Anaconda Copper

scarrett who's like a quieter shorter version of keef offer worked all that week and for months afterwards on the identity problem during the first weeks red cross volunteers and personnel worked around the clock to answer the flood of inquiries there were some three thousand of them they felt fortunate that no scout troops turned up missing these queries they painstakingly sifted sorted and winnowed down with tireless persistence they kept at it writing to the source of each of the thousands of inquiries to find out if the missing had turned up new inquiries kept coming in and still do asking about people that just plain haven't been heard from and their relatives or friends have thought of the slide as a possible explanation through tangible tie-ins like postcards letters the use of credit cards in the area just before the quake phone calls from the area they finally got down to a list of those highly probable as slide victims whose bodies will never be uncovered take the case of roger provost an official at the california state prison at soledad california he had been in touch with his office up to the date of the quake he was a methodical type upon leaving california he left a planned vacation itinerary stating that the family was to proceed from yellowstone down the madison river august eighteen nineteen twenty and twenty one and to bozeman etc several cards to friends and relatives postmarked august sixteenth at west yellowstone montana stated that the family was at a trailer campsite on the madison river about thirty miles from yellowstone another family robert j williams and wife coy children michael seven stephen eleven and christy three of idaho falls had told relatives they planned on fishing the madison river they registered as visitors at the museum in virginia city on august seventeenth nineteen fifty nine and were not heard of again dr merle edgerton and his wife edna in their car and trailer were traveling with harmon woods and his wife edna who also brought their car and trailer dr edgerton kept in daily contact with his hospital in coalinga california up to the time of the slide he was last heard from on august fifteenth giving the family's location as on the madison river outside innis thirty-five miles from yellowstone the complete list of those who on such evidence are considered buried under the monumental madison canyon slide total nineteen they are sidney d ballard wife and son of nelson b c bernie l boynton and wife inez of billings montana dr merle edgerton and wife edna of coalinga cal roger provost and wife elizabeth and sons richard sixteen and david one and a half of soledad cal mrs thomas mark stowe of sandy utah robert j williams and wife coy and children stephen eleven michael seven christie three of idaho falls idaho harmon woods and wife edna of coalinga cal the other quake casualties include mr pearly bennett and children tommy carroll and susan of coeur d'alene idaho who along with thomas stowe of sandy utah were found below the slide mr and mrs e h stryker of san mateo cal were killed by the boulders at the cliff lake campground mrs myrtle painter of ogden utah and mrs margaret holmes of billings montana died of quake injuries in the bozeman hospital the final montana yellowstone earthquake death toll stands at twenty-eight civil defense and natural disasters natural disasters like the montana yellowstone earthquake are perhaps the best test of our civil defense readiness until the quake civil defense director hugh potter wasn't at all sure that he had an outfit at all operating on a short budget of twenty one thousand dollars a year with all of the third biggest sprawled out state to organize he'd set up at least on paper state-wide and county civil defense groups he'd compiled an exhaustive inventory of state facilities resources etc complete to each minuti as the number of aspirins in the state one million six hundred and fifty seven thousand five grain tablets and the amount of meat montana's abundant wild life represented fifty eight million five hundred and seventeen and seven hundred and twenty five pounds including one thousand bison four hundred and fifteen grizzly bears the alerts he'd organized weren't notable successes and he'd caught some hell from the higher-ups for not being current on the state-wide alerts which are supposed to be held at least once a year our people just aren't too enthusiastic about practice alerts potter says frankly they feel it's a waste of time they're busy they don't want to play war a guy will say i want to go fishing or put up a hay crop or something but let a real emergency happen and they're right there during the first day ed cottingham and i were busy pulling triggers i realized then that the most important thing i'd done during my seven years as civil defense director was getting around and getting to know who to phone the people you can count on to get something done in an emergency you can get the heck of a lot done if you know the right guy to call there isn't a civil defense department that didn't check in right away to find out if they were needed we're especially lucky to have the u s forest service the big slide happened in the beaverhead national forest in our area their experience and constantly organized readiness to meet the threat of forest fire right now makes them an ideal outfit for any emergency forest service firefighting squads transport equipment and information about the area are all set up to move in a matter of minutes they're most adaptable to the kind of crisis the earthquake threw at us you can tell the forest service your problem and quit worrying another important outfit is the montana forestry department which is set up to administer and protect the state's forests its boss gareth moon is head of the civil defense's rural firefighting section we have a good mobile law enforcement outfit in the montana highway patrol the montana fish and game department men in emergency serve as an excellent backwoods force frank wiley montana department of aeronautics director and one of the real pioneer pilots who can still fly anything from a jet to a jenny took over our flying problems at eight forty five a m as part of a civil defense emergency plan called operation bulldozer set up by the associated general contractors jack marlow secretary of the montana contractors association had completed a list and location of all heavy construction equipment in the area and reported that all contractors were on stand-by in case they were needed the state department of health was on the ball too they were moving in personnel to test water in ennis west yellowstone and throughout the quake area by nine the morning after the quake at nine fifteen word came in that the red cross was flying in emergency personnel from the west coast potter was thrilled by the offers of help that kept civil defense headquarters phones busy general keith r barney of the army corps of engineers called offering any help needed the governors of idaho and wyoming and three canadian provinces asked if there was anything they could do idaho's highway patrol actually came up and helped keep things under control in the west yellowstone area several search and rescue outfits called offering aid a combined army navy and marine corps reserve unit from butte gathered their medical equipment and ambulances and sped to the Ennis side of the slide as a voluntary, unpaid action.

There were offers from the crack mine rescue teams from the famous Anaconda Company mines in Butte.

When a call went out on the regular radio for housing for the Ennis evacuees, several hundred accommodations were phoned in to a local Butte station.

Another abortive suggestion that men on horseback might be needed to search some of the impassable back country brought over a hundred volunteers in less than an hour a bozeman station was overwhelmed with offers in response to an announcement that station wagons would be needed at the airport to ambulance the wounded to the hospital nurses doctors national guardsmen skin divers they all called in wanting to help at great falls where the montana red cross blood bank was holding a regularly scheduled drawing when word came that they were flying blood to bozeman to help the victims so many volunteers showed up that the total exceeded four hundred and fifty pints and at closing time a hundred and fifty donors were still in line we had special problems distance from any sizable town was one i'd hate to think of the casualties if the quake hit a really populated area potter said the mountains which obstruct short wave signals and set up all sorts of radio blind spots made it difficult to get any sort of ground radio communications going it was impossible from the ground to signal to ennis or to hebgen dam from west yellowstone the radio amateurs did a tremendous job of helping those first few hours they set up a stand-by network and kept it clear for emergency messages one ham father francis a peterson w seven r k from st anthony idaho one of the first to report the quake loaded up his gear drove to west yellowstone and by seven forty five a m the morning after the quake had set up radio control at the otherwise radio less west yellowstone airport another ham harold l better w seven j p d of dillon montana handled emergency communications from dillon the day after the quake then flew his equipment to the west yellowstone airport to help out too the problem was complicated by the multiplicity of wave-lengths on which the various civilian and military agencies were operating We discovered that the high-frequency bands the Civil Defense uses, 150 megacycles, are useless in mountain country, especially in the daytime.

And so that's going to be a thing that we talk about.

But we're not going to get super deep into the Anaconda copper mines.

We are going to talk a good bit about it.

But there is so much history and the connection ties of good old Marcus Daly that was the owner of the Anaconda copper mine that actually turned it into the giant conglomerate that it became.

And his heavy ties to the Wells Fargo VP that also trace back to other old money and how that became.

And it was basically...

One person died and left lasting trauma slash scars on the mining town.

Okay.

So it's, it's every AI company

... remember when companies were called, like, Anaconda Copper?

Copper, yeah, Snowflake.

The manly companies.

He was a prominent labor agitator for the Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World.

He came to Butte to organize the miners and lead a strike against the Anaconda Copper Company.

The mine owners were furious and wanted him gone

And this is where Hammett enters the picture.