A suburb of Great Falls, Black Eagle gets its name from Black Eagle Falls on the Missouri River. As the Lewis & Clark expedition completed their month-long portage of the series of waterfalls in June and July 1805, Captain Lewis noted a Black Eagle on an island near the fifth waterfall.
The community of Black Eagle began as a settlement around the Boston & Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company smelter. Under various owners, the smelter dominated the skyline and economy of Black Eagle and Great Falls until it closed in 1980. The iconic smokestack was demolished 1982. Today, the town survives as a suburb of Great Falls and overlooks the Missouri River and Giant Springs State Park, home of a state fishery and the Roe River, one of the world's shortest.
