This fifteen-story smokestack was completed in 1917 for a proposed sugar beet processing plant in Hamilton, toward the south end of the Bitterroot Valley. A number of financial and other issues, including the outbreak of World War I, ended the plans for a processing plant. In 2000 Ravalli County bought the site and constructed a search and rescue headquarters. A pair of gigantic, lighted "R's" were installed atop the smokestack in the early 1970's by a local business owner. Taken down for safety reasons, one of the 12-foot tall letters can now be seen on the side of a microbrewery in downtown Hamilton.
