Two properties turn to golf to breathe new life into sites that were for a long time abused and mistreated.

To the uninformed golfer standing on the tee of the 470-yard ninth at Old Works Golf Course, the smokestack is merely an aiming point out in the distance. But it is a lot more than a 60-story target.

The smokestack of the old Washoe Smelter has been a symbol of Anaconda, Mont., since it was built in 1918. For years, the 585-foot, 11/2-inch smokestack, the tallest in the world when it was erected, was the symbol of prosperity. The Anaconda Mining Company located its smelting operation in the small western Montana town 30 minutes west of Butte, and when smoke bellowed out of the stack, paychecks followed.

Little did the hard-working townspeople know it would become a symbol of the scars that were being inflicted on the land by pollution. Later, it became a symbol of despair when the smelting operation stopped in 1980 and the town's economy and population dropped like the temperature on a December night.

Today, the stack is still the prominent landmark in the Deer Lodge Valley. To the thousands of cars that will drive along nearby Interstate 90 this spring and summer, perhaps going north to Glacier National Park or south toYellowstone, it will be a sign that a golf course is near. But not just any golf course.

Old Works is one of a growing number of courses around the country that have sprung up on land once thought to be worthless. When the course opens this spring, visitors will see 250 green acres dotted with black, slag-filled bunkers and various remnants of Anaconda's mining past incorporated into a par-72, community-owned, Jack Nicklaus design that can be stretched to an

altitude-adjusted 7,581 yards. Locals will see something else. They will see life blooming on land that had long been considered dead because of the pollution inflicted by the smelting operation. It was land that no living thing -- not the deer that now leave footprints in the black bunkers or the bluebirds that now buzz the fairways -- would have reason to inhabit. Now, clean Warm Springs Creek, filled with trout, borders the front nine and rushes through the back.

"I'm amazed at what they've done," said Gene Colucci, a lifelong Anaconda resident. "There was nothing living out there before. It was desolate. There was nothing out there."

What was there, before Nicklaus turned it into a golf course, was a barren piece of Montana wilderness. With the exception of a few inexplicable trees it could have been on the other side of the moon. It was a pock mark on the otherwise beautiful countryside. For years after the Old Works closed, it had been a place where townspeople dumped their garbage, abandoned cars and heaven knows what else. Now there are rolling fairways blending in with Anaconda's past.

The Old Works Golf Course is a world-class facility built by the Atlantic Richfield Company for Anaconda and Deer Lodge County. Not only does Old Works have 18 fascinating holes, it has an excellent practice facility featuring three holes. Nicklaus has given the Deer Lodge area a course that everyone can play for much less -- estimated in the $30 range -- than the typical fees you'd expect to find in a metropolitan area.

"I'm excited about it," said Nicklaus. "I've always thought it was (exciting) to take a bad piece of land and try to be creative with it."

Just as amazing as the resurrection of land that once was the site of the town's first smelter was the effort to make the project a reality. It would not have happened without a unique alliance of community leaders, ARCO, the Environmental Protection Agency and Nicklaus.

It took some imagination, nerve and teamwork to create the golf course, an idea whose inception brought snickers at first. Building a golf course seemed a noble but far-fetched solution to what was a problem for all concerned. Some old-timers still held out hope that industry would again return to the site. Others thought it folly to imagine Nicklaus coming to Anaconda. But almost nine years after the project was first proposed, there will be golfers playing Old Works when the snow thaws in the spring.

"From the beginning, everybody wanted to make this a win-win-win situation," said Charlie Coleman, EPA project manager. "It made for a very enjoyable project. I give a lot of credit to the community and to ARCO. To make this happen, people had to do certain things."

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Anaconda was a company town for almost 100 years, but that ended when the smelting operation closed. ARCO had purchased the Anaconda Company in 1977 in what company officials admit was one of the worst business decisions ever made.

Not only did ARCO close down the smelter three years after it bought the company, but it was also saddled with the responsibility of cleaning up the pollution. In 1983, the area was designated a Superfund site and more than 100 years of damage had to be dealt with.

Under Superfund regulations, ARCO had two choices: either a removal action or a remedial action. On one hand, a removal of the waste left by the smelter would be extremely costly and problematic. And even if the company did remove tons of copper tailings, slag and other waste, where would it put it? Community leaders knew one thing about the end result: They wanted something more than a grassed-over area surrounded by a tall fence.

"I was driving back from Seattle and came by Coeur d'Alene," said Gene Vuckovich, then the city and county manager. "That used to be an old sawmill. I thought, 'If they can do it, why can't we build a golf course?'"

When Vuckovich first brought up the idea in a meeting, there were a few chuckles and greater skepticism. Although no Superfund project had ever been turned into a golf course, planners were aware of a growing trend throughout the country toward turning landfills, old quarries and sand pits into golf courses. It wouldn't be an easy project, with EPA regulations to follow, and it would be expensive. Still, proponents argued, it would be something that benefited everyone. Once all the studies were completed and the meetings were adjourned, ARCO agreed to build the course and then turn it over to the community.

"The safest thing for us to do was to just build a fence around it," said Sandy Stash, ARCO's Montana facilities manager. "This project was viewed as risky, but there was enough interest to move forward. Now it's being held up as a national model for Superfund. . . . It was one of the worst cases. Nobody knew what to do with it, but the community came to us."

A key ingredient to the success of the project was Nicklaus. "They felt it was critical to have a name or the name attached to the facility," said Old Works director of golf Steve Wickcliffe. Some of the biggest names in golf course architecture were contacted, including Tom Fazio and Arnold Palmer.

Building on a contaminated piece of land posed some unique problems. The land was covered with crushed rock high in copper and zinc content. While the waste would be on the very low end as a human hazard, it would be a threat to the environment. To eliminate the threat, the property would be capped by two inches of limestone, then 16 inches of topsoil. The entire course was underlined and a complicated drainage system was put in to keep water from ponding and contaminating ground water below. Water is captured and recycled by a computerized irrigation system.

The course was originally going to be a desert links-style layout with ribbons of fairways lined by badlands. Coleman and the EPA felt more of the land needed to be capped and covered with grass. Nicklaus complied and the result is a pleasing-to-the-eye layout that is dominated by a brilliant green with 70 acres of natural grass.

"We needed to have more things covered," said Coleman. "From the community aspect, they have lived with this for 100 years and the land was flat-out blah. The idea of having things green was pretty appealing."

Nicklaus and the EPA worked hand in hand. Someone from the agency was there each day to answer questions and monitor construction. Many of the directives cost ARCO a lot of money and slowed the construction -- along with a wet autumn of 1995 -- but the cooperation was essential to the success of the project.

Nicklaus didn't see the land as being that bad, aside from being dead. There were some elevation changes, especially on the back nine, and some wonderful vistas. After construction began, many artifacts from the smelting operation were found. That enabled Nicklaus to blend a lot of what was found into the course, giving it a historical theme.

"I thought it was a very good piece of land from my standpoint because of all the history that was there, all the pieces that were left in a very pretty valley," said Nicklaus. "I had an awful lot of natural things to work with, natural or created or historic, which made doing the golf course, I don't think, very difficult. It actually made it very exciting. The hard part was working with all the restrictions you have from Superfund."

The EPA supervision helped balloon the cost of the course to an estimated $11 million and the cleanup to about $30 million. Still, ARCO saved millions. Company officials estimate removing the waste could have cost as much as $65 million.

"What we saved in lawyers' fees paid for the golf course," said Stash. "We saved a lot of money."

When the course opens, ARCO will turn it and 1,500 adjoining acres over to the community. The only debt the community will have is the $700,000 clubhouse, but not many communities of 8,000 have a world-class course of its own, much less a Jack Nicklaus signature course.

Nicklaus' Golden Bear Golf Club Services will run the course with the Anaconda-Deer Lodge Golf Course Authority overseeing the operation.

It is hoped the course will give the area's economy a big boost. The area already has excellent camping, hunting, fishing and skiing nearby. Anaconda has charm and an interesting history. It has the historic Washoe Theater, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, nearby Georgetown Lake and Mt. Haggin State Park. Officials are shooting for 20,000 rounds a year in a season that usually runs from mid-May to mid-October.

"The trend is to having recreation year-round," said Anaconda insurance agent Mike King, a member of the golf course authority. "Montana has the lakes and mountains, but we needed something else for summer recreation. Southwest Montana is a beautiful area and a course will give people more reason to spend time here."

The course is expected to employ from 30 to 50 people, and it is hoped a major hotel chain will follow the success of the course and provide much-needed additional rooms.

As far as the golf course is concerned, the local people won't be forgotten. While some new courses are private and pricey, Old Works will be resident friendly.

"We definitely feel this will be the best value in golf," said Wickcliffe.

And it's easy to find. The smokestack marks the spot. -- Reid Hanley