“Smelter City”: 

A History of Anaconda, Montana

Founded in the fever of the Rocky Mountain copper boom, Anaconda, Montana, grew from a smelter camp into one of the American West’s most emblematic industrial towns. From the ambitions of copper king Marcus Daly to the rise and fall of the Washoe Smelter, from a bruising statewide capital campaign to Superfund cleanup and historic preservation, Anaconda’s story is inseparable from the forces that shaped modern Montana—mining, immigration, labor, and environmental reckoning.¹ 

Copper, Marcus Daly, and the Birth of a Company Town

The town that became Anaconda sprang from Marcus Daly’s determination to process Butte’s burgeoning copper ore near abundant timber and water in the Deer Lodge Valley. Daly purchased the Anaconda (then silver) mine in 1880, partnered with Eastern and California capital, and by 1883 platted a new smelting town he first called “Copperopolis” before adopting the name Anaconda.² By 1884, Daly’s Washoe Smelter—often called the “Old Works”—was in operation; a newer, vastly expanded complex, the Washoe Reduction Works or “New Works,” would follow around 1902.³ Anaconda was a quintessential company town: Daly’s enterprise eventually encompassed banks, timberlands, the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway (BA&P), and even a newspaper, knitting together an industrial empire that made copper a king of the Gilded Age West.⁴ 

People of the Stack: An Ethnic Mosaic

Work at the smelter and its satellite industries drew thousands of migrants and immigrants across the 1880s and 1890s, producing one of Montana’s most ethnically diverse communities. Irish, Italian, and Slavic laborers formed early cores; Germans, Scandinavians, English, and African American residents would follow, all contributing to the tightly knit neighborhoods that took shape around the works. Goosetown, a dense east-side district of worker cottages and ethnic churches, grew in the shadow of the great smokestack; it remains one of the city’s signature historic landscapes.⁵ 

“The Biggest Little Railroad”: The BA&P

To link mine to furnace, Daly built the BA&P in the early 1890s, a 26-mile ore road between Butte and Anaconda. By 1913 the BA&P had electrified—at 2,400 volts direct current—becoming a pioneering heavy-haul electric freight railroad and a model for engineers nationwide. General Electric designed and assisted with the installation; the line’s efficiency and tonnage earned it the moniker “the biggest little railroad in the nation.” The BA&P’s innovations were widely chronicled in technical journals and remain a point of regional pride.⁶ 

Capital Dreams and Copper Kings

Anaconda briefly vied to become the political heart of Montana. In a pair of raucous, extravagantly financed statewide elections in 1892 and 1894, Marcus Daly’s Anaconda squared off against William A. Clark’s Helena for the permanent state capital. The campaigns—remembered for their class-tinged barbs and prodigious spending—captured the rivalry of Montana’s Copper Kings. In 1894, Helena prevailed, a decision that fixed the political map even as Anaconda consolidated its industrial role.⁷ 

Building an Industrial Colossus

The Washoe complex expanded continuously to keep pace with Butte’s ore. In 1918–19, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company crowned the hillside with the colossal Washoe stack, a 585-foot brick chimney whose flues pulled furnace gases from a half-mile away. The stack, completed in 1919 by the Alphons Custodis company, is often cited as the tallest surviving masonry structure in the world; it instantly became the visual shorthand for Anaconda. Today it anchors Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.⁸ 

Within the townsite, prosperity left its mark in brick commercial blocks, fraternal halls, churches, and leisure venues. The Washoe Theater, designed in 1930 and opened in 1936, brought Art Deco glamour to Main Street; its lavish interior would later be recognized as a national treasure. These buildings, together with working-class districts like Goosetown and the BA&P properties, form the backbone of the community’s nationally recognized historic fabric.⁹ 

Strains of Industry: Labor, Environment, and Ownership

Anaconda’s fortunes rose and fell with global copper markets and changing ownership. In 1899, Daly reorganized the giant into the Amalgamated Copper Company, later returning to the Anaconda Copper Company name; in the 1970s the firm passed to ARCO, bringing corporate decisions from far beyond the Deer Lodge Valley. Across decades, labor strife and environmental tradeoffs shadowed the boomtown narrative, as smelter emissions deposited arsenic and heavy metals over a vast area and periodic slumps threatened payrolls and civic services.¹⁰ 

On September 29, 1980, the smelter shut down, ending nearly a century of continuous ore processing in Anaconda. The closure was followed by demolition of most industrial structures—except the great stack, which residents rallied to save as a landmark of community identity. In 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the Anaconda Company Smelter site on the National Priorities List (Superfund), recognizing contamination across more than 200 square miles of the Deer Lodge Valley. Cleanup and restoration efforts have since reshaped the town’s landscape, from soil caps to habitat projects, even as the stack’s silhouette continues to define the skyline.¹¹ 

Preservation, Memory, and the Built Environment

Even as smokestacks fell, Anaconda’s citizens doubled down on preservation. The Butte–Anaconda National Historic Landmark District—among the nation’s largest—documents the industrial corridor and its associated neighborhoods, rail lines, and civic architecture. Within Anaconda itself, multiple National Register historic districts (Commercial, Goosetown, West Side, and the BA&P Railway district) and dozens of individual listings secure recognition and incentives for stewardship. The local historic preservation plan tallies this fabric and charts strategies for reusing worker housing, shops, depots, and theaters that tell the town’s story at human scale.¹² 

Landscape of a Smelter City

Anaconda’s geography—at the foot of the Anaconda Range near the Continental Divide—shaped its industrial logic and later its rebirth. Timber fed smelter furnaces; the BA&P stitched valley to hill. Today, the same setting underwrites a tourism economy centered on trails, lakes, and historic sites. Interpretive panels at the Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park connect visitors to the physics of flues and the politics of copper, while a short drive away the BA&P grade and yards hint at the railroad that made the smelter city hum.¹³ 

Culture and Community After Copper

Industrial towns often struggle in the wake of closure; Anaconda has pursued a different arc. Local government, nonprofits, and residents leveraged Superfund remedial work to invest in parks, façade improvements, and heritage tourism. The Washoe Theater continues to operate, drawing cinephiles and architecture enthusiasts. Neighborhoods like Goosetown have become touchstones for community identity, with conservation tools aimed at protecting scale and character even as new uses take root.¹⁴ 

Conclusion: Endurance in Brick and Memory

Anaconda endures as a layered place where the ambitions of nineteenth-century industry meet the reckonings of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Its skyline’s solitary column—once a conduit for furnace gases—now serves as a monument to work, community, and change. For a century the stack embodied the power of copper; today it symbolizes a different kind of power: a small city’s choice to preserve, interpret, and adapt its past for a livable future.¹⁵ 

Sources

“Anaconda—A Montana Gem,” University of Montana, This Is Montana (accessed 2025). University of Montana

“Anaconda, Montana,” Wikipedia, History section (accessed 2025). Wikipedia

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Anaconda Co. Smelter | Superfund Site Profile,” site history (accessed 2025). cumulis.epa.gov

Bonner-Milltown History Center and Museum, “Marcus Daly,” overview of enterprises (accessed 2025). bonnermilltownhistory.org

Montana Historical Society, “Anaconda,” African Americans in Montana site profile; and National Park Service, Goosetown Historic District (NRHP documentation). mhs.mt.gov npgallery.nps.gov

Butte-Silver Bow Archives, “Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway”; Montana DOT, “Railroad Information” (BA&P electrification); Electric Railway Journal, “The Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway Electrification,” March 14, 1914. Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives mdt.mt.gov milwaukeeroadarchives.com

Montana Historical Society, “Capitol History”; Montana History Revealed (MHS), “Helena’s Social Supremacy: A Shot Fired in the Capital Fight”; Southwest Montana, “The Road to Helena Becoming Montana’s Capital City.” mhs.mt.gov mthistoryrevealed.blogspot.com southwestmt.com

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, “Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park”; “Anaconda Smelter Stack,” Wikipedia (technical overview and dimensions). fwp.mt.gov Wikipedia

“Washoe Theater,” Wikipedia (NRHP listing and architectural description); Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, “National Register Properties.” Wikipedia adlc.us

“Anaconda Copper,” Wikipedia (corporate chronology and influence). Wikipedia

EPA, “Anaconda Co. Smelter | Superfund Site Profile”; EPA, Site Record (PDF), and Montana FWP, “Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.” cumulis.epa.gov EPA Science Inventory fwp.mt.gov

National Park Service, Butte–Anaconda National Historic Landmark nomination (2014 update); ADLC Historic Preservation Plan (2021). npgallery.nps.gov The Lakota Group

Montana FWP, “Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park”; University of Montana, “Anaconda—A Montana Gem.” fwp.mt.gov University of Montana

“Washoe Theater,” Wikipedia; ADLC Code of Ordinances, Goosetown Neighborhood Conservation District. Wikipedia Municode Library

Montana FWP, “Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.” fwp.mt.gov

Bibliography

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County. “National Register Properties.” Accessed August 2025. adlc.us

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County. Historic Preservation Plan (2021). Accessed August 2025. The Lakota Group

Bonner-Milltown History Center and Museum. “Marcus Daly.” Accessed August 2025. bonnermilltownhistory.org

Butte-Silver Bow Archives. “Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway.” Accessed August 2025. Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives

Electric Railway Journal. “The Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway Electrification.” March 14, 1914. Accessed August 2025. milwaukeeroadarchives.com

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. “Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.” Accessed August 2025. fwp.mt.gov

Montana Historical Society. “Capitol History.” Accessed August 2025. mhs.mt.gov

Montana Historical Society. “Anaconda—African Americans in Montana: Places.” Accessed August 2025. mhs.mt.gov

National Park Service. Butte–Anaconda National Historic Landmark Nomination and Documentation. Accessed August 2025. npgallery.nps.gov

University of Montana. “Anaconda—A Montana Gem,” This Is Montana series. Accessed August 2025. University of Montana

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Anaconda Co. Smelter | Superfund Site Profile.” Accessed August 2025. cumulis.epa.gov

“Anaconda, Montana.” Wikipedia. Accessed August 2025. Wikipedia

“Anaconda Smelter Stack.” Wikipedia. Accessed August 2025. Wikipedia

“Washoe Theater.” Wikipedia. Accessed August 2025. Wikipedia

Southwest Montana. “The Road to Helena Becoming Montana’s Capital City.” Accessed August 2025. southwestmt.com