Toston Smelter

By editor

Toston, Broadwater County, Montana

Now, if there’s one thing the history of the American West teaches a feller, it’s that when you mix a heap of ore, a river, and the promise of a railroad, folks tend to get mighty hopeful. The Toston Smelter, built in 1883 on the banks of the Missouri River in Montana, was one such hopeful venture. It aimed to wrestle the lead-silver ores from the earth near Radersburg, a mining camp tucked away in the Big Belt Mountains east of the river. The organizers were downright sunny about their prospects. The ore was there, the river was there, and the railroad was on its way. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, as it turned out, quite a good deal.

The first thing to know is that the Toston Smelter was not your everyday smelter. No sir, it was built to use what was called the pyritic smelting process--a newfangled, experimental sort of operation that promised to do away with the usual need for coal or charcoal. The idea was to use the heat generated by burning the sulfur in the iron pyrites themselves--the ore was rich in iron sulfide, after all--as the furnace’s own fuel. This was supposed to be a stroke of genius, since coal and charcoal had to travel a fair distance and cost money. So, with the Missouri River flowing nearby and the railroad creeping closer, the promoters figured they had the perfect spot.

William L. Austin, the metallurgist and president of the company, was the chief architect behind this scheme. Austin wasn’t a man easily dissuaded by the usual obstacles; he had a mind for metallurgy and a stubborn streak longer than the Missouri River itself. Along with a handful of backers--Duncan T. Hunter, Everard Heneage, Frederick A.C. Amcotts, and William K. Henson--Austin organized the Toston Smelter Company in August 1885. They built a pilot plant just upstream from the smelter site, and when that showed some promise, Austin set about building the full-sized operation.

Unfortunately, what worked in theory did not quite translate into practice. The pyritic smelting process, as operated at Toston, was a bit like trying to light a campfire with wet wood and a handful of damp matches. The plant ran for less than two months before it shut down, temporarily, as the men scratched their heads and tried to decide whether the whole thing was a fool’s errand. They remodeled and expanded the facility, but the smelter remained idle through late May of 1887.

It was at this point that the Helena Mining and Reduction Company stepped in with a 16-month lease. These folks did not put their faith in experimental tricks. No, they converted the Toston Smelter into a conventional lead-silver smelter--the kind that used the tried-and-true methods of smelting that had been honed in the eastern states and abroad. This change breathed life into the plant. Suddenly, the smelter was a bustling place, employing up to 150 men and reducing 100 tons of ore every day. The ore mostly came from Radersburg, about twelve miles away, while coal came from a mine just three miles up Six Mile Creek. Limestone, needed as flux in the smelting process, was hauled from the mountains scarcely two miles distant. Everything was local, handy, and the smelter seemed to be working as it should.

The lease with Helena Mining and Reduction Company expired in early 1889, and control reverted to the original Toston Smeltering Company. But by then, the fortunes of the smelter were on a downward slope. The plant operated sporadically after that, sputtering along as best it could until it finally closed up shop at the end of 1891. While precise records of total production are missing, it’s estimated that during its heyday the smelter reduced some 48,000 tons of ore.

One might imagine that such a place, swarming with men and machinery, would leave a lasting mark. Indeed, many of the men who toiled at the smelter stayed on in the area--taking up farming, working for the railroad that finally did come, hauling ore, or laboring in the nearby mines. The community that grew around Toston was no stranger to hardship. Earthquakes and fires took their toll, threatening to wipe out the town by 1935. Yet life persisted.

An ironic twist to the story is the smelter’s former slag dumps--piles of leftover rock and waste from the smelting process--thrown straight into the river. Over time, these slag heaps settled and the spot transformed into a favored swimming and fishing hole for locals. What was once industrial waste became a place of leisure and community gathering, a curious transformation that speaks to the resilience and adaptability of people and place.

Fast forward to 2009, when the Montana Department of Environmental Quality undertook a reclamation project to clean up the 9.4-acre site. After years of weathering and neglect, the area was finally restored, and today no trace remains of the old smelter. The river flows quietly by, untroubled by the ghosts of furnaces long cold.

It’s tempting to see the Toston Smelter as a saga of failure and dashed hopes. But perhaps it’s better understood as a chapter in the larger story of American enterprise--full of ambition, experimentation, hard work, and the inevitable bumps along the way. The great mining engineer and metallurgist William L. Austin once said, “The path to progress is littered with the wreckage of experiments; it is through failure that we find success.” The Toston Smelter may well fit that bill.

So next time you find yourself by the Missouri River, near the little town of Toston, think of the men who tried to make a new kind of smelter work, the coal haulers, the miners, and the families who built a life on the edge of the mountains. For a brief, shining moment, they were part of a grand experiment--one that, like many others, left its mark not in bricks and mortar but in the stories passed down through the years.

See also

• Toston Smelter at Toston, Broadwater County
• Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills at Townsend, Broadwater County
• Smelting the Ore at Anaconda, Deer Lodge County