The Bonner Mill passed from ACM to Champion International in 1972 and then to Stimson Lumber in 1993. The mill closed in 2008. Anaconda sold the Bonner mill and its timberlands to US Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc. in 1972, ending the almost continuous ownership of the Anaconda Company.

By 1974, US Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc. had become Champion International and was in the business of making plywood. The Bonner Mill however, was not set up for plywood operations. The Company immediately began construction of a plywood mill. The first plywood was produced in December 1973 from one of the largest plywood plants in the country. The mill continued to be called the Anaconda Mill into the 1980s.

Plywood pushed the production of the mill dramatically. Champion brought in workers with experience from other mills. By 1976, there were over 1,000 workers at the mill with a payroll of $1,248,000. Champion then bought the Hoerner-Waldorf Company in 1977, which made them the owner of the Frenchtown pulp and linerboard plant.

Unlike Anaconda, which Champion described as a “custodial type of manager,” Champion did not intend to be there forever. In a 1978 draft report, the Champion stated, "It is anticipated this first operating plan [for Montana Forest lands] will be for a period of 18 years. During this period, the remaining old growth timber will be removed."

Champion carried out this plan and with just 2.4 billion feet of Anaconda’s vast timberlands left to cut; it was time to get out. In 1993, Champion sold its 867,000 acres of timberlands to Plum Creek Corporation and its mill to Oregon-based Stimson Lumber Company.

Under Stimson, the Bonner plant continued to produce plywood, studs, and premium lumber. They obtained a 10-year contract from Plum Creek to supply the Bonner and Libby mills with 100,000 board feet of timber per year as part of the settlement. However the mills needed twice as much raw material to operate at previous levels. At the end of the 10-year contract, Stimson was forced to look for timberlands to harvest, generally private lands as there was little lumber offered by the National Forests at that time.

Ironically, on August 3, 2005, the Missoulian announced both that the Milltown Dam Consent Degree had been filed with the Department of Justice and also that the Stimson Mill was cutting 120 jobs and ending the production of commodity plywood. The mill's work force was cut to 330. Additional cuts were made in 2007 and, as of 2008, the mill was indefinitely closed. The contents on the mill were auctioned off and the future awaited a new buyer, ending an era of 122 years of continuous lumber production, most of which was under the Anaconda Company.

New mill owner Mike Boehme, Commissioner Jean Curtiss, and owner Steve Nelson announce the mill purchase in December, 2011. A welcome Missoulian headline greeted readers on December 16, 2011: "New owners take over Stimson's Bonner millsite."

Signs of a new way of life stirred at the mill property with the announcement that Bonner Property Development LLC owned by Steve Nelson and Mike Boehme had purchased the mill site. The mill was to be subdivided into industrial condominiums. Northwest Paint was already operating at the site and in short order several more business start ups were announced. The same day they signed the closing papers Bonner Property Development LLC announced that Willis Enterprises and Boise Inc. had an agreement start a chipping operation at the site. Willis has since expanded its operationsand consturcted a permanent chipper on land its purchased from Bonner Property Development LLC.

In November, 2012 the Aluminum Co. of Maine Inc. signed a leased to establish a 70,000-square-foot aluminum trailer manufacturing facility inside the plywood building on the site. Other new tenants include Hellgate Forge and MontanaGrow, a startup natural fertilizer company.

In addition to purchasing the mill property, Boehme and Nelson also purchased the Bonner houses on both sides of the highway with the intent of restoring and renting them.

Environmental concerns plagued the millsite and the Stimson Lumber Company was required to clean up significant PCB contamination.

The Bonner mill in 2006.
A mill existed at Bonner from 1886 until 2008. The mining boom in Butte-Anaconda and expansion of the railroads required vast amounts of timber, which the Bonner-Milltown area readily supplied. Montana’s copper and lumber barons, Andrew B. Hammond, Marcus Daly and William Clark, all played  major roles in the Bonner area communities, if not for only a short period of time.

The story begins with Hammond. As early entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Montana Improvement Company, Hammond secured contracts with the Northern Pacific Railroad. To feed that demand, MIC needed a mill.  Hammond, the leader in this project, bought land on the Blackfoot River for  the sawmill and a dam to contain  the mill’s supply of logs. After initially flooding out, the dam was completed for a second time in 1886.  The Blackfoot or Bonner mill was constructed on 160 acres adjacent and completed in 1886.  In addition, houses for the superintendents and skilled workers were built; thus the company town of Bonner was born. In 1892, an elegant guest residence, the Hotel Margaret, and a flour mill were added. 

In 1898, Hammond sold the Blackfoot Mill and timberlands for nearly $1.5 million to Marcus Daly, and his Anaconda Company.

For William Clark, his holdings in Missoula area were secondary to Butte, but nevertheless substantial and provided further competition with his rival Daly. He first acquired Missoula Light and Power, and then in 1907-8 built a large dam on the Clark Fork River just below the confluence with the Blackfoot, known then as Clark’s Dam or later Milltown Dam.  By 1911 he had run out of wood for his Lothrup sawmill (west of Missoula,) and moved that portable mill to Milltown, a half-mile from the Bonner mill, and ran it on electricity from his dam.  The mills competed but there was sufficient demand.  After Clark’s death, his mill, the Western Lumber Company, was also sold in 1928 to Anaconda who ran it until 1932. It was dismantled, Anaconda unable to maintain two mills during the Depression.

The Bonner mill, under its various names and ownerships, operated continuously from  1886 until 2008. Current owner Stimson Lumber of Portland, Oregon  closed the mill in 2008 and auctioned off  its contents.

The Bonner bunkhouse and community garden. In one way or another, the Anaconda Company took care of many other aspects of a worker’s life. Housing was the major “perk.” Initially, many of the single men were housed in the bunkhouse on the mill property, while others resided at the Hotel Margaret. The foreman and skilled laborers generally lived in Bonner and leased their houses from the Company. These men lived close by the mill in case they were needed. The Company maintained these houses, or provided funds to do so, and rent was relatively inexpensive. Steam heat was provided to houses on the same side of the road as the mill, and residents living on the other side of the road could buy scrap wood for $2 a load. Sawdust, for use in houses with sawdust burners, could be purchased for $24 a year.  The Company also cut ice and delivered it to the employees in the days before refrigeration. Even still by the 1950s, 75 percent of the families in Bonner worked at the mill; by 1980 though this number was reduced to 35 percent.

In Milltown the ownership pattern was different. Lots in Milltown were leased--first from William Clark’s realty company and later from Anaconda or, in a few cases, from the Northern Pacific Railroad. Lots rented for $2 per year for 50 years. However, the houses themselves were built and owned by the tenants, most of whom were laborers of the mills. There were also several boarding houses in Milltown for single men. Only in the last few years have residents of Milltown been able to purchase the land beneath their houses.

In West Riverside, both lots and homes were owned by individual residents from the beginning. Unlike Anaconda, the Western did not provide houses for their management. C. H. Richardson, manager of the Western, bought one of the first lots in West Riverside and built his home there.

The company store operated until
the unions arrived in 1942. The Company store allowed workers to run up credit for several months. Many of the families were large, with seven or eight children, and this helped making ends meet. The store stocked everything from groceries and drugstore items to work clothes. Groceries were delivered to the households. Mill workers could also get purchase orders to shop at the Missoula Mercantile. The prices charged by the store were the same as other stores and then the company gave a 10% discount. The Company policy was not to make a profit on the food sold to employees. When the union came in 1942, the Company Store was closed.

Every Christmas employees would receive a turkey or a 100-pound sack of flour. Children would receive a bag of sweets delivered through the school. The school itself was heavily dependent on the mill. Anaconda leased the land for the first school to the school Board but donated the land for the second school. They provided slab wood to heat the school building. Books, paper, pens etc, were all furnished. The mill manager was usually a member of the Board of Trustees. In general, the Company was a strong supporter of school activities.

The Company also contributed to the University of Montana, in particular for the Lubrecht Forest, which was created through the donation of more than 19,000 acres in 1937.

The Company also provided the large hoses and water for fire protection, a job now undertaken by the Missoula Rural Fire Department. The Company organized the Blackfoot Forest Protective Association to fight fires on non-Federal and non-tribal lands. Fires were a constant threat in Milltown and Bonner, and the Mill itself burned in 1919.

 

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Kenneth Ross, the general manager of Marcus Daly’s timber operations, took over from W. H. Hammond when the mill was sold to Daly in 1898. Shipping to the Anaconda mines was resumed for both stulls for the mines and fuel for the smelters.  Increased production at the mill was part of an economic boom in the late 1800s and the early 1900s in western Montana due to railroads, homesteading and mining.  By 1905 most of the fir went to the mines while tamarack and yellow pine were shipped to eastern markets.  The mill was cutting 225,000 bf daily.

Before the railroad made the transport of logs possible in the winter, the mill would shut for  several winter months and the men moved to the logging camps up the Blackfoot. Logs would be floated downriver to Bonner for the next spring. After the railroad,  the mill stayed open all year.

On  January 16, 1919,  the “greatest fire in the history of Western Montana” burned a large portion of the mill to the ground.  Some 250 men were thrown temporarily out of work.  The mill was rebuilt and running by the September of the same year.

W.C. Lubrecht became the general manager of the Anaconda Copper Mining (ACM) mill in 1925 serving until 1949. Automation gradually was introduced. In the early days horses  moved the lumber around the mill, and the work was done by hand. As many as 50 men on one shift sorted lumber as it came into the mill called “pulling on the green chain.”  By the 1960s there were only a handful working this job.

Working for the mill was not just a job, it was a life.  Generation followed generation into the mill.  Many boys went to work at 16, or even younger if they could get away with it. By the late 1920’s the basic laborer made $3.36 per day, while those doing saw work earned $5.00 per day, and the head sawyer earned $8.00.  Men worked six days a week, and payday was every two weeks; in the early days it was once a month.

In 1928 Anaconda, acquired the adjacent Western Lumber Mill.  Both the Depression and running two mills within ½ mile of each contributed to its closing in 1932. Most of the people who worked for the Western got hired by Anaconda so it was a fairly smooth transition. During the Depression, Anaconda tried to keep the work force together by only working three days or less.

In 1939, the Federal Writers Project: Montana State Guide Book described the Bonner mill's operation:

"The mill is a black frame shed, 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. Cat walks afford a safe view of the screeching, bellowing room; danger signs warn against going near the whirring machines. The logs, sawed into convenient, lengths before they leave the woods, are hooked out of the pond in the rear of the plant by an endless belt, set with ugly sharp prongs, that carries them to the three saw carriages; band saws on pulleys rip through them. Sawdust is carried off to the engine room where it feeds the big furnaces that generate steam to operate the machines. Endless chains carry the boards to the planing department where they are smoothed or made into shingles and laths; or to other departments for special treatment. On the top floor of the shed is the filing room, where band saws are filed mechanically. All over the mill the men work fast; they wear clothing without loose ends. The noise seems almost unbearable to newcomers. Between 1898 and 1938 the mill turned out 3,990,000,000 board feet of lumber. In an average eight hour shift the saws cut 420,000 board feet of lumber and the planes finish 200,000 feet. The annual shipment of mine timbers, wedges, and other lumber to the Butte mines alone is 40,000,000 board feet."

Labor unrest occurred around 1908 and again in 1917-19 when the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) struck at the Bonner Mill. The union came into the mill in 1942 bringing better working conditions and establishing the principal of seniority. There was a 6 month strike at the Bonner Mill in 1946  between supporters of the AFL (mill workers) and the CIO (lumber camp workers) resulting in the AFL becoming the official union of the ACM Lumber Division.  

In 1950, Anaconda policy shifted to “sustained yield forestry,”  and the forestry division was reorganized.  The stulls mill (supporting the mines) was moved from Bonner to Rocker, closer to the mines.

In the early 1960s Anaconda undertook a major $53 million modernization of the Bonner mill; the so-called. “push button” plant was dedicated in August, 1963  The mill now produced laminated beams and used more dry kilns instead of drying the wood outside. Over 700 men of the 9,000 Anaconda workforce in Montana were in its Lumber Division.  As part of this expansion Anaconda tore out the generating plant associated with the Bonner Dam and electrified the mill using commercial electricity, purchased inexpensively from Montana Power (also associated with Anaconda.)

In the early 1970s Chile nationalized Anaconda’s copper mines, resulting in Anaconda being was forced to sell off its assets to raise cash.  In 1972, the Bonner mill and 680,000 acres of timberlands were sold to U.S. Plywood-Champion Papers, Inc.  The plant shut down for three months, and everyone was terminated with pay based on years of service.  However Timberlands workers were hired to do an inventory of the trees on Champion’s new lands and several weeks before the mill started back up, loggers were hired so that there would be logs in the mill.  Eventually, a large percentage of the mill workers were also rehired.    

The ownership changed caused a big change for the community. Company policy now came from out-of-state. Supervisors no longer had to actually live in Bonner, due to the ease of transportation.  The care ACM had taken in the company houses in Bonner, was less evident as was the involvement of the managers in the community.

 

Anaconda Copper Mining Company in the 1920's From about 1886 to 1972, a single company--Anaconda Copper Mining--hired most of the working men of Bonner and Milltown.  For about 20 of those years, a second company, Clark’s Western Lumber Company,  also hired workers, but the Western was eventually absorbed by Anaconda.  Over the years, the mill was known by various names, including the Hammond-Bonner lumber mill, the Big Blackfoot Milling Company, the Anaconda Mill, and, briefly, the Western Lumber Mill.

According to Polk’s City Directory for 1905, 250 men worked in the Big Blackfoot Mill and in the logging camps.  Skilled jobs included a blacksmith, a foreman in charge of the yard, another in charge of the planer, the river operation, and the railroad.  There were also several carpenters, three engineers, a millwright, a timekeeper, and four sawyers.  The Hotel Margaret, where some of the mill men boarded and out of town guests stayed, had seven employees in addition to the proprietor, including a cook, two waiters, a chambermaid, a porter, a yardman, and a barber.

In 1928, Anaconda changed the equation in Bonner and Milltown, by acquiring the Western; Anaconda now owned two mills within a half-mile of each other, but not for long. Especially during the Depression, it did not make economic sense to run two mills in such close proximity. Most of Western's workers were hired by Anaconda, so when the transition occurred there was not a big upheaval. Workers for one saw mill did not find working for the other very different. Wages were comparable to what they were in Butte.

Working for the mill was not just a job, it was a life. Generation followed generation into the mill. Many boys went to work at 16, or even younger if they could get away with it. One resident recalled, "A great number of us young men just wanted to get into industry as soon as possible."

Early on, the basic laborer made $3.36 per day, while those doing saw work earned $5.00 per day, and the head sawyer earned $8.00. Men worked six days a week, and payday was every two weeks, although in the early days it was once a month. Before the railroad made the transport of logs possible in the winter, the mill would shut for several winter months and the men moved to the logging camps up the Blackfoot.

It was not uncommon for workers to stay at the mill for 30 to 50 years before retirement. Generally they found working conditions acceptable. There had been some labor unrest around 1908 and again in 1917-19 when the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) struck at the Bonner Mill following strikes in Butte. They did not strike at the Western, which was thought to have more liberal working policies. The strikers, mostly Finns, lost their jobs.

The union ultimately came into the mill in 1942 bringing better working conditions and most importantly, establishing the principal of seniority. Nevertheless, in 1946 there was a six-month strike at the Bonner Mill between supporters of the AFL (mill workers) and the CIO (lumber camp workers). One retired mill worker remembered that Anaconda contributed to the tension. After that the AFL became the official union of the entire ACM Lumber Division.

An aerial photo from the late 1930s shows a near empty log yard. The mill operated two to three days during the Depression. The Company closed the Company store once the union was adopted. Nevertheless some long-term workers suggested that overall "there were few strikes…[we have] never seen a more compatible relation between labor and management…everyone was on a first name basis…."


The Depression hit Bonner and Milltown hard but the mill tried to keep the work force together by only working three days or less.  One resident remembered, "A lot of older folks retired and didn’t work again.  It took about seven years to get back to normal.  People 'got by.'  During the Depression everyone hunted."  A lot of the workers went into WWII, but no women were hired by the mill.  Since military service counted toward seniority, "There was no problem getting a job after the war."

Western Mill 1915 With his mining enterprise well-established, William Clark turned to the Bonner area, where he focused on the perceived unlimited timber resources of this region. Square stulls which held up the mine shafts were in constant demand.  In 1898 Clark established the Western Lumber Company with Judge W. M. Bickford, A. H. Wethey (Clark’s business manager from Butte), Alex Johnson, and H. W. McLaughlin, a legislator whose support Clark was trying to obtain. 

The Company bought McLaughlin’s planning mill in Missoula, all his timberlands, and his small mill on Nine Mile Creek, just west of Missoula, for the “extravagant” amount of $24,684. Clark turned the old McLaughlin planning mill into the Western Montana Flouring Mill in direct competition with Anaconda’s existing flour mill in Bonner.  In 1904, Anaconda's mill burned and was not rebuilt, but Clark’s mill remained long after.

Western Lumber operated the sawmill at Nine Mile for one and a half years.  In 1900, the Company began construction of a new, larger sawmill at Lothrup at the mouth of Petty Creek, where it would have easy access to the Northern Pacific Railroad.  The Company acquired 15,000 acres by trading inholdings within the adjacent US Government Forest Reserve for land closer to the mill.  Clark also bought or traded for extensive timber holdings in the Blackfoot River region, in anticipation of the time when timber supplies around Lothrup would be depleted.

Clark then built a lumber mill within a half mile of  the existing Anaconda mill in Bonner.  As a first step, in 1904, Clark-Montana Realty (Clark's realty division) bought most of John McCormick’s land on the Missoula River (Clark Fork) for leased housing for his future mill workers.  In the interim Clark-Montana Realty leased the land to Anaconda mill workers, who build their own homes on the leased land.  This would become the community of Milltown.

Shortly thereafter, Western's manager, C. H. Richardson, sited Clark’s dam in Milltown to power the new permanent sawmill.  The dam, completed in late 1907, was located on the Missoula River (Clark Fork River) near its confluence with the Big Blackfoot River.  Clark had bought Missoula Light and Power from the Hammond interests in 1906, assuring control of users of the power from his dam.  He was putting his electricity monopoly in place. 

The sawmill was the last of Clark’s enterprises to be built in the Missoula area.  The mill, physically moved from Lothrup on the Northern Pacific (NP) Railroad between 1911 and 1912 meant that  for a short period Bonner-Milltown became a two mill community.  The new mill was modern and run by electricity.  In contrast to the Lothrup mill which had a daily capacity of 100,000 bf every 10 hour shift, the Western, as it was called, could produce 130,000 bf daily.

The Western Lumber Office is all
that remains of the mill. Some 200 men were on the payroll in addition to loggers.  Many of these had come from Lothrup.  The common laborer earned $0.42/hr or $3.36 a day. Unlike Anaconda, the Western did not provide houses for their management.  C. H. Richardson, manager of the Western, bought one of the first lots in West Riverside and built his home there.  Many of the workers lived in Milltown in houses leased to them by Clark-Montana Realty.  Charles Hart who owned the Riverside Grocery collected the rents for Clark.

Clark’s son, William Andrews Clark Jr. was president of the company and frequently seen on the mill site.  The Western contracted for all its logs and had them delivered by rail.  For example, Joe Moderie shipped logs from the Flathead Valley to the mill.  Another contractor named Hill brought logs from Deer Creek in 1916.  The logs were dumped in the Clark Fork and floated to the mill.

Clark made use of both the Northern Pacific and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul Railroads to bring in logs and take out lumber. Logs arriving at the mill by rail were taken to the mill by an electric engine called a dinky engine. Sparks from steam engines caused frequent fires, so this engine reduced the fire hazard. After the Northern Pacific moved to the double track line in 1908, the dinky engines were operated on the site of the old line, which became the street car track. A spur line from the main track took the engine on the west side of the Blackfoot so the logs could be dumped in the river into the “hot ponds,” areas which were kept ice free.

Much of the lumber from the mill initially went to Butte. Later lumber was shipped to Chicago as well as markets in Kansas City, St. Louis and New York, with occasional shipments to Boston.  Electric locomotives also delivered lumber to Clark’s retail store in Missoula.  At Clark’s death there was a surplus of logs at both his mill and the Anaconda mill.

The Anaconda Company bought the mill from Clark’s heirs in 1928 and continued to operate both mills for several years. The Depression and the difficulty of running two adjacent mills caused Anaconda to close the Western in 1931. It took a couple of years for the mill to be dismantled and the inventory used up. Fifty men were still employed at the Western in 1932, but none the next year.

An early day logging crew in the Blackfoot Men who worked in the woods or on the river often also worked in the mill during its operating season, from April to October. Milltown, with its saloons and boarding houses, was their home when they were not in the camps. And though these camps were located some 25 miles upstream from the Bonner-Milltown-West Riverside area, the men were part of those communities.

The first camp at Fish Creek involved 50 men, who cut some 200,000 board feet of logs during the winter of 1885-86. These were floated down the Blackfoot in time to await the opening of the new Hammond-Bonner mill in June of 1886. Logs were in the river as much as 45 days. Initially, there was no road up the Blackfoot, so workers reached the camps from Wallace (now known as Clinton).

Horses were used to haul logs out of the woods Trees were cut by hand using axes and large, two-person crosscut saws. Logs were brought to the river by oxen or teams of horses. Some logging camps had 300 work horses in operation at one time. Oxen were also used, especially as they were plentiful after the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed, when they were no longer needed to carry track building supplies.

Once in the river, a bateau (a flat bottomed river boat) followed the logs to keep them moving, manned by a crew of six. The first boat was 46 feet long and was built by Henry Farrell and Frank Thibodeau, who brought river drive experience from their work in the eastern forests of New Brunswick and Quebec. The men would “burl” the logs to get them free and moving. Rita LaVoie, who grew up in Milltown, shared the story that her father had taught her to burl logs by moving her feet to get the logs rolling. She would compete with others, clamping her feet to throw off an opponent.

The Blackfoot River floated logs
to the mill until 1926. Eventually other forms of transportation brought an end to the log drives. The Anaconda Company took over the Big Blackfoot Milling Company mill in 1898. By 1904 their railroad began operating with Shay locomotives from Greenough to McNamara, where the logs were dumped off into the river and floated to Bonner. This rapidly proved more efficient than the long log drives. By 1910 the Big Blackfoot Railway was incorporated, and construction began to extend the line to Bonner.

In 1913 the Milwaukee Railroad purchased the Big Blackfoot Railway from the Anaconda Company and completed the track to Bonner. They brought logs from the logging camps in the Blackfoot until the mid-1930s, when yet another form of transportation edged its way into the logging scene.

Trains brought logs to the mill until the 1930s, when they were replaced by logging trucks. Logging trucks could go places the railroad could not and offered even more efficiency. Gradually replacing the railroad, logging trucks carried logs from the woods all the way to the mill by 1957.

The logging camps continued, centered for much of the time in Potomac, until the last camp was disbanded in 1960. Truck operations then were based at Twin Creeks, nine miles up the Blackfoot.

 

The Hammond or Big Blackfoot Mill
in the mid-1890s. The Montana Improvement Company (MIC) built the first sawmill in Bonner in 1886, but it was largely due to the efforts of partner Andrew Hammond.  Initially called the Blackfoot Mill, it was also known as the Bonner or Hammond Mill, not only for Andrew but William Henry Hammond, Andrew’s brother, was general Manager and another brother, George L. Hammond, was in charge of logging operations.

Recognizing the strategic value of the railroad, Hammond and his partners worked hard to attract the almost completed Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) to Missoula, and, with the help of other Missoula businessmen, were successful in getting a major rail center there. The Company was rewarded in 1880s with a lucrative lumber contracts from the NP Railroad.

At Bonner, the mill was built on 160 acres sold to MIC by homesteader Hiram Farr for $100 and “also 2 stoves, chains, broad ax and other tools and implements now on said land too tedious to mention.”  Reportedly a cow was added to sweeten the deal.  This mill was permanent, not a portable mill that could be moved when the supply of lumber was used up, like the other MIC mills.  The Northern Pacific Railroad and its lucrative contracts to MIC, made the permanent location feasible.

The first log went through the mill on June 6, 1886.  By August 1886 the mill produced an average of 55,000 board feet of lumber per day. That year MIC purchased an additional half-section of land at the mill site from Northern Pacific for $580.  Much of the lumber was shipped to Anaconda and Butte as part of a handsome contract from Marcus Daly, another MIC partner) to provide stulls (supports for mine shafts) for his mines in Butte and fuel for his smelter in Anaconda.  The mill also sold a lot of lumber for construction, including the actual building materials for Daly’s smelter in Anaconda.  Northern Pacific rails carried the lumber.

A series of corporate name changes for the mill began in 1887.  First it was called the Blackfoot Milling Company and by 1888, it was known as the Blackfoot Milling and Manufacturing Company.  It seems certain that these changes had to do with the lawsuit brought by the Secretary of Interior against MIC owners regarding timber trespass on the public domain checkerboard lands adjacent to their holdings.  The suit dragged on for years resulting in only incidental fines for these lumber barons, who had continued cutting all the while.

When Daly learned that Hammond had not supported him politically in 1889, he turned on Hammond, determined to ruin him.  Among other things, Daly cancelled the lucrative Anaconda lumber contract and built his own mill in Hamilton.  In spite of this, the Big Blackfoot Milling and Manufacturing Company (yet another name change) continued to expand.  It was considered the largest mill between Wisconsin and the West Coast, employing 150 men during the portion of the year that it operated (mills did not run in the winter).  It produced 24 million board feet of lumber in 1889, which is equivalent to 5,500 loads on today’s logging trucks.

The Anaconda Smelter operated
from 1902 until 1980. Due to Daly’s constant need for lumber to supply his smelter in Anaconda, by 1898 he decided to buy the mill from Hammond.  Hammond, who by then was trying to divest himself of his Missoula assets and move to Oregon, was in a mood to bargain with his rival.  The result was the sale of the Big Blackfoot Milling and Manufacturing Company and its timberlands (500 million board feet) to Daly’s Anaconda Copper Mining Company (ACM) on August 15, 1898 for nearly $1.5 million. Interestingly, the mill retained the name of Big Blackfoot Milling Company until 1910, when it became the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, Lumber Department.

Corporate changes occurred here as well.  Standard Oil purchased the ACM in 1899, and it became the subsidiary of Amalgamated Copper, albeit with Daly as head.  Daly’s death in 1900 brought an end to his involvement.  Still by 1915 Anaconda emerged as a company separate from Standard Oil, in control of the world’s copper market as well as Montana’s economy and politics.