Montana Gem Drives Golf Course Plan
Lemons into lemonade. A sow’s ear into a silk purse. And a toxic wasteland into a golf course.
Part of the Superfund site at Anaconda, Mont., has been transformed into Old Works Golf Course. It’s a classy Jack Nicklaus playground with a mountain backdrop.
“It’s as fine a golf course as we have in this country,” says Bill Hickey, a well-traveled golfer and executive director of the local school district. “It has really changed the future of Anaconda.”
The course, which opened last year, is an inspiration to those planning the future of Shoshone County’s Bunker Hill Superfund site.
Old Works itself was inspired by two North Idaho recreation projects: the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course, built where a sawmill once clanked and steamed; and Silver Mountain Resort, whose gondola casts a shadow upon the site of the old Bunker Hill lead and zinc smelter complex.
Anaconda’s smelter processed copper, but when it closed in 1980 it left an environmental legacy similar to Bunker Hill’s. The ground was contaminated with heavy metals. It was owned by Atlantic Richfield.
“ARCO would’ve had to spend $65 million to dig all this stuff up and bury it,” says Jim Davison, executive director of the Anaconda Local Development Corp. “It cost them around $35 million to build the golf course.”
It was corporation board members who came to Davison with the idea in 1989. Two of them traveled to Florida to talk with Nicklaus about the idea.
The intense groundskeeping required by a golf course means that the barrier between clean topsoil and the contaminated ground will be kept intact.
The community gets both a cleaner environment and an economic boost out of the deal. A third of the golfers are coming from out of state. Combined with skiing, hunting and other ways to have fun, Old Works is helping make Anaconda an “in” place to live, Hickey says.
“A house that sold in ‘94 for $50,000 is probably selling for $100,000 now.”
Deer Lodge County owns the course. Nicklaus’ company designed and operates it. Old Works lost money the first year, Davison says, but not as much as expected.
Because the county doesn’t have big construction costs to repay, the course is inexpensive to play.
“It’s probably the best buy in golf in the entire country,” Hickey says. “You can play golf at Old Works for $33. Comparable courses cost $75 to $200.”
The course flaunts its history. A lone smokestack stands sentinel above it. The landscaping incorporates old mine timbers, ladles that poured molten copper, old furnace walls. There’s an interpretive trail around the 220-acre site and a $700,000 clubhouse from which to view it all.
“Hole No. 7 is actually between two great big slag heaps,” Davison says. “You play down this magnificent green stretch of grass with all this black slag on either side of you, with timbers hanging out … It’s just a kick.”
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