Marcus Daly - Legacy

Legacy

Daly's legacy was a mixed one for Anaconda. From 1885 to 1980, the smelter was one of the town's largest employers and provided well-paid jobs for generations. When the smelter closed in 1980, during a labor strike, 25% of the town's workforce was put out of work and the town has not recovered. The smelter itself was torn down as part of environmental cleanup efforts in the 1990s, although the smokestack is still visible above the town.

Daly's legacy was equally mixed for Butte, Montana. The Anaconda Company was bought out by the Amalgamated Copper Company in 1899, and by the 1920s it controlled mining in the city. It continued to be one of the state's largest employers and a mainstay of the state and local economies until the 1970s. In the 1950s, the ACM began open-pit mining in Butte, creating a steadily growing pit east of the main business district. In the mid-1970s, copper prices collapsed and the ACM was bought out by the Atlantic Richfield Company (Arco). Arco ceased mining in Butte in 1982, ending what Daly had begun almost exactly 100 years before. See Berkeley Pit for the lasting impact. Montana Resources now (2007) operates an open pit copper and molybdenum mine in Butte, and also recovers copper from the water in the Berkeley Pit.

A statue of Daly stands at the main entrance to Montana Tech of the University of Montana (formerly the Montana School of Mines) at the west end of Park Street in Butte.

A drawing of Daly by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947) was acquired in 2009 by the American National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

Marcus Daly's summer home and stock farm, Riverside, is located in Hamilton, Montana and is open to visitors. See http://www.dalymansion.org for details.

The Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital, located in Hamilton, Montana, was incorporated on December 18, 1929.