Drive west out of Thompson Falls on Highway 200 this summer and you will meet more loaded trucks than you did a year ago. They are hauling stibnite ore down off a mountain that had not seen active mining since 1983, headed for a smelter that just tripled the size of its furnace room. If you have lived here a while, you have probably already clocked the extra traffic, the new hum out toward Stibnite Hill, and maybe a stranger's out-of-state plate parked outside the Wild Coyote Saloon.
What you may not have clocked is that the company behind all of it also bought a neighborhood.
Nine Furnaces, One Very Small Town
United States Antimony Corporation has run a smelter about 13 miles west of town since 1969, quietly processing a mineral most people never think about until it shows up in flame retardants, batteries, and ammunition. China controls roughly 85 percent of the world's antimony supply, which is the reason the Pentagon and the state of Montana have suddenly taken a keen interest in a small operation in Sanders County.
Last September, Governor Greg Gianforte flew in for a groundbreaking on a $15 million expansion that promised 25 new jobs and a fourfold jump in monthly processing capacity, from 100 tons to more than 500. The new construction added nine gas-fired furnaces, and the company began firing them up one at a time in May, with all nine targeted to be running by the end of June, on top of the older facility that is still operating while its own renovation waits until 2027.
Vice President Jeff Fink, who managed the build, has said the new furnaces run at 300 percent more capacity each than the old ones, with lower labor per ton and lower emissions. The federal government helped pay for it. USAC was awarded $27 million from the Department of War in March, split roughly $20 million for the Thompson Falls work and $7 million for a related Alaska project, with payments tied to construction milestones as they're hit.
The Ore Is Moving Again After Forty-Three Years
The smelter needs ore, and for decades the company got it from Mexico and other overseas sources because the underground mine on Stibnite Hill had been shut since 1983. That changed this spring. USAC restarted surface mining at Stibnite Hill in April, and a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 25 shows just how fast that restart has picked up speed.
| 2025 mining campaign | 2026 mining campaign (through Aug. 25) | |
|---|---|---|
| Ore moved | about 800 tons | about 576 tons |
| Duration | 45 days | ongoing |
| Daily pace | roughly 18 tons/day | roughly 42 tons/day |
That is more than double last year's daily haul rate, three truckloads a day rolling down off the mountain toward the company's flotation mill for processing before the concentrate heads to the smelter. It is also the plainest explanation for why Highway 200 west of town feels busier than it used to.
The Line In The Earnings Call Nobody Expected
Buried in a recent earnings call transcript, alongside talk of furnace milestones and federal payment schedules, is a sentence that has nothing to do with mining chemistry and everything to do with Thompson Falls:
"You may remember we bought a housing development in Thompson Falls late last year to house people that couldn't find a place to live."
That single line is the part of this story that doesn't show up in a press release about tonnage or contract values. A company whose business is smelting rock decided the fastest way to solve a hiring problem was to become a landlord. It didn't wait for the local rental market to catch up with 25 new jobs and a construction crew. It bought housing outright.
For a town this size, that is not a small move. It means some of the people now filling those new furnace-room shifts are living in homes the company itself owns, not competing for whatever else was already on the market. Whatever else the expansion changes about Thompson Falls, this is the part that landed first and quietest.
What This Looks Like If You Already Live Here
Down the road from the plant, Wild Coyote Saloon owner Kevin Bush has noticed the same uptick everyone else has, and said the extra activity has been good for business. Inside the plant, plant manager Rob Hill, who has spent 32 years with the company, put it about as plainly as anyone: a small, backwoods Montana operation is suddenly at the center of something the whole country is paying attention to, a position he said the company isn't used to being in.
You do not need to work at the smelter to feel the edges of this. It shows up as a longer wait behind an ore truck on 200, a fuller parking lot at the saloon on a Tuesday, a new face or two around town who wasn't there last summer. None of it is dramatic on its own. Put together, it is the shape of a company outgrowing its own workforce, its own housing stock, and its own reputation as a quiet local outfit, all in the same year.
The Furnaces Aren't Finished Growing
USAC's own targets suggest this isn't a one-year story. The company has said it expects to deliver somewhere between $75 million and $95 million worth of antimony ingots to the federal government in 2026 alone, on top of a nine-figure sole-source contract with the Defense Logistics Agency worth up to $245 million. The older Thompson Falls smelter is still due for its own renovation in 2027. The mining pace at Stibnite Hill is still accelerating, not leveling off.
Whatever comes next, the housing purchase already told us something the furnace numbers alone did not: growth this fast doesn't stay contained to one property line. It spills into who lives where, and how fast a small town has to adjust when its biggest employer starts solving problems the rest of us usually leave to the market.
If you're curious what a year like this actually does to property and housing patterns around Sanders County, that's the kind of question I spend my days answering. Deborah Warren has been tracking this market since the late 1990s, and I'm always glad to talk through what's changing and what it means for you. Contact Deb for a local market consult.
