The uppermost falls of the Great Falls of the Missouri bears west of this point. In June 1805 Meriwether Lewis spotted an eagle’s nest in a cottonwood tree on an island in the river – a “more inaccessable spot I believe she could not have found; for neither man nor beast dare pass those gulphs which separate her little domain from the shores.”
Eighty-six years later, in 1891, the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company constructed a massive smelter complex on the hill overlooking the site of the nest. The smelter processed copper from Butte until 1918 when the Anaconda Company converted it into an electrolytic copper and zinc refinery.
Three communities, Little Chicago, Little Milwaukee, and North Great Falls, developed in the shadow of the 506-foot smokestack at the top of Smelter Hill. Men from all over North America and Europe came to work in the complex at Black Eagle, as it was known by 1916. A truly cosmopolitan community, all worked together in the plant, maintained their ethnic diversity and rubbed elbows in the vibrant business district along Smelter Avenue. Although the refinery shut down in 1980 and the stack razed two years later, Black Eagle remains a working class community proud of its rich history.
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.