so summon back to mind the fun of the Anaconda Company. The smelter was shut down in when a man putting a silver dol- many of them worked alongside they had in the midst of heavy 1980, and the few smeltermen who lar in the hand of a kid meant so their fathers and uncles, cousins labor and personal danger. With In the beginning are still around to tell their stories much that one worker after an- and brothers, and in the footsteps no trouble at all, they remember There was the company. There remember a different time and a other recalled that particular of their grandfathers. the smell. was always the company. very different Anaconda. One af- aspect of Smelterman’s Day in They see the emptiness of a Now what remains is a histori- Although local lore says that ter another, the former workers of some detail, though it was more town that was built by mining cal footnote that reaches 585 feet Irish immigrant Marcus Daly the Anaconda Company sat down than half a century ago. The Mill king Marcus Daly for the sole pur- into the sky: The Anaconda Stack, moved operations west of Butte to with us on their front porches, and Smelterman’s Union gave the pose of serving a copper smelter. big enough to fit the Washington build his smelters closer to water on their lawns and in their living silver dollars and held the annual They lament how, having lost that Monument inside, nestled in a sources, Bozeman-based historian rooms and told stories of an idyllic event on Aug. 8. The company let smelter nearly four decades ago, mountain-shaded valley. Built in time — kids running freely, neigh- almost everybody off work. the town struggles still in the 21st 1918, the stack is the largest free- See ANACONDA, Page 6 Nestled in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, Anaconda delivers a unique blend of outdoor recreation, shops and restaurants, beautiful scenery, and the friendliest folks in Montana. Explore all that Anaconda and Montana have to offer while staying at the Marcus Daly Motel! Newly Remodeled • Spacious Rooms • Clean, Non-Smoking Facility • High-Speed Internet • Cable Television • Queen Sized Beds • Refrigerators Microwaves • Coffee Makers • Recliners • Ironing Boards • Hair Dryers • Grab & Go Snacks Sorry, No Pets THE MONTANA STANDARD AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years | 5 St. James Healthcare Proudly Serving Southwest Montana Since 1881 More Than a Century of Providing Quality Care: For 137 years, St. James has provided care for the sick and served the poor. Today, that commitment is accompanied by our reputation as a technological leader in Montana's healthcare industry. We offer specialized services in Cardiology, Oncology, Orthopedics, Neurosciences, and Women's & Children's services. This includes dedicated Family Practice, Pediatric, and Internal Medicine physicians and staff who provide high quality primary care. St. James Healthcare and our more than 500 employees are all dedicated to the integration of tradition and technology. From one pillar of the community to another, Happy Birthday Anaconda Smoke Stack! St. James Healthcare 400 S. Clark Street, Butte, MT 59701 P: 406-723-2500 | www.stjameshealthcare.org 6 | AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years THE MONTANA STANDARD Anaconda Continued from Page 4 Timothy LeCain says Daly chose the valley 25 miles west of the Mining City to erect his smokestacks because the air pollution from smelter smoke in Butte was so severe that people were falling ill and dying. So the Anaconda Company headed west to a place with few inhabitants. Their first smelter, called Old Works, went up in the 1880s, along what is now called Warm Springs Creek. Then in 1902 the Anaconda Company moved south to build the original, ap- proximately 300-foot stack and smelter operations near Mill Creek for a reported $9.5 million. But that stack wasn’t tall enough. Farmers and ranchers in the Deer Lodge Valley sued the Anaconda Company shortly after the first load of copper ore was smelted that year. Within that first year, livestock were dying due to the 20 tons of arsenic coming out of the stack every day. It took 15 more years, but in 1917, the Anaconda Company responded to the PHOTO COURTESY OF COPPER VILLAGE MUSEUM AND ART CENTER problem by preparing ground to build the This 1918 shot shows the beginning of the base as it was in the process of being built. 585-foot stack. The idea was a taller stack would send the arsenic farther up into the HOT SPRINGS LODGING DINING GENUINE. GOLF MONTANA. EXPERIENCE. SPA Congratulations on the 100th Anniversary of the Smoke Stack! FairmontMontana.com | 800.332.3272 THE MONTANA STANDARD AUGUST 2018 | Anaconda Smoke Stack, 100 years | 7 atmosphere and spread out the toxins. ore. There were big piles of dust that could The second Anaconda Stack would also burn skin, conveyor belts, slurry lines, 40- contain a pollution abatement process to inch pipes, cranes moving, and thousands capture the 75 tons of arsenic a day that of men wandering in the smoke, dust and was, by then, going up in smoke.