Tallest masonry tower

What to remember

After just 144 days of construction, the chimney of the Washoe smelter at Anaconda, Montana, was finished in 1919. At 178.3 m, or 585 feet, no masonry tower rises higher.

That figure combines a brick chimney 169.2 m tall with the downhill side of a concrete foundation 9.1 m tall. The inside diameter narrows from 23.2 m at the bottom of the brick chimney to about 18.3 m at the top. The stack was built by the Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Company of New York for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.

When new, the brick was fully covered with a terra cotta coating. By the time the smelter closed in 1981, most of it had worn away except on the upper 40%. The stack and its viewing area make up the Anaconda Smoke Stack State Park.