30. Deer Lodge County

Deer Lodge County is one of the oldest counties in Montana, having been formed by the Idaho Territorial Legislature on January 16, 1864.  Of the present Montana counties, only Missoula County is older, having been formed from the eastern part of Spokane County by the Washington Territorial Legislature in 1860.  With the creation of the Montana Territory, later in 1864, all the counties recognized by Idaho within the new territorial boundaries were accepted as Montana counties.  Over the next forty-three years, Deer Lodge County's lines changed repeatedly as Silver Bow (1), Granite (48), and Powell (28) Counties were formed in 1881, 1893 and 1901 respectively.  Other changes over the years involved boundary adjustments with other western Montana counties.  The loss of Powell County in 1901 almost brought about a change of name as well.  The Montana Legislature authorized the northern part of the county, now known as Powell County, to retain the Deer Lodge County name, and named the southern section Daly County, in honor of the copper king Marcus Daly, founder of the city of Anaconda.  For some reason, the name change never took place and today Powell County has as its seat the city of Deer Lodge, but Deer Lodge County has Anaconda for its seat.  Today Deer Lodge County is the second smallest county in Montana, covering 741 square miles (only Silver Bow County, #1, is smaller) and has a population of 9,298 according to the 2010 U.S. Census.  The county is one of two in Montana in which the city and county governments have consolidated.

 

The Deer Lodge County Courthouse

Anaconda  Montana

It is, I suppose, fitting that Deer Lodge County and the city of Anaconda should consolidate their governments.  The history of the city and its surrounding county are closely intertwined, and both tied to the fortunes of their neighbor to the southeast, Butte.  In 1883, copper king Marcus Daly filed for a town plat on farmland twenty-six miles northwest of Butte where he planned to build a smelter for the ore he was pulling out of "the richest hill on earth."  His chosen name for the town had already been used, so the Post Office suggested the name Anaconda.  The town and the smelter grew rapidly, and by 1910 there were over 10,000 residents in the city--almost all of whom worked either in the smelters or in the service industry serving those smelter workers.  One of the dirtiest election campaigns in Montana history occurred in 1894 when Daly tried to get his town chosen as the capital of the new state of Montana, then only five years old.  About the battle, historian Don Spritzer writes:

Many disliked both cities.  Helena, the temporary capital, was already entrenched in power and wealth. Anaconda was a "company" town owned largely by one man--Marcus Daly.  Yet everyone enjoyed the free drinks, cigars, and five-dollar bills dispensed by both sides in the weeks leading up to the election.  In the end all of Daly's money could not buy enough votes.  Helena prevailed by nearly 2,000 votes.*

  

The old Anaconda City Hall and Fire Station

I should note that at the time of the election, the seat of Deer Lodge County was the town of Deer Lodge, some twenty-five miles north and east of Anaconda.  In the aftermath of losing its bid, the people of Anaconda blamed the people of Deer Lodge for the loss (even though Deer Lodge residents had voted for Anaconda), and moved the seat to Anaconda.  My own take on the matter is that having lost the capital, the people of Anaconda erected a new "capital" building to serve as county court house.

Anaconda is one of those places I never tire of visiting.  I love walking the streets with my camera in hand, marveling at the historic architecture to be found throughout the city.  The old City Hall, shown above, is just one of hundreds of beautiful buildings to be found, not to mention the remnants of the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway--the road Daly built to carry ore from Butte to Anaconda.  Having mentioned the railroad, I must add that if you saw the John Voight/Eric Roberts 1985 film "Runaway Train," the part of the Alaska Railroad was played by the BA&P.  My friend Catherine Dixon was a set painter on the film as well.  (If you haven't seen it, rent it from Netflix.)

Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park

Rising above a hill on the southeastern side of town, Montana's only inaccessible state park can be seen from twenty miles away.  The smoke stack from Daly's smelter was completed in 1919.  At the time, it was the largest free-standing masonry building in the world.  Even today it remains one of the tallest.  It is so tall (585 feet) with an inside diameter of 75 feet, that the Washington Monument would fit inside the stack with room to spare.  When ARCO (the Atlantic Richfield Company, owner of the Butte mines) closed the smelter in 1980, most of the facility's buildings were torn down.  The people of Anaconda asked that the stack be left as a memorial of the region's history, and the State of Montana took it over as a State Park, albeit one you can see only from a distance.  What you see in front of the stack in the picture above is just one of the piles of mining slag that cover hundreds of acres of ground around the town.

  Northeastern Deer Lodge County,

as seen from Interstate 90 near Warm Springs

The area between Anaconda and Butte is now part of an EPA Superfund cleanup site, and in the spirit of making lemonade from unwanted lemons, The Old Works Golf Course now stands on the grounds of the old Upper Works smelter which processed its first ore back in 1884.  Dormant for many years, the land was repurposed in 1994 when golf legend Jack Niklaus designed a world-class course for the site.  

But golf isn't your only option for recreation in Deer Lodge County.  One of my favorite cross-country ski areas is Mount Haggin, approximately fifteen miles southeast of Anaconda.  With deep powder, plenty of groomed sloping runs and almost perpetual blue sky, it's hard to beat a day on your skinny skis in Deer Lodge County.  If you prefer downhill skiing, Discovery Basin is just a few miles west of Anconda on the Deer Lodge/Granite County (46) line.  Discovery's runs look down on Georgetown Lake, a four season recreational area created in 1885 when Flint Creek was dammed to create electrical power.  The southern edge of Deer Lodge County follows the Big Hole River, a blue ribbon trout stream that draws anglers from all over the world.  The mines might be quiet and the smelters gone, but there's lots to do in today's Deer Lodge County.

*Spritzer, Don, Roadside History of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing, Missoula MT 1999, pp 218-219.