Anaconda

The town is named for a mine in Butte, and the mine for a newspaper. Michael Hickey, a Union veteran, named his claim in October 1875 after Horace Greeley's wartime image of a Union army closing around Lee's like an anaconda. Daly wanted his smelter town called Copperopolis, but a mining camp in Meagher County already had the name, and on June 25, 1883, he filed the town plat as Anaconda. A story credits the postmaster, Clinton Moore, with choosing it, but his post office application went in that October, after the plat.

What the plaque says

Anaconda Copper king Marcus Daly selected a site for a smelter and town along Warm Springs Creek in 1883. Daly began construction of an immense smelter complex on the hill shortly before his death in 1900. Completed in 1902, the Washoe Smelter processed 15,000 tons of ore a day at its peak production during World War II. Smoke from the complex was dispersed through the smokestack that still dominates the hill. At 585-feet the stack was the tallest in the world when completed in 1918. The plant made history in the science of copper smelting and was famous throughout the mining and metallurgical world. The smelter drew hundreds of workers and their families from all over the world to Anaconda. They mingled in its many watering holes, fraternal halls, theaters and churches, creating a vibrant cosmopolitan city. The city's commercial district centered around Daly's showy and elegant Montana Hotel. Anaconda still retains the aggressive spirit of its pioneer days, a spirit that refused to die even when the smelter closed in 1980. The city is part of the Butte-Anaconda National Historic Landmark (NHL) in recognition for its contribution to the history of American industry and labor.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mai Wah Museum — 14 mi
  Two brick buildings left from Butte's Chinatown, and a store whose goods came home after seventy years away.
• Granite Mountain/Speculator Mine Memorial — 14 mi
  An overlook above the shaft where the 1917 fire began, and the letters some of the trapped men wrote while they waited.
• Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site — 22 mi
  A Métis trader's 1862 house, a cattle king's headquarters, and a grandson who threw nothing away.

More markers nearby

• Silver Bow Creek Remediation and Restoration — steps away
• The Anaconda-Pintler and Flint Creek Mountains — steps away
• The Boulder Batholith and the Richest Hill on Earth — 17 mi
• Butte — 17 mi