A look back at the company town that never was

Two major construction projects helped stabilize the Flathead economy during the 1950s at a time when local economic conditions were simply bleak — the Hungry Horse Dam and the Anaconda Aluminum Co. smelter in Columbia Falls.

The Flathead economy was dominated by seasonal industry — timber, tourism and agriculture, Bonneville Power Administration geographer George Sundborg reported in October 1945. Many locals struggled to get through winter.

The county’s population had declined from 25,000 to 22,000 during World War II. The service sector had a larger payroll than timber and agriculture combined, and farm income was below both the U.S. and Montana average. No war-time industry had been lost to peacetime, Sundborg said, but the local economy was hampered by high freight costs.

Maxine Johnson’s 1960 study of the economic effects of the AAC plant on the Flathead described a stabilizing influence, but not much more.

“No related industry has followed the plant to the Flathead, nor is such a development likely,” the business professor at Montana State University in Missoula said. “The area is too far from major population centers.”

Johnson’s report paralleled Sundborg’s. Winter-time unemployment in the Flathead could claim 2,700 workers, she said. Dam construction created 2,500 jobs at its peak, but as the project wound down, the temporary prosperity seemed threatened.

The new aluminum plant came at a time when income in the county was contracting, labor supply was in surplus, and general business activity was declining, she reported. Construction of the smelter helped maintain the increased economic activity associated with the dam, but it didn’t increase the local economy beyond that level. Instead, the county’s population declined from 1951 through 1956, Johnson reported.

At its peak, construction workers at the aluminum plant totaled 1,645 people — less than the peak figure at the dam, Johnson noted, but construction at the smelter was not as seasonal and involved more indoor work.

Finding skilled workers to build the new smelter was not too difficult — many dam workers liked the Flathead and decided to stay. But finding skilled workers to run the smelter was a different matter — 117 people were hired from outside of the area, usually because of their prior experience in the aluminum industry. The net effect was 468 new residents.

The surge of new workers was felt in the housing market. Local schools found themselves facing increased enrollment without increased tax revenue to support them.

Workers found creative ways to get by — bachelors scrounged accommodations, trailers were set up near the plant site, and dam town houses were moved to Columbia Falls. Meanwhile, the Anaconda Company opted to build new homes for its managers.

Early rumors had Anaconda building homes in Whitefish near the lake and the golf course. The wife of one manager was heard to comment that she didn’t want to live on top of a hill with other Anaconda people, as was the case in Great Falls — she wanted to become part of the community.

As it turned out, Anaconda purchased 38 acres near the high school from the Hoerner brothers for residential development. And aluminum plant managers soon became active community leaders — Lions Club president, vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, school board trustees and chairman, city councilors and two mayors.

But Columbia Falls did not turn into a company town, Hungry Horse News publisher Mel Ruder concluded in a 1959 editorial. AAC workers had become real members of the community.

If longtime residents thought “now they are running things,” that was because AAC lacked public relations “know how” and made things appear worse than they were, he said.