On Saturday, August 10, Big Sky County National Heritage Area Inc. will premiere the film, The Spirit of the People: Black Eagle and the Anaconda Company, by Erin Schermele Films. This debut production features the complete history of the Anaconda Copper Mining Smelter and Refinery in Black Eagle, MT from its earliest beginnings to until its closing in the 1980s. 

The film highlights a three-part oral history interview with Dick Sloan, the last operations director for the Smelter. Sloan discusses photos from an old Smelter scrapbook – plus more from his personal collection that illustrate the historic Black Eagle smelting and refining operations and the faces of Black Eagle workers. Sloan is now employed by the MT Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and works closely with the Black Eagle Civic Club’s Technical Advisory Group, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ARCO, and many other stakeholders to determine what ARCO needs to do to clean up the Black Eagle residential yards and eventually the smelter site itself. In that role, Sloan has often been heard to say, “I know where all the bones are buried.” Of course, what he means is that he knows where slag was buried on site. He can suggest where soils testing and evaluation should be done to develop ways to prevent the remaining arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other metals from leaching into the Missouri River.

The History Museum will be open to the public 12pm-5pm Second Saturday with free admission. The film premiere and short talk begin promptly at 1pm with Dick Sloan and representatives from Big Sky Country National Heritage Area who funded the project. For more information, please call Carol Bronson, Big Sky Country National Heritage Area at 406-452-5921 or Kristi Scott, Executive Director of the museum at 406-452-3462.