🏚️ Anaconda, New Mexico

Anaconda was a small mining community in Cibola County, New Mexico. The town came into existence in the early 1950s when the Anaconda Copper Company of Butte, Montana opened up a uranium ore processing plant 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Grants, along Route 66, to process ore from the Jackpile Mine, then the world's largest open-pit uranium mine. Anaconda was the site of somewhere around 100 homes for the supervisors and management of the company. The Mill was also located on the same property. Contrary to reports, none of the homes were built using "radioactive" material from the plant. Referred to by the residents as "Camp", a carryover from the original tents used as temporary housing during the initial establishment of the operations. The housing was built in three phases. The first group of about 35 houses was constructed of cinderblock walls and had exposed beam ceilings. A building with four efficiency type apartments was included and used to house unmarried employees and was known as the Bachelors Quarters, or simply "The BQ". The two subsequent groups of approximately the same number were wood frame construction with stucco exteriors. The groups came to be called by the order of their building. Old Camp, Middle Camp and New Camp The Mill closed in early 1980s and the houses were sold and removed and the land reclaimed during the next 20 years. Testimony given before the New Mexico Legislature's Economic and Rural Development Committee in 2008 claimed that the mill had polluted local aquifers. Presently there is little to show that the area was once a community.