Anaconda Montana - August 2019

Harvest Host RV stop - OLD WORKS GOLF COURSE - Annaconda, Montana:

 We stayed one night at the Old Works Golf Course.  This was a great Harvest Host site.  The parking lot was huge and had a separate area in the back for RV's to park overnight.  A clean safe fun option to an RV park - plus golf, not much more we need for a night.

Anaconda is an interested town (really).   It was founded by Marcus Daly (one of the copper kings).  He built 2 smelters in Annaconda for processing copper.  The Old Works smelter and the New Works smelter.  ARCO purchased the smelters in 1977 only to close the operation in 1980.   Unfortunately the closing left behind smokeless smokestacks, and a landscape of hazardous waste - and YES in 1983 it was placed on the Super Fund site.    Maybe we should visit Super Fund sites in every state, since we have found several in our travels this summer....hmmmm🤔.

Old Work Smelter Site:
ARCO didn't want to just clean up the site and leave behind a barren landscape.  They wanted to provide something that would benefit the community.  After cleaning up the arsenic and other pollutants, they had Jack Niklaus design a signature style course.  He incorporated pieces of the fuel oven and other equipment remains around the golf course.   The fairways and sand traps are bordered and filled with black slag.  (Slag is a product of the copper smelting process.)  Quite different than hitting a ball out of a white sand  bunker.   Tom played golf at this course - one of the top 100 Greatest Public Golf courses according to Golf Digest.  The course was beautiful with the dark green grass and the pitch black slag traps.  (Mark Montana off the play golf in every state list.  (I didn't play golf as Max needed to visit the local vet - see below😟).

                                                  

New Work Smelter Site:
This smelter is the TALLEST masonry structure in the world at more than 565 feet....with a top diameter of over 75 feet.  From a perspective standpoint - It is large enough for the Washington Monument to fit inside - and you could drive a school bus around the top rim, really quite amazing, They recently opened this for tours, but we didn't have time to arrange for one.

                                                           

Vet Visit - Max is 13 years old and this was a hard summer for him.  The altitude in Idaho, 2 ear infections, small seizure and more.   Luckily for us, we found the best VET in Anaconda.  He is retired military vet.  He  actually knew where Fresno was as he was stationed at Lemoore Naval Base for 3 years.  Unfortunately he told us that Max's heart murmur was a stage 6 and that he needed heart medicine.  5 prescriptions later, Max is feeling better.    However, his heart will never improve.   😢

                                            

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