Editing Great Falls, Montana (section)

===Railroad and hydroelectric expansion===
[[James Jerome Hill]], president and primary stockholder of the [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railway]], established a subsidiary, the [[Montana Central Railway]], on January 25, 1886. The mines in [[Butte, Montana|Butte]] were eager to get their metals to market. Gold and silver had been discovered near Helena, and coal companies in Canada sought to transport their fuel to Montana's smelters. Hill's close friend and business associate, Paris Gibson, promoted Great Falls as a site for the development of cheap hydroelectricity and heavy industry. As Hill was building the Great Northern across the northern tier of Montana, it made sense to also build a north–south railroad through central Montana to connect Great Falls with Helena and Butte. Surveyors and engineers had begun grading a route between Helena and Great Falls in the winter of 1885–1886, and by the end of 1886 had surveyed a route from Helena to Butte.

Construction on the Great Northern's line westward began in late 1886, and on October 16, 1887, the link between [[Devils Lake, North Dakota]], [[Fort Assinniboine]] (near the present-day city of [[Havre, Montana]]), and Great Falls was complete. Service to Helena began in November 1887, and Butte followed on November 10, 1888.

Hill organized the Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company in 1887, with the goal of developing the town of Great Falls; providing it with power, sewage, and water; and attracting commerce and industry to the city. To attract industry to the new city, he offered low rates on the Montana Central Railway. On September 12, 1889, the [[Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company|Boston and Montana]] ("B & M") signed an agreement with Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company in which the power company agreed to build a dam that would supply the mining firm with at least 1,000 horsepower (or 0.75 MW) of power by September 1, 1890, and 5,000 horsepower (or 3.73 MW) of power by January 1, 1891. In exchange, B & M agreed to build a $300,000 copper smelter near the dam. [[Black Eagle Dam]] began generating electricity in December 1890. Water was permitted to flow over the crest of the dam on January 6, 1891, and the dam was considered complete on March 15, 1891. By 1912, [[Rainbow Dam]] and Volta Dam (now [[Ryan Dam]]) were all operating.<ref name="Federal" /><ref name="RoederGreatFalls" /><ref name="Broadwater" /> [[Morony Dam]] was built in 1930 and [[Cochrane Dam]] in 1957–1958.

====Smelting operations====
On April 7, 1908, construction began on a masonry/brick chimney measuring {{convert|506|ft|m}} tall on the B & M's (now the city's largest employer) smelting site at Black Eagle by the Alphonse Custodis Construction Co. of New York, for dispersal of fumes from B & M's copper smelting process. B & M would soon merge with the Amalgamated Copper Company and become the [[Anaconda Copper]] Mining Company or "ACM". The B & M smelter stack was completed on October 23, 1908. The chimney had an interior measurement of {{convert|78.5|ft|m}} in diameter at the base and {{convert|50|ft|spell=in}} in diameter at the top. At the time of its completion, it was the tallest chimney in the world (see [[List of tallest chimneys]]). With the moniker "The Big Stack", it immediately became a landmark for the community; after over 70 years of operation, the smelter closed in 1980.

The Big Stack's [[Anaconda Smelter Stack|"sister" stack]] in [[Anaconda, Montana|Anaconda]], also of masonry/brick construction, completed in 1919, and slightly taller at {{convert|585|ft}}, began to suffer from cracking and the ACM decided to remove the support bands from the upper half of the Big Stack in 1976 and send them to Anaconda. This action proved to be the Big Stack's ultimate demise, since the cracks it was also suffering from rapidly worsened such that the ACM, citing concern for public safety (due to the continual deterioration of the stack's structural integrity), slated the Big Stack's demolition for September 18, 1982.

In an interesting twist of fate, the demolition crew failed to accomplish the task on the first try; the two worst cracks in the stack ran from just above ground level to nearly {{convert|300|ft|round=5}} up. The demolition team's intent was to create a wedge in the base so the stack's rubble would fall almost vertically into a large trench, but as the {{convert|600|lb|abbr=on}} of explosives were set off the cracks "completed themselves" all the way to the ground—effectively severing the stack into two-thirds and one-third pieces. Much to the delight of the spectating community, the smaller of the two pieces remained standing, but the failed demolition only solidified the safety issue whereas the community cited the event as the stack's defiance. The demolition team who had planted the charges was recalled and later the same afternoon they returned and finished the demolition, after packing another {{convert|400|lb|abbr=on}} of explosives into the smaller wedge.<ref name=stackun>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=w5dfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QjEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4405%2C1224206 |work=Lewiston Morning Tribune |location=(Idaho) |agency=Associated Press |last=Van Swearingen |first=Hugh |title=Historic Anaconda Co. stack withstands first dynamite blast |date=September 19, 1982 |page=4B}}</ref>