“Take notice of the giant cottonwood trees lining the streets of town,” said D’Aron Johnson, owner of Ambrose Heating and Cooling, based in Hamilton, Mont. “Those were planted by copper king Marcus Daly when he founded the town.” Johnson added that, given the fashion of the mid-1800s, Daly didn’t want his wife getting a tan while riding down the street in an open carriage.
Hamilton’s history is multifaceted, from silver and copper mining around the turn of the century, to becoming a hub for the medical industry a century later. Both Rocky Mountain Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline, two microbiological research companies, set up camp there in 2005.