Entry No. 18 — the Butte file — filed under: roadside-oddity
Anaconda Smelter Stack (The Big Stack)
A single 585-foot brick chimney rises alone out of a barren hillside east of Anaconda, the tallest surviving masonry structure in the world and tall enough to swallow the Washington Monument with room to spare. It is the lone survivor of the Anaconda Copper Company's Washoe Smelter, which was demolished in the 1980s, after locals organized a 'Save the Stack' campaign to keep the chimney standing. You cannot walk up to it because the surrounding soil is still laced with arsenic and heavy metals, so the state park is essentially a viewing platform pointed at a giant orphaned smokestack across a poisoned field.
The story
The scale is designed to trick your eye. From Highway 1, the red-brick cylinder sitting on the bare hillside east of Anaconda looks like a modest chimney until you realize there are no buildings around it, and the pine trees at its foot are full-grown timber looking like tiny toothpicks. Built in 1918 by the Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Company using over 2.4 million custom radial bricks, the Washoe Smelter Stack stands 585 feet high—tall enough that you could drop the entire 555-foot Washington Monument inside its 76-foot-wide hollow interior with room to spare.
For six decades, this chimney served as the heavy-duty exhaust valve of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, venting tons of sulfur and metal toxins from ore hauled down from Butte. When the smelter closed in 1980 and workers dismantled the industrial complex, locals rallied under a 'Save the Stack' campaign to keep the monolith standing. They succeeded, but preserving the world's tallest masonry structure meant leaving behind a complicated legacy: the surrounding ground remains heavily contaminated with arsenic and heavy metals.
Because the soil is a fenced-off Superfund site closed to the public, the state park isn't a place for hiking up to the brickwork. Instead, it is a designated viewing platform set back at a safe distance across Highway 1, pointing you toward a lonely, giant brick chimney standing guard over a poisoned field.
What it's like
You'll pull into a paved parking pullout on Stack Drive off Highway 1 equipped with interpretive displays and viewing scopes. The vibe is quiet and slightly surreal: you stand behind a perimeter chain-link fence looking across an empty, off-limits landscape at the massive brick cylinder in the distance. Plan for a quick 15-to-20-minute stop, and time your visit for golden hour when the setting sun turns the exposed brick dark red against the dry hills. Bring binoculars or a camera with a decent telephoto lens, as viewing the stack from half a mile away makes it difficult to appreciate its sheer 585-foot height with the naked eye.
The move: Drive out to the state park overlook at golden hour to photograph the lone giant chimney glowing against the bare hills.
📍 Before you go About 25 miles from Butte. You view the stack from a distance only; the contaminated grounds around it are fenced and closed to the public.
- 📍 Anaconda
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Where: Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park viewing area, Hwy 1 / Stack Dr, Anaconda, MT 59711
Hours: Added 2026-06-24 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Fairmont Hot Springs Resort — Rinse off the toxic industrial dust with a soak in thermal mineral pools just eight miles down Highway 1.
- Mineral Museum at Montana Tech — Examine raw copper ores and mineral specimens in Butte that were originally mined to be burned and processed through this very stack.
- Butte's Lit Headframes (Gallows Frames) — The steel headframes in Uptown Butte hauled the copper ore up from deep underground shafts before it was shipped to Anaconda to be smelted.
- Granite Ghost Town State Park — Pair this monumental brick remnant saved by local activists with the decaying ruins of an 1890s silver boomtown down the road in Philipsburg.
Good to know
Can you walk up to touch the Anaconda Smelter Stack?
No. The soil directly around the stack contains high levels of heavy metals and arsenic from decades of smelting operations, so the grounds are fenced off and closed to the public.
How tall is the Big Stack compared to famous monuments?
At 585 feet tall, the stack is 30 feet taller than the Washington Monument and remains the tallest surviving freestanding brick masonry structure on Earth.
Where is the state park viewing area located?
The viewing platform is located about 25 miles west of Butte at the junction of Highway 1 and Stack Drive, just east of Anaconda.
Is there an admission fee to visit the Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park viewing area?
Access to the paved viewing platform and interpretive area is free to the public during daylight hours.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Wikipedia · fwp.mt.gov · guinnessworldrecords.com
last checked: 2026-06-24