Anaconda Copper
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company from 1899 to 1915,[1] was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mining companies in the world for much of the 20th century.[1]
Company type
Subsidiary (1977–83)
1881 in Anaconda, Montana
1983 (de facto)
Closed
Anaconda, Butte, Columbia Falls, Great Falls, Thompson Falls (all in Montana)
Anaconda, New Mexico
Thunder Basin area, Wyoming
Weed Heights, Nevada (1952–78)
Chuquicamata, Chile (1922–71)
Cananea, Mexico (1922–71)
Katowice, Poland (1926–39)
Tooele, Utah (1909–81)
Marcus Daly bought the original silver mine, named the Anaconda, in 1880. Daly partnered with George Hearst, James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis in 1881 to develop it, and the company expanded dramatically in 1882 with the discovery of huge copper deposits. In 1883, Daly began building a smelter and the town of Anaconda to process copper mined in Butte. In 1899, with Hearst and Tevis deceased, Haggin retired and Daly restructured the enterprise into the Amalgamated Copper Company, bringing in H H Rogers and William Rockefeller.
By 1910, Amalgamated had expanded its operations and bought the assets of all other copper companies operating in Butte. In 1922, Anaconda bought mining operations in Mexico and Chile; the latter hosted the largest mine in the world and for a time yielded two-thirds of the company's profits. The company added aluminum reduction to its portfolio in 1955. In the 1950s, the company switched over from underground to open-pit mining. In 1960 its operations employed 37,000 employees in North America and Chile.
Anaconda Copper was purchased by the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) on January 12, 1977. ARCO halted production at the Anaconda smelter in 1980, and mining ceased completely in 1982 when the deep pumps draining the Berkeley Pit and the underground mines were shut off, allowing the Pit and mines to fill. The company presently only exists as a major environmental liability for BP, who bought out ARCO in 2000. Its former operations are now the largest Superfund site in the country; CERCLA liability passed to BP upon its acquisition of ARCO.
History of Anaconda Copper[edit]
Beginnings[edit]
Marcus Daly, a self-taught miner, engineer and geologist, bought a small silver mine called Anaconda in 1880. At the time, Daly was working for the Walker brothers, mining investors and bankers from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a mining superintendent of the Alice, a silver mine in Walkerville, a suburb of Butte. While working in the Alice, he noticed significant quantities of high grade copper ore. Daly scouted the Anaconda and several other mines in the area and recommended the mine to the Walker brothers, who sent a professional geologist to inspect the Anaconda. The Walkers were not interested in the mine, and Daly sold his interest in the Alice to purchase it himself.
Placer gold and silver lode mining had taken place at Butte, placer mining at Helena, Bannock and Virginia City, Montana territory respectively, and Butte was nearing the end of its silver lode mining phase. Lacking capital to develop the mine, Daly sought financing from San Francisco mining magnate George Hearst and his partners, James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, of Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co. and the Anaconda Company was born in 1881 with Daly as a 25% partner in the enterprise. Daly had recommended Hearst purchase the Ontario mine, a silver mine in Alta, Utah, which consequently made Hearst many millions.
Huge deposits of copper were soon developed and Daly became a copper magnate. When surrounding silver mines "played out" and closed, Daly bought up the neighboring mines, forming a mining company. In 1883, Daly built a smelter at Anaconda, Montana, building a company town to support the workers, and connected his smelter to Butte by his Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway.[2]
Butte became one of the most prosperous cities in the country, often called "the Richest Hill on Earth." From 1892 through 1903, the Anaconda mine itself was the largest copper-producing mine in the world.[3] It produced more than $300 billion worth of metal in its lifetime.
Rothschilds[edit]
In 1889 the Rothschilds tried to gain control of the world copper market. In 1892 the French Rothschilds began negotiations to buy the Anaconda mine. In mid-October 1895 the Rothschilds, French and British, bought out the stock in Anaconda held by Hearst's widow, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, for $7.5 million. By the late 1890s the Rothschilds probably had control over the sale of about forty percent of the world's copper production.[4]
Rockefellers[edit]
The Rothschilds' role in Anaconda was brief. In 1899, Daly teamed up with two directors of Standard Oil to create the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company which grew to become one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century. The leading roles were played by Henry Huttleston Rogers (John D. Rockefeller's friend and a key man in his Standard Oil businesses) and William Rockefeller (John's brother). They were aided by company promoter Thomas W. Lawson. Although Rogers and William Rockefeller were Standard Oil directors, the company of Standard Oil did not have a stake in this business, nor did its founder and head, John D. Rockefeller, who disliked such stock promotions.[5]
By 1899 Amalgamated Copper acquired majority stock in the Anaconda Copper Company, and the Rothschilds appear to have had no further role in the company. By his death in 1900, Marcus Daly had just become president of the holding company valued at $75 million.
Lawson later had a falling out with Rogers and Rockefeller, and wrote of the experience in a book Frenzied Finance (1905). Colored by Lawson's bitterness, the book offered insight into aspects of high finance.
Aluminum operations in Columbia Falls[edit]
Anaconda diversified into aluminum production in 1952, when they purchased rights to build an aluminum reduction plant in Columbia Falls. After two years of construction, the plant went online in August 1955. Following two expansions in the 1960s, the plant had a peak output capacity of 180,000 tons annually. ARCO kept the plant open after Butte copper operations ceased in 1982, and sold the plant to a group of investors led by a former ARCO executive in 1985, due to high electricity costs and low market prices. As Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC), the plant continued operations as an independent company until it was purchased by Swiss metals giant Glencore in 1999. Glencore continued CFAC operations through 2009, when it temporarily shuttered the plant due to high electricity costs and low market prices. On March 3, 2015, the closure became permanent.[13][14]
Dashiel Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest was based on Hammett's experience as a Pinkerton Detective working at the Anaconda Mine in Butte and the Anaconda Road massacre in 1920.
By 1920, the Anaconda Company owned several Montana newspapers including the Butte Post, Butte Miner, Anaconda Standard, Daily Missoulian, Helena Independent, and Billings Gazette.[16] The Anaconda Company controlled the economic and political dealings throughout Montana well into the mid-1900s.[17]
As the state's largest employer, Anaconda dominated Montana politics. In the political arena the "copper collar" symbolized influence, wealth, and power.
In 1894, Montana held an election to decide which city would be its capital. Marcus Daly, an Anaconda supporter, used his power over the papers to further his cause.[18] While campaigning, "Anaconda's supporters portrayed Helena as a center of avarice and elitism while promoting their choice as the pick of the working man. In return, Helena's backers claimed that if the victory should go to their opponent the entire state would be strangled by the "copper collar" of Daly's Anaconda Copper Mining Company."[19] Daly's campaign was unsuccessful and Helena became the state's capital.
Flexing its political muscle again in 1903, the Anaconda Company closed down operations within all of Montana, putting 15,000 men out of work until the legislature enacted the regulations it demanded.
Montanans were angered by this decision and from that point forward, to suggest a politician "wore a copper collar", could cost him the election.[20]
The copper collar symbolized oppression and control to the people of Butte. In the early 20th century, Butte's culture with its
Choosing sides in this battle was unavoidable. According to Author Fisher's article, "Montana: Land of the Copper Collar," "Six months is the longest one may live in Montana without making the decision whether one is 'for the Company' or 'against the Company.' The all-pervading and unrelenting nature of the struggle admits of no neutrals. Since the territory's admission to statehood in 1889 the struggle has continued."[22]
The term "copper collar" was used in historical novels set in that period. In The Old Copper Collar (1957), a tale of the course of a senatorial election in Helena in the early 20th century, Dan Cushman refers to the "copper collar": "At this point the galleries packed with Bennett sympathizers commenced heckling him with suggestions he wore the Copper Collar, but these hoots and catcalls he contemptuously ignored, reiterated his freedom from all cliques, factions, and corporations and that his purpose had been purely and simply to prove or disprove unlawful practices, and sat down." Even the suggestion that a person wore the "copper collar" created pandemonium from the crowd.[23]
Ivan Doig refers to the "copper collar" in his novel Work Song (2010). In 1919, Gracie resists the powerful Anaconda Company as they try to force her to sell her property. She says, "Leave this house at once, Whoever-You-Are Morgan. I'll not have under my roof a man who wears the copper collar." The workers who are under the "copper collar" are referred to as "snakes" and the Anaconda Company is referred to as an "ogre".[24]
The "copper collar" symbolized different things to different people but "the Anaconda Company used the tactics of an authoritarian state to quash a legitimate labor movement within its corporate fiefdom. That the press, an elemental part of democracy, was used in the assault marks a black period in the history of American journalism."[25] In Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place across America, John B. Wright writes that for decades, the Anaconda Company:
The phrase "copper collar" is also an example of metonymy when it is substituted for the act of the Anaconda Company controlling a person. It is closely related to the company because it is made of copper, which is what the company mined. A collar is a device used to control, which is what the company used the copper collar for.
In the Semiotic Square for the "copper collar" (see illustration), Marcus Daly is considered the assertion and Miners is the negation in the first binary pair. The second binary relationship is created on the "control" axis. Union, the not Marcus Daly element, is considered to be the complex term, and "copper collar", the Miner element, is the neutral term. Both a union and the "copper collar" are things that are used to gain control. The Anaconda Company used the copper collar to gain control of the papers and legislature, and the miners wanted to establish a union to gain some control over their working conditions.