By the early 20^th century, it was obvious that smelting was not only a filthy business, it was deadly. In Salida, Colorado, the smelter’s clouds of arsenic and lead killed trees and crops downwind. Ranchers filed lawsuits over sickened animals. At night the white-hot molten mass poured over the bank of the Arkansas River, “a most impressive sight.”[1] 

But it was 1916—the country was about to enter WWI, and the war effort needed metal. And so the Ohio and Colorado Smelting and Refining Company built a taller smokestack: 365 feet tall, twice as high as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. By elevating the exhaust, pollution drifted farther downwind, displacing the problem.

After the war, the smokestack was abandoned but not demolished, left like a beacon in the landscape. In 1972, the county wanted to demolish it, but locals organized a Save Our Stack (SOS) coalition. They succeeded, and the towering old chimney entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, which stated: “[It] serves as a monument to those who worked at the smelter. Here they came—from Austria, from Greece, from Ireland, from Italy. Many of these families still reside in the Salida area and are counted among its finest citizens.”

And there it sits. Built to make pollution disappear, it’s now the most visible thing for miles, reaching for the heavens like an obelisk. It organizes the surrounding valley, drawing the eye upward. A tower engineered to disperse harm became a landmark that concentrates meaning.

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Links:

• National Register of Historic Places nomination form for the Salida (“Smeltertown”) Smokestack – entered January 11, 1976

  
  

• Video: drone footage of the smokestack - David Mabry, The Road That Beckons (Youtube)

  
  

• Salida Smokestack - The Salida Museum

  
  

• The ‘Stack Turns 100 – Susan Jesuroga, Colorado Central Magazine, August 1, 2017

  
  

• History of the Salida Smokestack in Smeltertown – Jillian, Creekside Chalets, Salida, CO     

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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[1]This vivid sentence comes from the Salida Smokestack's nomination form to enter the National Register of Historic Places, which it did on January 11, 1976.