12/3/2023 0 Comments Chloe worl anaconda montana“I have worked right in there, knocking arsenic off the chains that were inside there in 1949,” said Loranger. Don has not seen it since he stopped working there in the 1960s. Montana Public Radio Virginia and Don Loranger were dressed up in period garb to celebrate the stack's centennial. Seeing it up close again was a big moment for ninety year old Don Loranger, who was dressed up in a bowler hat and vest. The stack preservation committee lobbied the legislature to save the stack and make it a historic monument, and worked with FWP and Atlantic Richfield to open it to the public on its 100th anniversary. It was a really big deal for the community," Forwood said. “The people of Anaconda spoke out that they wanted this to remain. He’s with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and manages Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park. We’ve finally arrived at the top of the hill, and Tom Forwood is gathering people in front of the immense brick tower. “Welcome to Anaconda Smoke Stack, and the centennial," said Tom Forwood. We played in the sludge…”īut while the rest of the facilities on Smelter Hill were demolished, the stack lives on. "It’s got all kinds of green.when we were kids we picked up all the green rocks, brought ‘em home. “Look at how deep they’ve dug down, and you’re seeing nothing but contaminated soil that deep. Looking out the bus window, Wyant gapes at the big gashes in the ground. The 300 square mile area around the Smelter was named a Superfund sitein 1983, and it’s still undergoing cleanup. Smoke spewing from the smelter during the copper boom contaminated the air, land and water with heavy metals. Too bad it isn’t all here now.”īut what is still here is a lot of toxic waste. "What they buried, and what went away, was unbelievable. “Just to see all those neat old structures knocked down, it was terrible," Wyant said. As we snake up Smelter hill, he says with sadness that there used to be a city up here. Wezy’s friend, Kurt Wyant, was an engineer on the demolition crew. That’s because it’s been off limits since 1980, when Atlantic Richfield, which bought out the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, stopped all smelting operations, and started tearing them down. “It’s been 40 years since I’ve actually been to the stack,” Wezy said. He was a laborer, working there summers to pay for college. “You’d be in your pomp and circumstance, and then go to work the next day at the smelter,” said Wezy. Wezy is 63, and he, like many other Anacondans his generation, got a job at the smelter right out of high school. It’s a steamy afternoon, and I’m sitting at the back of a packed school bus next to William Shegina. But this year, for it’s 100th anniversary, tours of the stack are being offered. The public has been forbidden from visiting it for nearly four decades. That’s the iconic Anaconda Smelter Stack - one of the tallest free-standing masonry structures in the world.įor over a century, the smelter processed copper ore from Butte, and the stack belched thick smoke out over the valley. If you’ve ever driven through Southwest Montana on I-90, you’ve probably noticed the lone smoke stack standing sentinel near Anaconda.
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