Old Works GC

There aren’t too many golf courses with a story like the Old Works in Anaconda. In the 1880’s the Old Works was two sites (Upper Works and Lower Works) that at their height had a capacity to process 3,000 tons of ore daily that came shipped in by rail from the Butte mines. That all lasted until 1910 when the more modern Washoe Smelter was built, which resulted in the closure of Old Works.

Having been dismantled and abandoned, Old Works was reduced to a local garbage dump site for decades. Only slowly did the area residents recognize the profound impact of the hazardous materials leaking into the surrounding environment, a toxic mix of arsenic, copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc. As a result, in 1983 the Environmental Protection Agency stepped in and designated the original Old Works site as a high priority superfund cleanup project.

Finally in the early 1990s the town of Anaconda decided to move forward with creating a new golf course where the Old Works used to run its operations. As part of a broader, costly cleanup process, ARCO the smelter operators committed around $20 million to the golf course. This enabled the small town of Anaconda to actively seek bids from some of the top golf course designers in the country, ultimately deciding to go with creating a Jack Nicklaus Signature Designed Course. Nicklaus himself played an exhibition match in July of 1997 to celebrate the opening of Old Works Golf Course.

Since opening, Old Works has remained one of the most well-known and sought after golf courses in Montana. With it’s unique black sand traps, and remnants of the old mining days, Old Works is a bucket list type of course for many golfers around the state and beyond.