blackfoot-valley

The real and longest lasting mining boom, however, was not in precious metals but in the red metal, copper. One Marcus Daly worked some Butte silver claims for a time and in 1880 bought a silver claim called the Anaconda. He convinced three wealthy backers from California to form the Anaconda Mining Company with him. The silver played out 300 feet down during the next year. Having heard reports of copper deposits in the area, Daly went into the mine to investigate. After looking around a bit, he suddenly said to his foreman, “Mike, we’ve got it !” What he had discovered was the largest copper sulphide deposit ever found. Less than five years after Daly’s discovery Butte had become the top metal-mining center in America, and Butte Hill became known as the “rich- est hill on earth.” Daly built the world’s largest smelter at a site he selected 26 miles northwest of Butte, naming his new town Anaconda. Copper mining was to dominate much of Montana’s economy and politics for a century after- ward. But after nearly a century with copper as king in Montana, the Ana- conda smelter was shut down in 1980 by the problem-plagued Atlantic Rich- field Corporation (ARCO), which had acquired it three years before, and in 1983 suspended its huge open-pit mining operations in Butte. However, Butte survived busts and hard times before, and as much now as then, refuses to die. So does Anaconda. Both towns have put much effort into diversifying their economies, and despite shrinking populations, seem, so far at least, to be weathering even this greatest blow. The coming of the Railroads What made the large-scale mining developments practical was the push- ing through of railroad connections, which enabled the shipment of bulk com- modities out of the region at a low cost per ton. Also it enabled the transport of heavy equipment needed for milling the hard-rock ore at the mines. Of course, it worked both ways - the prospect of heavy mineral shipments lured the railroads into the region. The same was true for livestock production and agricultural and lumbering development. Stockmen and farmers and lumber- men could economically get their products to major markets in the East only by means of fast and efficient transport. An added incentive was to provide another link to the Pacific along the 77