THE GRAND ENCAMPMENT SMELTER

Reprint of this story from the February 22, 1901 issue of The Grand Encampment Herald brought to you courtesy of Grandma’s Cabin, Encampment, Wyoming. Preserving History - Serving the Community.

THE GRAND ENCAMPMENT SMELTER

The buildings for the sampler and smelter of the Boston-Wyoming Smelter, Power and Light Co. are now entirely enclosed and Manager Godshall informs us that the whole plant will be ready for business about the first of May. Teams are busy hauling in the machinery from the railroad and some is already in place.

This smelter is of immense scope, its tributary ore extent including portions of Carbon County, Wyoming, and of Routt and Larimer counties, Colorado, with a territorial reach of an area of 1,500 square miles. This Grand Encampment country contains within its Wyoming limits the Elk mountain, Lake creek, Gold hill, Brush creek, French creek, Douglass creek, Big creek, Ferris-Haggarty, Rambler, Copperton, Savery, Sandstone and Jack creek, while the Colorado districts include the Pearl (or Big creek park), Stump, Hog and Whisky parks, the North, South and Middle forks of the Snake river and the Hahn’s peak and the Columbine regions.

From the rich and extensive gold and copper deposits of the Wyoming Gold hill district, twenty miles east of Encampment, the ore can be brought to the smelter by a gravity tramway system with a natural grade of 20 percent, while a twenty-five or thirty mile wagon haul from the southwest will bring to the Encampment smelter the Colorado ores of Hahn’s peak, Columbine, Whiskey and Hog parks and the and the Snake river’s threefold forks.

From the Jack creek, Savery and Sandstone districts to the northwest the ore haul to the smelter will be twenty-five miles inclusive, while from Big Creek and Pearl to the southeast ore can reach Encampment within a wagon distance of twenty-five miles. The ore haul from the big deposits of the Rambler district, including the great Rambler and Ferris-Haggarty mines, will be from fourteen to twenty miles while Copperton will be tapped at a wagon distance of twenty-one miles.

The Encampment smelter, owned by the Boston-Wyoming Smelter, Power and Light Company, and designed and being constructed by L. D. Godshall, smelter and mining manager, is locally known in terse and trenchant frontier phrase as the “self cocking” smelter, on account of its practically automatic system of operation. The smelter will have nineteen ore bins of an average capacity of 100 tons each, connecting tramway and car, and from the time the ore leaves the wagon which brings it to the smelter its handling is automatic until it reaches the furnace - such tedious things as the shovel and the wheelbarrow being dead letters in the work— by the impelling and labor saving system of the ‘self cocking’ smelter. Automatically discharged from the receiver into the car, the ore wends its way through the encircling bins and several departments of the building, the pressure of a lever here or there keeping everything moving.

The economical results of this automatic movement are noted alike in the saving of space and labor itself, any roomage for actual manual ore handling being unnecessary, while the working force is reduced at least 50 percent, the Encampment smelter with its 100-ton capacity, to be operated in all of its actual smelting operation by a force of only four men per working shift.

The main smelter building is 103x72 feet with an engine, blower and boiler room with machine shop attached, of 75x45 feet. The operating fuel will consist of pine wood, charcoal and coke, the coke being hauled from the Union Pacific station, while the wood and charcoal will be of local supply. The smelter company is also interested in an electric light and water supply system for the town of Encampment, and this enterprise will include bringing electric power to the smelter, thus giving these reduction works the great double motors of electricity and steam.

The smelter will be of the copper matte process, with 50 percent mat as the reduction standard. Reduction will begin with a daily receipt of 50 tons of ore, and as soon as 75 tons per day are assured another furnace will be put in and these Wyoming and Colorado ores be reduced to the regulation of 98 percent pig copper. The smelter is being erected at a cost of $40,000.

The smelter company itself owns and operates two of the largest and best properties in the Encampment district. The great Ferris-Haggarty and Rambler will also send their ores to Encampment furnaces, thereby effecting very heavy savings in present wagon haulage, freightage, etc., as well as securing the prompt reduction of their lower grade ores. It is estimated that the Ferris-Haggarty alone can save $30,000 per year though the Encampment smelter.