Belt

The town of Belt owes its existence to the coal mines located here in the 1890's. In those days the pop. was 4,000. The Anaconda mine, seen here, employed 1,000 men and produced 2,500 tons of coal daily.

The bituminous coal went to the Anaconda smelters in Great Falls and fueled the Great Northern R.R. The coal boom ended during the 1920's; smaller "wagon mines" continued production into the 1950's.

This ventilation fan was among those used in the major mines. This one is from the "East Belt".

Pennsylvania native John Castner discovered rich coal deposits along Belt Creek in 1870. Within just a few years, he and Fort Benton trader T.C. Power opened a commercial coal mine near here. The partners sold coal for use by the Great Northern Railway, the Boston and Montana Refinery in Great Falls and for domestic use in central Montana. Belt, originated to serve the mine, attracting men from throughout the United States and Europe to work side-by-side underground. In 1885, Castner and his wife, Mattie, one of Montana's early African-American businesswomen, established a stage station and hotel at this site on the Lewistown-Great Falls Road. The expansion of the mine by its new owner, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, in 1894 caused a profound change in Belt. Its commercial district relocated to the area adjacent to the stage station on what became known as Castner Street. By the early twentieth century, a jumble of wooden false-front commercial buildings and saloons lined the street, keeping in character with the community's origin as a mining camp. The expansion of the mine and the surrounding area's increasing dependence on agriculture in the early 1900s significantly changed the appearance of Belt's commercial district. The old false-front buildings gave way to the more substantial stone and brick-front buildings that line the street today. Although many lack architectural ornamentation, collectively the buildings gave the appearance of a prosperous and stable community. The commercial district represents the metamorphosis of Belt from a mining camp to a modern city.

Erected by The Montana National Register Sign Program.

Lewis and Clark named nearby Belt Butte for its girdle of rocks and, in 1877, John Castner named his town Belt. Coal brought Castner here, and Fort Benton was the first market for his Castner Coal Company. Then, in 1889, the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company built their reduction works at Great Falls— in part because of the availability of Belt coal. Castner sold his claims to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, which had absorbed the Boston and Montana, and their mine soon employed a thousand men. The town experienced a boom time and in 1900 was Cascade County’s second-largest community, with a population above 2,800, including French, Finnish, Slav, German, and Swedish immigrants. It was during this boom that the jail was constructed, late in the 1890s, when 32 saloons flourished in town. Fire destroyed the Anaconda mine in 1915 and, in 1930, the smelters stopped using coal. Belt’s population fell off, but it remained a center for this agricultural area. The jail itself survived major floods in 1909 and 1953, and a 1976 fire caused by a train derailment, which destroyed five homes and three businesses.

Erected by The Montana National Register Sign Program.

The scenic Highwood Mountains, visible on the skyline to the northeast, are composed of resistant volcanic rocks which tower above the relatively soft surrounding sedimentary rocks. The mountains contain an unusual abundance of a dark igneous rock called shonkinite. Shonkinite occurs in other parts of the world, but it was named for the exposures found near the community of Shonkin on the north side of the Highwood Mountains.

As you drive to the northwest, look for a prominent hill known as Belt Butte northeast of the highway. You can recognize it by its "belt" of Cretaceous sandstone. Belt Butte is notable because it gave its name to Belt Creek, the town of Belt, and to the Big and Little Belt mountains to the south. The Belt Supergroup, an extremely thick and extensive package of western Montana sedimentary and metamorphosed sedimentary rock, hundreds of millions of years old, is found in many mountain ranges of western Montana. The Supergroup was named for the Big and Little Belt mountains thanks to the "belt" of sandstone around Belt Butte!

The Little Belt Mountains, visible to the south, were bowed up by multiple blister-like pockets of magma, molten rock that arched up the overlying sedimentary layers to form domes. The domes and mountains are cored by igneous rock formed about the same time as the Highwood Mountains, about 50 million years ago.

The Great Falls coal field extends through the Armington area. The coal is discontinuous, having developed from plant material that accumulated in a number of Early Cretaceous swamps. Compaction of the remains of swamp plants over millions of years produce the medium-grade bituminous coal in the area. Coal mined in this area powered the locomotives of the Great Northern Railway, fueled the smelter at Great Falls, and heated homes throughout central Montana. Coal mining in the area declined after 1950, when the coal from the Great Falls field could not compete with diesel, oil and natural gas.

GeoFacts:

• Laccoliths are igneous features in this area produced when magma accumulated in a domal shape, up-arching the overlying sedimentary rock. Limestone Butte south of Montana Highway 87 is one of the many laccolith domes of the Little Belt Mountains capped by sedimentary rock. Square and Round Butte are prominent laccoliths along Montana Highway 80 that have eroded exposing their igneous core.

• In the 1890s, Cascade County was the largest coal producer in Montana. Between 1885 and 1955, the coal field produced 38 million tons of coal.

• Look for pale gray stone outcrops of Madison limestone at Sluiceboxes State Monument and Monarch to the south along Montana Highway 89. The limestone formed about 350 million years ago when much of Montana was submerged under a shallow sea.

Geo-Activity:

• The mountain ranges in this area were formed when pockets of magma pushed up through the earth's crust millions of years ago, Imagine what Montana looked like when they were forming and think about what kinds of animals lived here when it was happening. Look for buttes and rock formations that look (like) the walls of ancient castles.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

A one-story wood-frame building stood here between 1897 and 1907. Reflecting the mining town's early hard-drinking culture, it first originally housed two saloons. When Swedish immigrants Charles Carlson and George Edman purchased the lot in 1907, the town's prospects looked strong. The Anaconda Company had just expanded its coal mining operation, and in response to the influx of newcomers, Belt had incorporated as a third-class city. Main Street businessmen, including Carlson and Edman, began replacing their wooden false-front buildings with more permanent structures. Carlson and Edman relied on locally quarried, rough-faced sandstone to construct their two-story commercial block. The first floor housed the Oriental Saloon, which "boasted electric lights, running water and a bar and back bar of mahogany in a colonial style." Iron pilasters and an iron header allowed the contractor to install large plate-glass windows, letting natural light into the interior. Although the windows are gone, the iron framing remains. Carlson converted the saloon into a pool hall and then a "soft drinks parlor" during Prohibition, before retiring in 1926. Later businesses included a butcher shop and a grocery store.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.