Anaconda Smelter Stack

The Anaconda Smelter Stack is a 178.3-meter brick smokestack from a former copper smelter near Anaconda, Montana, making it one of the tallest masonry structures in the world. Built in 1919 by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company — once a corporate titan that effectively controlled much of Montana's politics and economy — it operated until the smelter's closure in 1980. The stack now stands as a preserved industrial monument listed on the National Register of Historic Places and managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks as a state park. Visitors can approach the base and take in the sheer scale of the structure against the wide Montana sky, a rare surviving example of heavy industrial infrastructure from the early 20th-century American mining boom.