Completed in 1896, though it no longer serves as Anaconda's City Hall, it remains a city landmark. Of substantial brick and stone construction, the city hall originally housed the city government, the police and a jail, and the city fire department. The fire department and the police have since departed and the city government has moved to newer premises, but the jail cells in the basement remain, now housing the historical society.
The basement and a smaller portion of the main floor are now the site of Anaconda's Copper Village Museum, which houses a multitude of artefacts from Anaconda's heyday, when the smelter belched smoke 24/7 and the town was a boisterous frontier village of miners and smelter workers. The museum also hosts various travelling exhibits and annual quilting exhibits and student art displays.
One of the more interesting artefacts within the museum is this replica of Anaconda's City Hall. Standing about 2½ to 3 feet (<1 metre) in height, it faithfully replicates each and every detail of the buildings exterior, including a clock tower which no longer tops the building. Each and every brick and foundation stone is reproduced in the replica, creating amazing detail. Unfortunately, we can't relate of what material the replica is made, nor when it was created, as no one at the museum when we visited had much information on the replica.
Anaconda City Hall
Marcus Daly, a fugitive from the Irish potato famine, came to America at the age of fifteen, and rose from errand boy and pick-and-shovel miner to create a copper empire that would dominate Montana s economy and politics and made its influence felt nationwide, upon occasion.
Daly chose Anaconda as the site for his home and rapidly expanding smelting operations, designed to refine the rich ore deposits Daly was developing on "Butte's Richest Hill on Earth". Daly bought the land for $20,000, chose the town site, and the city plat was completed June 25, 1883.
"Pretty As A Peach" is the way an ANACONDA STANDARD reporter described the plans for the new City Hall in the March 21, 1896 issue of the paper. "The new city hall is going forward rapidly and already begins to show a very handsome building of which Anaconda may well be proud". The April 17, 1896 issue of the ANACONDA STANDARD reported that the architects, Lane and Reber, stated the City Hall would be "the finest municipal building in the State," and that it would be built in a "straighforward manner... using local materials:" Anaconda pressed brick, granite, and trimmed with Anaconda copper. The City Hall, then, meets criteria C as a building of stylistic significance and is expressive of fine craft technique in the handling of both the brick and wood work.
An August 23, 1896 newspaper story reports, "It is a beautiful interior..hardwood finish with some scroll and turn work. The council chamber is head and shoulders above anything else in the State, to say nothing of the magnificence of the office rooms... the stairway is a fine piece of workmanship and substantial." The building was built with the idea that Anaconda would be the Capitol of Montana, (re: WAR OF THE COPPER KINGS), and, therefore, possesses great symbolic as well as local historical significance. (Criteria A)
Anaconda aldermen held their first meeting in the new City Hall chambers on September 10, 1896, and the building was in continuous use by the local government until the fall of 1978 when demolition plans were about to be implemented as a part of the Anaconda Community Development Agency's six-block re-development plan. Destruction was averted by a court action of a local citizens' group, aided by a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
From the NRHP Nomination Form