Brown Hoisting Machinery Crane - Anaconda, MT
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 46° 07.896 W 112° 56.153
12T E 350456 N 5110490
This railway crane is displayed along Pizzini Way, the road leading to the Old Works Golf Course at the northeastern corner of Anaconda.
Waymark Code: WMMMD0
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 10/08/2014
Views: 5
Built by the Brown Hoisting Machinery Company of Cleveland, Ohio, founded in Cleveland in 1885, this was, in their lineup of hoisting machines, a relatively small machine. Doubtless originally owned by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, or their wholly owned railway, the Butte, Anaconda & Pacific Railway, it would have been built in the late 1800s or the early 1900s. These cranes were generally steam powered.
In 1927 the Brown Hoisting Machinery Co. merged with Industrial Works to become Industrial Brownhoist Corp., so this would definitely have been built prior to the merger. Every time the company or the railway had a car tip off the tracks, this crane, or one similar, would have been called upon to drag it back to the straight and narrow. I doubt, though, that it would have been capable of hoisting steam locomotives back on the tracks. The railway did have a number of electric locomotives, at least some of which this crane would likely have been able to handle.
