From Glacier National Park, we began our gradual move southward. We stopped near Butte, outside the small town of Anaconda. This area was a rich, thriving area in the 1800's owing its prosperity to intense mining. Anaconda came very close to being the capital of Montana, but the Copper King pushing for its selection led an unsuccessful campaign against another Copper King pushing for Helena. When the mining gave out, Anaconda was left with little but an EPA super site cleanup headache. For miles as we approached Anaconda, we saw a tall tower in the hills and kept wondering what it was. We could see it out the front window of Roamin while in the RV park.
When we drove to see what it was, we found a 585' tall masonry smokestack along with a huge, huge pile of ugly black slag. We asked a local what it was. The answer--Anaconda was the site of a major copper smelting operation, and the smokestack and black slag is all that's left.
Cleanup is underway, but it will take a while. The evidence of human greed without concern for the outcome is sobering and depressing. Speaking of depressing, the RV park we called home for a week was quite a letdown after the nice resort we had just come from.
Despite its rustic amenities, it's a very popular park--'pickings are slim' in the area. Since they're not hurting for business, they have little motivation for improvements apparently.
We visited Butte, wondering how it has fared post-mining boom. It is doing much better than Anaconda. Its leaders are making a concerted effort to make it a destination spot. They were preparing for Evel Knievel Days when we were there. It was advertised to "include chills, thrills, and three evenings of live music." Tracy Lawrence was slated for the free concert on the last night of the event.
There is little doubt about its mining background though.
There are former mining headframes all over town that look just like this.
And there are old buildings giving evidence to its prosperous past. Some of them have found new lives. Unfortunately, most of these old buildings have fallen into disrepair.
We drove over the Continental Divide to Helena, and visited the capitol there.
The architecture inside is really pretty.
There is a cafeteria in its basement, and it was lunchtime so we tried it. We were pleasantly surprised at how good it was. (We had sampled the capitol cafeteria fare in Lincoln, Nebraska when we were there last year--we wouldn't recommend it.)
Driving around Helena, we again found quite a few empty buildings, evidencing prior better days. Some of them are still in pretty good shape. One building that we found quite impressive in size and grandeur was the Cathedral of St. Helena.
At the end of the day, we drove back over the Continental Divide, back to Roamin in Anaconda. We began preparing for our next stop--Yellowstone National Park. We anticipate a really fun week ahead.
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