Anaconda Railroad & Mining Museum

The museum celebrates Anaconda's railroad heritage and its unique link to the mines and Butte with its smelter and corporate origin from the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. The Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway was built by Marcus Daly to avoid the inflated transportation charges of the existing railroads, and employed many of the citizens of Anaconda and Butte. The museum operates out of the two northeast bays of the B.A.&P. roundhouse.

The museum features a recently constructed model railroad, an HO gauge layout which now depicts the entire course of the BA&P from the Butte hill to the Anaconda roundhouse, including the switch yards in Rocker and east and west Anaconda, was well as the Durant Canyon, running along Silver Bow Creek past Gregson. The layout should be complete with roadbed, tracks and engines painted in BA&P colors pulling authentic ore cars over and under the trestle in the canyon where three sets of tracks run.

The museum is filled with historic railroad equipment and a working telegraph demonstration, as well as scale models of the roasters and furnaces of the smelter. There are also many historical photos from the smelter and the railroad. A track maintenance car is also located in the museum.

A gift shop has a fresh supply of literature regarding local railroad and smelter history. In addition, we will have a large supply of HO gauge engines and cars for sale, models for assembly to add more model railroad interest to the gift shop.

The museum is sponsoring the writing and publication of the second volume of Patrick Morris's definitive book "Anaconda". This will complete his historical perspective of Anaconda and will continue the story from the roaring twenties to the closure of the smelter operations in 1982 and the subsequent history of the town to the present time.