Anaconda Forest Products Company (Bonner, Mont.)

The Montana Improvement Company began construction of a large lumber mill on the Blackfoot River in 1885. Construction continued into 1886, and the town of Bonner was built to house employees and managers. The mill had a rated capacity of 125,000 feet in eleven hours. In 1887, because of timber suits against the Montana Improvement Company, the Big Blackfoot Milling Company was organized; it absorbed the Blackfoot Milling and Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1888, in 1891. Andrew Hammond, E. L. Bonner, Richard and Eddy and others organized the company and continued lumber operations. In 1898, Marcus Daly purchased the mill to provide mine timbers and lumber for his Butte and Anaconda mining and smelting operations. W. H. Hammond was the mill's first manager. He retired after the sale of the mill to Daly and was succeeded for brief periods by A. W. Griffin and James E. Totman.

Kenneth Ross had come to Montana from Nova Scotia via Pennsylvania to work on the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was later hired to build small lumber mills at Bearmouth, Montana, and owned a sawmill in Evaro, Montana, and supplied bridge timbers for the Montana Central Railroad; that business ended in 1892 because of competition from the timber empire of Daly, Hammond, and Clark. Those same men asked Ross to assume control of their lumber empire just after, promising that they would not mix politics with business. He served as manager of the Bonner operation until eighteen months later, when Daly involved him in politics. John R. Toole, one of Daly's confidantes, replaced him; Ross returned to the mill in 1900 as supervisor with Toole as the mill's president. During their management, they faced the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) and their agitation of the lumbermen who worked for the mill; both were threatened with death by I.W.W. operatives. Ross retired in 1925. He was succeeded by W.C. Lubrecht as general manager; he had worked at the mill since 1896, and served for over 40 years.

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