1906-1907 



V 



HEKTOEN'S promised land, too, lay in the west. The 

 Amalgamated copper company, situate in Anaconda, 

 was at the moment in suit with the farmers of the district 

 egarding the toxicologic effects of smelter fumes. The farm 

 tock had been dying there because of the fumes the farmers 

 said; the company did not know; so the question at issue was 

 what was killing the animals. January 3, 1906, Wherry 

 wrote Marie out of River Forest, as follows: 



I start for Anaconda, Montana, at 9:00 to-morrow morning 

 and can't say how long I'll be gone. ... I will try to collect 

 material and complete the work in Chicago. I will at least 

 be able to get out of debt again and perhaps make some of the 

 money we need. 



He arrived in Anaconda in the night of the sixth. By the 

 eighth he was established and wrote me: "Hektoen . . . fixed 

 it up for me at $200 a month and expenses, and next a m after 

 reaching Chgo I left for here. . . . They want a horse disease 

 investigated." A more detailed account of what his new life 

 was to be appeared in this letter : 



You probably know what an organization "Amalgamated 

 Copper" is. It has enormous plants here. Marcus Daly 

 tried to make Anaconda the capital of the state but failed. 

 He put up this hotel, which is a peach, a fine library, theatre, 

 etc. The company has a large arsenic (one of its by- 

 products) plant here & last month turned out about 1 50,000 

 barrels — enough to pigment the whole Caucasian race. Well, 

 about three years ago a large number of cattle & horses in the 

 surrounding county died, and the fumes from the arsenic mill 

 stack were made the cause. The company settled with the 

 ranchers for $35,000 and everything was O K. An improved 

 stack was put in at the cost of $1,000,000 which collects most 

 of the solid matter from the fumes and from which they get 



