Great Falls
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Great Falls. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Montana, the county-seat of Cascade co. It is on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, and the Great Northern railroads, and on the Missouri river. It is the center of an important mining region, and has extensive smelting works for the reduction of copper, gold, and silver ores. Lead, iron, zinc, and coal are also mined in the vicinity. The industries include the manufacture of flour, mining machinery, etc. It has an important trade in wool and is the center of an important agricultural region. The river here is spanned by two steel bridges, each over 1,000 feet long. The notable buildings include a public library, a city hall, and a hotel. There are seven parks. The neighboring country is of great scenic beauty. Water power is developed from Rainbow and Great Falls, which produces more than 200,000 horse power. Pop. (1910) 13,- 948; (1920) 24,121. GREAT FISH RIVER. (1) In Cape Colony, a river rising in the Sneeuwberg Mountains, and, after a generally S. E. Indian course of 230 miles, entering the Ocean in latitude 33° 25' S. and longitude 27° E. The Midland railway which connects Port Elizabeth and Port Alfred with Kimberley skirts part of the river; bridge at Cradock, there is an iron and Fish River Station is 207 miles from Port Elizabeth. (2) Great Fish river, or Back's river, in North America, enters an inlet of the Arctic Ocean in long. 95° W., after passing through Lake Pelly. Sir George Back traced its course to the ocean.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the county seat of Cascade County, Montana. The site was occupied by settlers in 1884. The city was incorporated in 1888. The population in 1909 was about 23,000. The falls of the Missouri River afford excellent water power. Flour, furniture, implements, vehicles, and woolen goods are produced. There are extensive grazing, agricultural, and timbered tracts in the vicinity. There are valuable sandstone quarries and mines of iron, coal, lead, silver, copper, and gold. Smelting is the chief local industry. The chimney of the smelter plant of the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company is the largest in the world. In fact, it is exceeded in height by four edifices only--two skyscrapers in New York City, the Washington Monument , and the Eiffel Tower. The shaft stands on a hill and rises 506 feet above the foundation. The inside diameter is 50 feet at the top. The walls are 66 inches thick at the base and 18 inches at the top. The builder set up a brickyard for his own use. The foundation required over 5,000 barrels of cement and the chimney proper required about the same number of barrels of lime. Two hundred thousand feet of timber were required for scaffolding. The structure was built inside of a year and cost nearly $250,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The industry both accounts lead with is gone. Aiton's 1910 pride, the 506-foot smelter chimney of the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company on the hill at Black Eagle, passed to Anaconda, outlasted the smelter itself, and was dynamited in 1982 after the refining works closed; the "Big Stack" survives only as a small memorial park. Since 1942 the city's largest employer has instead been the military: Malmstrom Air Force Base, later headquarters of the 341st Missile Wing, which tends Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos scattered across the surrounding wheat country. The dams that Collier's credited with "more than 200,000 horse power" still work, and Great Falls is still called the Electric City, but it grew far more slowly than the 1920 figure of 24,121 suggests, reaching roughly 60,000 by the 2020 census. Charles M. Russell, the cowboy painter who lived and died there, has become the town's best-known asset, with a museum built around his log studio in 1953.
Written for this edition, 2026.