Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company

The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company (the "Boston and Montana" or "B&M") was a mining, smelting, and refining company which operated primarily in the state of Montana in the United States. It was established in 1887 and merged with the Amalgamated Copper Company in 1901. The Amalgamated Copper Company changed its name to Anaconda Copper in 1910, and became one of America's largest corporations. Historian Michael P. Malone has written, "Well financed and well managed, the Boston and Montana came to rank among the world's greatest copper companies."

Corporate history

Adolph and Leonard Lewisohn were German Jews whose father had established in 1858 an American subsidiary, Lewisohn Brothers, which bought and sold bristles, feathers, hair, metals, and wood. In 1867, Adolph and Leonard emigrated to the United States and took over the company, focusing their attention on the trading of copper, lead, and zinc. In 1879, the brothers were invited to purchase some mines in Arizona, Montana, and Tennessee. With $75,000, they organized the Montana Copper Company, the Tennessee Copper and Chemical Company, and the Miami Copper Company (in Arizona). In 1887, Adolph and Leonard bought Lewisohn Brothers from their father and turned it into an independent company.

The Boston and Montana was organized on July 22, 1887, by the merger of Lewisohn Brothers, the Montana Copper Company, and the mine holdings of C. X. Larrabee (owner of the highly productive and famous Larrabee and Mountain View mines). It quickly became the second-largest company in Montana (only the Anaconda Copper Company in Butte was larger). It owned mines in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, and Tennessee. For many years, it was managed by "Captain" Thomas Couch, a Cornish immigrant and expert miner.

In Montana, the B&M relied heavily on copper mined from the Leonard and the Colusa mines, near Butte. The company owned a small smelter in Meaderville, a small town just east of Butte (now consumed by the Berkeley Pit mine). Other productive mines (the Badger State, Comanche, Liquidator, Mountain View, Pennsylvania, Wandering Jew, and West Colusa) now added their ores to the stream needing smelting and refining. The Meaderville smelter was too small, and any smelter would need cheap power and much water. Leonard Lewisohn considered both Helena and Great Falls for his new smelter.

The balance was tipped in favor of Great Falls due to several factors. First was the existence of a railroad to Great Falls. James Jerome Hill, primary stockholder and president of the Great Northern Railway had established a subsidiary, the Montana Central Railway, on January 25, 1886. Few railroads served Montana at that time. But Butte was a booming mining town that needed to get its metals to market, gold and silver had been discovered near Helena, and coal companies in Canada were eager to get their fuel to Montana's smelters. Hill's close friend and business associate, Paris Gibson, had founded the town of Great Falls on the Great Falls of the Missouri River in 1883, and was promoting it as a site for the development of cheap hydroelectricity and heavy industry. Hill was building the Great Northern across the northern tier of Montana, and it made sense to 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 (even before the company had been incorporated), 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); and Great Falls was complete. Service to Helena began in November 1887, and Butte followed on November 10, 1888.

The second reason was Hill's own investment in the city of Great Falls. 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. In case cheap power, plenty of water, and low shipping rates were not enough of an inducement, Hill also gave Leonard Lewisohn 1,500 shares in the Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company.