'Marcus Daly's Montana Empires,' second book in historian's study of the Smelter City's founder, will have its launch event in Anaconda

Anaconda's rich history has become the subject of considerable interest in recent years, but one of its most important – if not the most important – figure in putting the Smelter City quite literally on the map has long been one of its most elusive: its founder, Marcus Daly.

Much has been told about Daly over the years, not all of it factual as the "Copper King" famously had his papers burned upon his death in 1900 at just 58 years old. Yet historian Brenda Wahler has been determined to uncover as much about Daly as possible and make his story accessible to readers today – and a week from today, Wahler will hold her launch event for "Marcus Daly's Montana Empires: Copper Mining, Racehorses and Politics." 

And fittingly it will be at the jewel in Daly's crown – the former Montana Hotel, now the Historic Montana, whose Tammany Ballroom, named after Daly's beloved racehorse, will host Wahler for a talk and book signing on Friday, March 6 at 6 p.m. 

"Marcus Daly's Montana Empires" is a follow-up to Wahler's first book on the Copper King, "Marcus Daly's Road to Montana," which tells the story of his early life – and her third since she began her journey exploring Daly's life with "Montana Horse Racing: A History." 

Yet while that one offered readers a taste of one of Daly's empires, horse racing, this latest book delves deeply into the political, economic and social circles that were central to the multiple empires the Copper King was forging in Anaconda, Butte and beyond. 

And the nuggets Wahler found show a man nearly as complex as the Periodic Table.

"The two things I tried to avoid when I was writing is I tried very hard to look at it as not a black-and-white thing. It started with the horses, and then looking at how – you can't grow up in Montana without the history of the Anaconda Company – there's this narrative of Anaconda that was the 20th Century narrative and just the awareness that nobody had really looked at Marcus Daly as an individual. Who is this guy? What's he doing? What motivated him? What was his life like? Other than two hagiographies, no one did a critical look at him. It was either 'Anaconda did bad stuff so he must have been a bad guy,' or for others it was 'Daly was a good guy because look at all the good things he did for people. It turns out, he was both,'" Wahler said in an interview last week. "So I think my takeaway is that the myth of the Wild West and the rugged individualist, it's kind of turned on its head with Marcus Daly because he was part of a huge network of family and friends and loyal business associates. It wasn't transactional. There was a lot of loyalty and people getting along with each other. And the myth of the backward West full of ignorant people isn't true: we were on the cutting edge of the modern world. The copper in Butte and the reduction works in Anaconda electrified America. We are a modern nation because of what happened in Southwestern Montana. We changed the world. The role of Marcus Daly in all of that was Daly taking his vision and making a dream into reality, making a vision come true. He may not have been born thinking he's going to be a copper millionaire, but he kept pushing. His gift was finding the right people for a job and turning them loose. We're talking about someone who built these empires and there's one that's not in the title and it's human relationships. If there's a takeaway, it's the richness and depth of how all these people interacted with each other and built the world we live in today – good, bad, indifferent, they put it together."

And speaking of human relationships and people working together, Wahler said she was very appreciative of the help she received in Anaconda with doing the research for her book.

"I am very grateful to all the people I worked with in Anaconda. I'm so glad – people have so much enthusiasm for the project. Folks up at the courthouse, at the [Copper Village] Museum, the Montana Hotel," Wahler said. "For 'Marcus Daly's Road to Montana' I focused a lot of my research efforts on Butte, and as I shifted to 'Empires' I focused on Anaconda. That's where the journey started that led to this book." 

And that's where the journey will continue on Friday, March 6 at 6 p.m. at the Tammany Ballroom of the Historic Montana with Wahler's book launch. 

"I'm really grateful that the folks over there wanted to work with me on this. It seems like the most suitable location, given that it was so close to Daly's heart," Wahler said.

The event is free to attend, is open to the public and light refreshments will be available – as will copies of "Marcus Daly's Montana Empires," which will be available for purchase. 

As to the Anaconda Leader's journey interviewing Wahler about Daly and her book, that will continue next week leading up to the launch.

"Marcus Daly's Montana Empires" is published by The History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. For more information, see https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/marcus-dalys-montana-empires-....