Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1393916
SiG MT 101 he three-day celebration is spearheaded by the Anaconda Local Development Corporation, in cooperation with five local nonprofit organizations, numerous Anaconda businesses, and many of the nearly 10,000 Montanans who call the historic smelting mecca their home. "is event is designed to celebrate the rich history of our smelting background, even though it isn't in operation anymore," says Teah Fuller, community development director at the Anaconda Local Development Corporation. e festivities also pay homage to the old Anaconda Copper Mining Company's Washoe Smelter smokestack, which is arguably the city's most recognizable landmark. e 103-year-old, 585-foot-tall stack has been hailed as the tallest free-standing masonry structure still in existence anywhere in the world. e smelter employed as many as 2,500 residents at one point, says Margie Calnan Smith, one of the original members of the "Anacondans to Preserve the Stack" commiee that helped convince the state legislature to designate the stack as a state monument. Margie's husband, Pete, was one of those thousands of smeltermen. "When the smelter closed in 1980, we and everyone else thought it was going to come back," she explains. "Every three years there was a strike. Nobody believed that it wasn't opening back up, so we stuck around." But when the smelter remained shuered three years later, people started to leave town. As they accepted the life-altering change and found alternate ways to support their families, Margie and the preservation commiee members knew the only way the city's history would be remembered was if they refused to allow it to be forgoen. "We're a lile mountain town built in cowboy days and we had this industrial complex here that produced the most copper in the world," Margie says. "e inventions that came out of the smelters – they invented so many things because the money was there from the Anaconda Company to make it beer." "It wasn't just a mine and a smelter here," she points out. "It made an impact worldwide – internationally – and they tried things and invented things that benefited everyone." T