Marcus Daly, a copper prospector, secured financing to purchase the Anaconda mine in Butte, Montana. The company grew to become one of the largest mining corporations in the world, controlling most of the copper output of the United States. The 'Richest Hill on Earth' transformed Butte from a small camp into a cosmopolitan, industrial city known for its deep shafts and labor activism.

Anaconda's dominance shaped the landscape and social consciousness that poets of the American West, particularly those from Montana, would later confront. The environmental devastation from the company's smelters created the 'Anaconda Smelter Stack' and a polluted landscape that features prominently in the work of poets like Richard Hugo. For writers of the Western labor movement, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies), Anaconda represented the monolithic, exploitative power of corporate capital.