The Big Stack after everything around it had been leveled.

The Big Stack

Standing tall since 1919, the Big Stack is visible long before you arrive in Anaconda. At 585 feet high it was the country's tallest smokestack; the Washington Monument could fit inside it. For decades it benevolently belched lead and arsenic over the town, but smelting operations ceased in 1980 and in 1983 the stack was condemned for demolition. Proud Anacondans banded together and saved the stack. It's now a Montana State Park -- but it's a park you can't visit, since the dirt surrounding the Big Stack is still so toxic that you're kept over a mile away.

The Big Stack

Goodman Park

Address:: Monroe St., Anaconda, MT
Directions:: The viewing site is at the junction of E. Park Ave./US Hwy 1 and Monroe St. at the east edge of town, next to Goodman Park. Access is limited to the viewing/interpretive area only.
Phone:: 406-542-5500
RA Rates:: Worth a Detour

Nearby Offbeat Places

Old Prison Museum, Deer Lodge, MT - 21 mi.
Piccadilly Museum - Relics of Transportation and Evel Knievel, Butte, MT - 21 mi.
Historic Dumas Brothel Museum, Butte, MT - 21 mi.
In the region: Old Pitt, Elephant Killed by Lightning, Dillon, MT - 65 mi.

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May 25, 2013