The Ingenious Community: Georgetown, Colorado, and the Evolution of Western American Silver Milling and Metallurgy, 1864-1896
By Robert L. Spude N ational Park Service, Santa Fe
n 1870, U.S. Milling Commissioner Rossiter Traditional Beginnings \XI. Raymond boasted that two recent inno I vations "justify lfor) us in America the most During the 1859 rush to " Pikes Peak," valuable contributions that have been made to Georgetown arose on the banks of south Clear the metallurgy of silver in the last five years." Creek fork, and was named for Kentuckian Usually a conservative chronicler o f stati stics, George F Griffith, discoverer of the district. The the mining commissioner may have exaggerated, gold diggings flourished for a season then waned but the latter half of the nineteenth century was once the easily won placer dust was gone. A truly a period of technological innovation in the chance discovery of high-grade silver ore above mining \'\les t. The American West was a place, the nearly abandoned camp brought a revival. Clark Spence wrote, "where ideas were ex Such news, in the words of a Denver newspa changed, tested against the rugged western en perman, "caused every prospector to wrack his vironment, sometimes discarded, sometimes brain to remember where he saw silver out in adapted or even re-exported in modified form."' the hills before." In 1864, several different par The small commuoity of Georgetown, Colo ties of '59ers staked the most visible mineral rado, was the site of one of Raymond's "contri outcrops, near timberline at ten thousand feet, butions" to metallurgy and a site of adaptation. and laid out the camps of Peru, Chihuahua, A group of assayers and metallurgists- from Montezuma, and Argentite-names reflecting i\Iexico, German y, Britain, Canada, African their dreams of treasure. The following spring Americans and Anglo-Americans from the U.S. miners found rich ore nearer Georgetown.2 l'viidwest, and some of the first American col The first miners working in the shallow shafts lege-educated mining engineers-tested and re and adits high above Georgetown uncovered shaped metallurgical processes to work the high-grade silver ore containing a low percent district's rich but refractory silver ores. age of lead. By fa ll 1865, small ore hearths-a Located at eighty- five hundred feet in the fire-place-sized furnace known to :tv1edieval En Rocky Mountains, Georgetown's complex geol gland-were smelting the galena and argentite, ogy, harsh winters, and isolation required inno proving that, at least on a limited scale, lead vations to meet regional differences from Old smelting was appropriate for the district. Down \'\/orld mioing practice. To provide an environ hill from the mines and possessing water-power, ment for innovation, the community required Georgetown became the location for smelting skill, machinery, and capital, as well as that hard operations; in the words of one reporter, "the to-define factor that enabled the acceptance of city of smokestacks and sulfur fumes." 3 change over tradition. T he ingeoious commu iVIany of the miners who had rushed to the nity o f Georgetown provides a case stud)' for Rocky Mountains came from the Midwest, and technological innovation. it was from that region's lead mining and smelt- The Ingmiolfs ColllllllllltfJ' 1 1 l
GICI~C£TOWN A bird's-e_)'e vieJJJ o/ Georgetonm iN 1874, JJJith J Ost
nace to work the galena. The Roc~' iVIotmfain NeJvs carried mineral. The fissure deposits were of reported that, "The furnace is built by Jv!exicans, silver with traces of gold. Glaciation and leach under the supervision of one of their number ing of these deposits had created rich outcrops. who has had many years experience in the tnines i\ few hundred feet below, these were replaced of his country." The Mexican community in by more refractory sulfide ores in combinations Georgetown provided early comment on the rich with arsenic and zinc. Under shallow deposits ness of the district, always getting a hearing when of native silver and rich silver-lead galena the comparing lodes to those of Mexico. A Mexican ores turned to predominately argentite, polyba family had the first child born in the camp and site, and tetrahedrite-complex and difficult to Mexican residents added to the larger work.9 community's cosmopolitan feel during the 1860s. Yet the ore was high grade, tempting the Like their U.S. Nlidwestern, Anglo-American and smelters to continue to try to make their plants African-American counterparts, they introduced successful. But tradirional methods failed them. the traditional practices, though limited in scale, What was needed was another process or method which dominated the first metallurgical works.7 to win the metals from their ores. A French min However, they all failed because of a dimin ing engineer visiting the Georgetown and other ishing of the rich galena ores, the lack of quality districts in the fall of 1867 observed the failed fuel (beyond charcoal), and the lack of the right smelting attempts and wrote: "He who finds the environment for }.t!exican-style plants and the means of reducing, 0' prat'fical 11/Cthods, not those Scotch hearth. The Mexicans, Bowman, and the of the laboratory, the ores of Colorado ... he other early smelter operators shut down as the \Vill have made his fortune. Overnight he would district's miners dug through the galena surface be rich in millions." He added, "To the task, orcs. Sitnilarly, an attempt to use German smelt metallurgists! Which of you will become the ing technology failed, as did an early effort by great man whom the world awaits." 10 British miners to use a reverberatory furnace. The grandest early plant-the Georgetown Sil William Bruckner's Cylinder Furnace ver Smelting Company, with its 130-foot smoke stack on chimney hill in the heart of the camp In Iviarch 1867, the Central City, Colorado, blew in the fires of its "immense" reverberato newspaper editor noted that a "party of scien ries with much fanfare and praise in 1867. But tific Germans" had recently installed new equip within a few months it too fell silent. Its stack, ment in the old Excelsior mill in nearby Black with the letters "OK" in brick, stood as the larg Hawk. The equipment included a drum-like est monument to the camp's short-lived smelt cylinder roaster, the Bruckner furnace, which ing boom.8 promised to roast ores and remove sulfur-a Unfortunately, these first efforts-imitations major cost-more cheaply and quicldy. Within or replications of smelters tried-and-true in En a month, the editor reported the success of the gland, Germany, Mexico, or the U. S. Midwest partners Krause, Reese, and Bruckner in reduc failed because of geology. What Georgetown's ing the complex ores of the Central City district operators found was that the galena ores dimin at a lower cost and higher return. He added: ished with depth. Geologist Josiah Spurr of the "We have been very chary of pronouncing any U.S. Geological Survey, writing a half-century new process or mode of working ores a success, later, described the region's difficult ores. Geo but we see no reason why we should not do so logically, the surrounding ridges of granite were on this occasion." The editor also noted the fau lted and filled with once-heated fluids which number of times the Germans tested or assayed The Ingenious CoiiiiJ//IIli!J' 113
ore as it moved through the process, undoubt bor costs. In 1864, the twenty-eight-year-old edly an uncommon practice for the day and an Bruckner came to the United States to patent obvious reference to a more scientific control and market his cylinder furnace. After sales in of the metallurgical works.11 Mexico and Nevada, the owner of the Excelsior William Bruckner-originally Wilhelm H. mill invited him to Colorado. 12 Bruekner-was born in Saxony, trained in chem Tn May 1867, Georgetown miners sent a istry at Goettingen, and then in mine engineer pack-train load of ore for trial in the one-ton ing at Freiberg. He had brought his new inven capacity Excelsior mill at Black Hawk. The tion from California the previous fall. The drum Bruckner furnace worked the complex ores and like, brick-lined, iron furnace revolved, slowly the crude mill recovered 85 percent of the sil mixing the ore and burning off the sulfur. A fire ver, a profound success. The first plant to prof box was attached to one end and a flue and chim itably work Georgetown's complex silver orcs ney to the other. Ores of Central City, once rich was described by a local editor. The Excelsior in free gold, had become difficult to work be worked 150 pounds per operation, eight batches cause of increased sulfur content with depth. per day. The mill's Dodge crusher and ball mill This sulfide caused a loss of gold values in the reduced the ore to sand-sized, then passed it to standard mill of the day. The district was in the Bruckner's furnace, of five hundred tons per day doldrums; it needed a roasting furnace that could capacity. The first-generation Bruckner furnace economically burn off the sulfur. But the stan was five and one-half feet long, and roasted the dard reverberatory furnace was costly to build ore for from five to eight hours. This process in brick, expensive to operate with skilled crews burned off the sulfur and, toward tl1e end of the who had to constantly mixed the ore manually, period, common salts were mixed in to convert and exacted high costs in fuel. Bruckner had the silver sulfide into silver chloride. The ore trained in the mills of Freiberg, which used re was shoveled onto a cooling floor and then, for verberatory furnaces, but eight years' apprentice three hours, mixed with quicksilver (mercury) in ship in Peru and Bolivia gave him time to de a wooden tub to amalgamate, or capture, the silver. velop a mechanical roaster that cut fuel and la-
A Brttckner F/.lmace aduertisei/Jellt froJIJ the Engineering and Mining Journal, 16 jamtaty 1875
LAN~ &. B 0 D LEY, C INC I NN AT I, 0 tU 0, I"UL~ .)JAN l.1FAC'l..' U1U.!:.1~
bl~ ti.IKNEJI::;" 1'/t.Tf..\"T TlB.YOT...... VI~G C.fYLI~.l.!:Js!-!1 r= lt The amalgam of silver and mercury was sepa Preiberg was one of the world's centers for sil rated in the standard way, leaving a silver ingot to ver production. More importantly, it was home be shipped to the mint. The editor observed: to the world's foremost mining college, the "This process contains the advantages of the Konigliche Sachsische Bergakamie, just up the arrastra and the heap process so much in use in valley of the Mulde from Dresden in the Royal Peru and other South American countries." The Duchy of Saxony. Its graduates heard the call editor added that the operators adjusted the for their expertise from around tl1e world and amounts of salt or mercury or other additives many came to the United States, especially after during the process to meet the varied conditions the major silver strikes in Nevada and Colorado. of the ore batches. Bruckner and his partners They introduced the Freiberg process in the closely managed the process to ensure its suc United States, but it failed miserably at the cess.13 Comstock Lode, Nevada; that district's ores did During the summer of 1867, Bruckner de not require the high-cost preliminary roasting. signed a second test mill, this one built in the Bruckner earlier had sold one of his furnaces to Georgetown district. Charles A. Martine led the the Central mill, one of Virginia City's big mills, new operation. Another European-trained min but it failed to compete economically for the ing engineer, Martine had taught assaying and Comstock's ores. Georgetown's ores, however, chemistry at Columbia University, served in the required preliminary roasting to remove sulfur. Civil War, and opened an assay office and con In a not-yet-understood chemical reaction, the sulting business in Central City with his former revolving cyl inder also lessened the miring im student George Maynard in 1866. Martine, with pact of zinc, a major factor in treating the com the backing of several leaders of the town's plex Georgetown ores. Bruckner's process also German community, organized Garrott, lvlartine required less skilled labor, cutting costs. By & Co. to buy a defunct gold mill, the What Cheer summer's end, the Rocf~y Nlollntain Nen;s pro Mill, at Georgetown. This idle plant included a claimed the Bruckner furnace "the best inven ball mill to crush the ore and had what were tion yet introduced and put in operation in tl1e known as Freiberg barrels- wooden kegs roll terri tory." 15 ing in place, used to amalgamate silver with mercury-both familiar German technologies. Huepeden, Wolters, & Co. Martine installed one of the new, larger Bruckner (The German Reduction Wot·ks) furnaces. The Georgetown newspaper inter viewed the Bavarian, who claimed that the pro In 1868, James D. Hague-compiler of a cess was the same as that used in Austria and government report on mines and mining along Germany for the previous century, except for the the fortieth parallel- visited the German Reduc addition of d1e Bruckner furnace. The first run tion Works. This was the new name of Garrott, of Nuckolls mine ore recovered 90 percent of Martine & Co.'s plant, after it had been acquired the silver in the ore, producing a bar worth and enlarged by former Central City assayers Luis $459.65 at .944 fine. When operating, the small, Huepeden and Albert Wolters, both German three-ton plant produced twenty-five thousand trained. Hague's description of the mill in his dollars worth of silver per week. 14 government report included a drawing of its The process Bruckner introduced was a me Bruckner furnace and noted thjs successful in chanical improvement on the age-old Freiberg novation. Hague tabulated production as nearly barrel process developed in Freiberg, Saxony, $100,000 in less than two years of operation, Germany. At the mid-nineteenth century, even with such a limited capacity. The ore came 1 'he fngenio11s CoJJIIIII!IIt(J' 115 primarily from the Equator, a rich find on Frederick L. Schirmer of \'\lurtenberg, later eli Leavenworth Mountain which averaged nearly rector of the Denver mint, he operated a simple $150 worth of silver per ton of ore. The Ger brick kettle furnace using the Cazo process from man Reduction Works had a Dodge jaw crusher Peru on the ores of the district. They planned and a ball pulverizer, two second-generation, to build an expansive plant on the former one-ton capacity Bruckner furnaces for roasting Georgetown Silver Smelting Company site. But and chloriclizing the ore, and Freiberg amalgam they stopped work after a year because of the ation barrels. Huepeden, Wolters, & Co. charged high cost of leasing the building and a failure to a fee of S60 per ton to work miners' orcs, but find backers, a problem the German faced con guaranteed a return to them of 80 percent of tinually. From his base at Georgetown, Bruckner assay values on ore processed. During also began to sell his furnace to outlying districts. Georgetown's initial bust of 1867 to 1870, when He designed one for the adjacent Argentine dis costly smelter after smelter failed, the three-ton trict, and, in 1868, helped design probably the capacity German Reduction Works kept produc best German-style amalgamation miJJ in ing and maintaining optimism for the prospects America-using the Freiberg process and ma of the district's high-grade mines. 16 chinery, plus his furnace-for the Baker Silver Bruckner himself moved to Georgetown and l:Vlining Company at nearby Bakerville camp.18 joined its growing German community. Period To the dismay of Bruckner and its owners, items in the region's newspapers note German the Baker mill burnt down before it could be foods and beer, and events related to the Fa given a thorough test. This was the last mill built therland: the celebration of the one-hundredth to his German design. Americans had become birthday of the great German scientist Baron accustomed to the California stamp mill, devel Ludwig von Humboldt and the doings of the oped in the 1850s, with its battery of vertical German Aid Society, an association formed to stems with a heavy metal stamp at each foot for raise money during the Franco-Prussian War. crushing ore. Bruckner's ball mill never took Rossiter Raymond, himself a Freiberg-trained hold in America, nor did the Freiberg barrel for engineer and lover of things Saxon, stayed with amalgamation. In the early 1860s, the rapid ac Luis Huepeden and wrote to his wife that, be ceptance of what became known as the \X/ashoe cause of the Germans, "Georgetown, both this process-perfected in Nevada's Washoe District, year and last, is one of my most delightful stop the Comstock Lode-with its pans and settlers ping places." He added that Huepeden "is a attached to the California stamp mill, replaced nobleman by birth and refined gentleman. He the Freiberg barrels for amalgamation. The Ne sits nearby with work clothes and rough hands vada or \Vashoe amalgamation pan has been de playing a splendid piano from Dresden." Many scribed as "nothing more than an updated writers commented on the German-Alps-like arrastra" attached to a steam engine, which sup landscape of the Georgetown region. World plied power and steam heat. The chemistry of traveler Bayard Taylor wrote in 1867 that the the Washoe process-adding salt and bluestone upper reaches of Clear Creek reminded him (copper sulfate)-was the same as for the Mexi "(dimly I must confess) of the Upper Valley of can patio process, similar to the Cazo process, the Rhine, between Splugen and the Via Mela."17 and to that which was in place in Freiberg's mills \Vhat effect this German communal environ of the 1850s. 19 ment had on Bruckner and other innovators is Where sulfur needed to be removed from the unknown, but, in this atmosphere, he continued ore and a chloriclizc roasting performed, one of to improve his furnace and to experiment. With Bruckner's furnaces could be inserted into a 116 2003 1\!fining HisfOIJ' ]oumal l it 1 ...... - , . JI , •I,t.f ~ l t , rn•JI"'l.UI • •C'"J'II •4' I t.,;J An 1870s silver JJ!i/1 witb a Bmcknerfim~t~ce. (Fro))/ ''Bmckner's C)linders" in Rossiter U1 Rt!)I/JIO!ld's Statistics of Mines and Mining in the States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains JJ. 6 (U7asbingtoll, D. C.: USGPO, 1874) 496-8.) Washoe mill. The earliest, detailed description receive general acceptance. Bruckner's of such a mill is that of a silver mill in Silver Kttge!mub/e design sold well in Germany, how City, New Mexico, a new district where a former ever, where he returneJ for several years. 21 Georgetown assayer served as manager and Bruckner served as consultant. Luis Huepeden J. Oscar Stewart's Mill marketed the Bruckner-Washoe mill at a cost of thirty thousand dollars for a twenty-ton mill. He In 1867, while Bruckner and the Germans eventually moved to Salt Lake City and sold simi succeeded with their first test mill, twenty-nine lar plants throughout the Great Basin and Mon year-old]. Oscar Stewart gave up his failed smelt tana as well. 20 ing attempt in the Georgetown district. Besides, An 1880s standard mining reference book one of his partners had been nearly lynched and described Georgetown's German Reduction had fled after being caught robbing sluice boxes. \XIorks, but only as a relic of its German design, Undaunted, Stewart returned to St. Louis and including a ball pulverizer-Bruckner's Cincinnati for backing (he raised $350), .in order Kugelmub/e-and Freiberg barrel amalgamadon. to U)' again. In St. Louis, Augustus Steitz, a re The author of the reference wrote that the work spected German mining engineer who had ear of the Freiberg barrel "must generally be first lier mentored Stewart, advised that he build an learned by the engineer in charge and taught to amalgamation mill with reverbratoq furnace the men. Since a majority of mill men had expe basically a Freiberg process operation. That fa ll, rience with or had learned on a Washoe mill, the he pulled together parts from the abundant idle pan was understood and used rather than the mills of Georgetown-stamps and amalgamation barrel." \'{fhile the Bruckner furnace was used pans-and built a small reverberatory furnace. throughout the West, his mill design failed to Stewart, a mechanic with enough metallurgical Tbe Tngenion.r CoJI!IIIIIIIi(J• 117 knowledge to run the mill, surprisingly made a Gerstenhofer furnace called the Arey shaft fur :;uccess with the two-ton test plant. His career nace at the Stewart mill.H was about to turn aroundY At the same time, in Austin, Nevada, SteLefeldL In 1869, he organized the Stewart Silver i\t1ill improved the Gerstenhofer furnace design by ing Company, with stock sold to ·Midwestern in removing the terraces, or shelves, and making it a vestors, to replace his small plant with the larg straight shaft furnace. Ore and salt dropped at est silver amalgamation mill in the Rocky Moun the top fell through rising flame and hear, which tains. Since Midwest foundries of that time converted the ore into workable silver chloride. lacked the ability to build machinery to his de When the Manhattan Mining Company- the larg sign, Stewart turned to San Francisco manufac est operator in the Reese River District, Austin, turers' equipment, easily transported over the Nevada- added the Sretefcldt furnace to its mill just-completed transcontinental railroad, and in 1869-70, it cut roasting costs in half. The built what reporters called Colorado's first "Ne Stetefeldt furnace was declared a success. To vada" style mill. But Stewart re-machined the Stetefcldt, the Arey furnace seemed an obYious \~ashoe pans and settlers, and claimed tl1em as infringement on his patented design.25 his own patent.23 Stetefcldt, like Bruckner, was German, but He also replaced the reverberatories with a had graduated from the School of Mines at shaft furnace, leading to a patent infringement Clausthal in the Hartz i\11ountains. In 1866, he suit from Carl Stetefeldt. Stewart countered, came to the United States as an employee of correctly, that, around 1860, mining engineer Rossiter Raymond, who sent him to operate a Moritz Gerstenhofer had invented the shaft fur branch office in Austin, Nevada, center for the nace in Germany. The basic method involved Reese River mines. The miners there had built roasting and converting sulphide into oxide ore \XIashoe pan amalgamation mills but found them while dropping it down through heat. Albert capturing only a small percentage of the metal. Wolters, Freiberg graduate and later a partner in Reese River ores were similar to the complex sil I Ieupeden, Wolters & Co. at the German Re ver sulfides of Georgetown. Freiberg graduate duction Works, had brought the Gerstenhofer John Veatch introduced the German roasting shaft furnace to Colorado and built one at the process into the district at h..is Oregon mill. He Lyon's works H Black Hawk in 1 R()() . The huiJt rc~verberatO I' )' fmn:tl.P.S in the \~~shoe r~n Lyon's works were well known to Coloradans mill, as Stewart had done. But Stetefe!Jt in like Stewart. John P. 1\.rey of the plant joined creased and improved silver recovery by replac Stewart and introduced an improved ing reverberatories with his shaft furnace.26 , .·, ·., I' .~-· ...... ,r,.. ' . 1. . •. .1 i· f l ,. .~.- .. •' l~l~r-.1 , ..., . . /1• . ·,I ,, ,,, . . ·' .. ~ ••, f J. / .... ] ------,.' A receipt from tbe Ste/J/aJf 111ill. (Com1C-!J' if the Jc.rsc &me/all Collection, Dem;er P11blit· T_.i/m:ro') 118 2003 M.i11ing llisfOJ)' jo11mol Rossiter Raymond, Stetefcldt's friend and Howell-White furnace. John White had devel mentor, used the editorial pages of the l.ingineer oped his unsuccessful imitation of the cylinder ing o11r/ '' fillillg jolfmol to tout Stetefeldt's furnace. furnace shortly after Bruckner won prizes for his Raymond may also have been instrumental in at the San Francisco mechanics' fair. John bringing the Arey f-urnace Company and Howell, a neighbor of Stetefeldt's and a success SLetefeldt to a patent dispute settlement by 1872. fu l mill man in the Reese River district of Ne Unfortunately, because of its limited abilil-y to vada, improved the \XIhite furnace around 1870, process the complex Georgetown silver sulphides, elongating it and putting fires at both ends. San Stewart abandoned the shaft furnace. The A rey Francisco machinery manufacturers sold the furnace would be used elsewhere in Colorado and Howell-White furnace to West Coast and Ne Arizona, bur the Stetefelclt furnace dominated the vada camps, dominating the market over mining camps to the \XIest, as much a result of Bruckner's Cincinnati-manufactured furnace.29 the successful foundries' and machinery firms' During the early 1870s, Stewart continued market dominance as of the Stetefcldt furnace's to improve his Georgetown mill while becom t}ual ities.27 ing a leader in the community, at the time We lack any comment by Bruckner on the Colorado's major silver minjng camp. Stewart was fa ilure of the shaft furnace in Georgetown, part of the transition of Georgetown's popula though one would expect unexpressed glee. tion to :Midwestern and Yankee, replacing the Stetefeldt blamed the failure on Stewart's wOt'k previous, mote cosmopolitan community. He men, while Stewart simply replaced the shaft became president of the local bank, a member furnace with old-s tyle reverberatories; for some of the city council, built a showcase house, and reason he would not introduce the Bruckner fur taught Sunday school at the Baptist church. He nace into his mill, though everyone around him also designed, with Arey, mills for operations used the cylinder. The Reese River district lacked from Alturas, Idaho to Arivaca, Arizona.30 the zinc blend that complicated the ore matrix. Stewart's mill ensured that Georgetown leapt of Georgetown's mines. These orcs, unfortu "to the eminence of the best district in Colo nately for Stetefeldt, required slower roasting and rado." \'\!hen President U. S. Grant visited the chlori di7. ing than occurred in the quick drop territory and Georgetown, the mills provided a down the Stetefeldt shaft furnace. walkway paved of silver bars, symbolic of Bruckner and Stetefcldt used national min Colorado's prosperity. For 1874, the Stewart ing magazines and meetings as forums to con Silver Reducing Company milled 2,647 tons ore, tinue the debate on which furnace was best. The with an average value of $180 per ton, produc clean of U. S. mining engineers, Rossiter ing $436,181.43 in silver bullion. It was the big Raymond, called the contest a draw-the gest silver mill in the Rocky Mountains. T hen Bruckner revolving cylinder being ideal for the mill burnt down, again, on 19 December smaller mills, with the Stetefeldt furnace being 1875, which explains, in part, J. Oscar Stewart's better for large plants. But for Georgetown, with 1878 decision to go to work for the Golden State its high zinc content, the Stetcfeldt furnace failed & l'vliners' Iron Works in San Francisco. It could to meet expectations and was abandoned. Later Ge said of Stewart that there was not a piece of analysts wrote that Stetefeldt's furnace could patented machinery that he could not replicate, only work less complex sulfide ores, a function modify, and ca ll his own.11 for which the Bruckner furnace excelled.28 Also in 1874, the Pelican mill-the old Ger Bruckner's furnace patent faced similar in man Reduction Works-with its jerry-rigged set fringements from imitations, most notably the up, aging Bruckner furnaces, and Freiberg bar- '/'he lJ1ge11iom CoJIIIIIIIJii!J• 119 rcls, produced a good portion of the S650,000 process of silver leaching. A ll-1rge leaching plant output of the Pelican mine bonanza. U.S. lvlio w;'IS added to the Ste\nll't tTlill complex in ing Commissioner Rossiter Raymond reported a GeorgetO\'\'n. n production of$2,203,947 worth of metal for the However, Stewart needed a skilled chemist county, nearly half of Colorado's total metal pro to ensure the accuracy of the chemical process. duction. 12 He hired a twenty-six-year-old Canadian, Da\·id Brunton. Trained in chemistry and assaying at David Bnmton and Leaching the University of 1vlichigan's early but short-lived mining engineering school, Brumon was hired Stewart never seemed pleased with his mill, by Stewart especil-111)' to control the use of costly forever seeking ways to reduce costs and improve hyposulphite of soda, which had to be imported the percentage of silver separated from its ores. frorn Germany. Brunton decided not to worry Stewart needed a process 1·o work the enormous about consumption of lwpo, but rather to deter tonnage of rock rhat assayed at under forty dol mine how to find ot make it locally. He solved lars per ton-unworkable at the then high cost the problem by making hyposulphite of calcium of milling and freighting. The inventive mechanic usi ttg waste sulfur dioxide from the roasting fur began tests on the leaching of silver ores. naces. This created a supply of hypo solvent so Stewart's first leaching attempt, based on a abundant and cheap that its slop and waste were German precedent, failed. He then turned to a no longer of concern. Brunton credited his suc process recently patented by two Canadian cess to very good advice from countrymen llunt chemists. T. Sterr)' Hunt and James Douglas had and Douglas, the true inventors of the process.14 perfected a process whereby solvents could leach Unfortunately for Brunton, the winter 1875 copper from its ores, and Hunt had also shown fire at: Stewart's mi ll left him without a job, but at least in the laboratory-how to leach si lver only briefly. With the success of leaching, a group from ores carrying both metals. Stewart brought of Chicago investors hired him tO design a simi James Douglas to the works to test the process, lar mill. The Clear Creek Reduction Works, de which the Canadians assured him would work. signed by Brunton and opened in 1876-77, was After building a test plant they succeeded, and, a combination concentration, amalgamation, and on 9 June 1874, James Oscar Stewarl' secured a leaching mill, and one of the most complete of new patent for the Hunt, Douglas, and Stewart its kind. He used Bruckner furnaces to roast /D. A r!mJPillg of tbe Clertr Cree.k ll?'oJks qf Drwirll3mnlon (ComfC-!J' qf !be Dm;irf Bm11fon Co!/edion, Co/o)'(lr/o f fi.rtOtital .)ori e!J•.) 120 2003 1\lfining T-TisfO'J' ]o11mal and chloridize the ore, while the Hunt, Douglas, nal, Colorado's first; began a technical school and and Stewart leaching process and mercury amal then served as adjunct facu lty for the not-so gamadon separated out t·he si lver. Brunton found nearby, just-established Colorado School of that Bruckner's chloridizing roasting furnace, Mines; organized a scienrjfic society; and truly besides forming silver chloride, formed zinc created Georgetown as Colorado's "Silver chloride, which acted as an excellent rusplacer Queen." According to one ·t870s Georgetown of the dissolved or leached silver. Brunton used resident antl Columbia School of Mines gradu d1e zinc in the ore, once a liability, to make the ate, "those were great days." \'Vith the silver rush cheap extraction of silver possible. 35 to Leadville in 1878-80, most of this mining fra The process was simple. The concentrator ternity packed over the mountains early enough middlings were sent to the roasters, which, at a to reap some of that bonanza camp's rich re low heat and with salt added, formed zinc duo wards.38 ride and silver chloride. The chlorides passed to Brunton was among them. He later wrote: an agitator, where the silver immediately went "\Vhen I came \'(lest, mining engineers were into the hypo solution. \Vhen the agitator was scarce, and, worse than that, American mining stopped, the sludge settled, and the solution was engineers were not considered to be in the same drawn off to where it flowed over copper plates. class as the German." His generation would This produced, Brunton wrote, "a beau6ful crys bring about a change. Brunton would be one of talline precipitate of silver, the dissolved cop the most innovative mining engineers of his gen per being recovered on scrap-iron."36 eration, best known for bjs "Brunton compass," The Clear Creek Reduction Works became and for his advances in ore-sampling machinery. the major custom miU in the Georgetown dis But these would come after his auspicious start trict, with its leaching process replacing amal in Georgetown. 39 gamation as the primary medium of extraction. ln the words of one contemporary, "what Hill's RichardPearce,John Collom, works are to Gilpin County, the Clear Creek and the Cornishmen works are to Georgetown." High praise. More importantly to the owners, it was "managed on In the fall of 1871, thirty-four-year-old Ri business principles and making money for its chard Pearce arrived to inspect mines in Clear owners." In the next year, Brunton designed Creek County for British investors. On his re duplicate mills at Caribou, Colorado, and Silver turn to London, he recommended closing the Peak, Nevada. He also became a partner of company's mines, but advised the Swansea Frank Taylor, Clear Creek Reduction Works' Smelting and Mining Company's directors to m~nage r, and the son of irs owner. Over rhe build a smelter to treat the ores of the region. next quarter century, the Taylor and Brunton Pearce had been reared in the mining country of firm would become known throughout the Cornwall, gone to work in the mines as a boy, West. 3~ and had attended the Royal School of Mines in During Brunton's time, Georgetown had be London, which helped earn him a place as man come home to a large number of the new frater ager of a smelter in the great smelting center of nity of college-educated American mining men Swansea, \'(!ales. For six years, Pearce had worked looking for their first jobs. Brunton was an inte with high-grade copper-silver ores shipped from gral part of the changing American tone of the Chile, which needed an additional step to sepa camp. During the 1870s, these college-educated rate the silver-the Ziervogel process as im mining engineers started their own mining jour- proved by Pearce, the most advanced method Tbe l11genio11s CoJJIIIIIIIli!J' 121 of its day. Pearce described the similarities of ores in Colorado to those he had worked in Swansea; he proposed to work the quartzose sil ver ores of Georgetown in ami" with the aurif erous copper P)'tites-gold-copper ores-of Colorado to produce gold, silver, copper, and other metals. He with a positive response. In :March 1872, the stocky Cornishman returned with his wife and children to the banks of South Clear Creek40 During 1872, Pearce brought a crew of Welsh and Cornish workers to build a Swansea-style plant at a failed smelter the company bought at Swansea, Colorado, four miles downstream from Georgetown. By summer, they were roasting coarse ore in kilns and reverberatory calcining furnaces, which burnt off the sulfur. From there, Richard Pearce, at lift, and crew at tbe Black HaJJJk the product was reduced in a common Swansea smelter i11spect a stack if si/1;er ingots, ca 1875. smelting furnace. The copper matte poured from Tbese JJ!ere IJ/ost likefy IJJade jroiJI ore froiJI the furnace contained high values in precious GeorgetoJJJII. (Autbor's collectio11.) metals, gold and silver. The matte was freighted by wagon to a railhead, then transshipped by rail ton & Colorado smelter at Black Hawk, adja and ship to England for refining. Georgetown cent Central City fifteen miles away. Hill, a miners overwhelmed the small plant with silver former chemistry professor at Brown University, ores, and the first season's production equaled a wisely sought technological advantage and hired successful thirty-five thousand dollars from the Pearce away from the Swansea plant, though that eight-ton capacity smelter. Unfortunately, Pearce smelter's directors worked out an arrangement couldn't buy enough of the gold-copper ores, to have Hill's works, under Pearce, refine its thought these were abundant at Empire, a camp output. Pearce introduced the Ziervogel pro near the plant. Instead, he had to lease a mine cess at Black Hawk, and improved the works to in Central City and pay the expense of hauling nearly replicate the Swansea, \'{!ales, smelter he ore over the divide to the smelter. Adclitional had managed, with frontier adaptations. Most complications included the cost of freighting to notable of these was the necessity to burn local Swansea, \Vales, refineries, and disputes with the pine instead of fine Welsh coal. Welshmen over the price of the matte. Pearce's The key to the Z iervogel process was creat backers agreed to fund expansion, with the ad ing a water-soluble copper-gold-silver sulfate, dition of a plant to refine matte on site, but the where hot water and salt carried off the silver in financial panic of 1873 interceded.4 1 solution. This left a "gold bottom"-high-gold During the summer of 1873, the four diminu content copper granules later melted into a tive smelters treating the ores of the region were matte-and a solution pregnant with silver that close to financial failure because of a drop in was precipitated out by running across copper mineral prices. Pearce's Swansea smelter com plates. Dilute sulfuric acid was used for the fi peted for ores with the nearby Whale smelter, a nal parting of the silver, which was cast into in smelter at Golden, and Nathania! P. Hill's Bos- gots. This sophisticated process required more 122 2003 Mining His!OJ)' Jomwt! slcilled staff than any previous Colorado plant. but by then as part of the operation of George Pearce brought members of the Swansea, Colo Washington Hall, a Yankee lumberman. Other rado, plant crew to Black Hawk, as well as new businessmen built ore-buying operations, or what additions from Europe.'12 became lwown as samplers, with a competent In 1873 too, a railroad reached Black Hawk, assayer as an assistant to buy and ship orcs. The a marketing advantage for Hill's works over the Public Ore i\11arket, the Miners' Sampling Works, other smelters, each of which closed within a and a half-dozen other samplers operated in the year or two. The completion of the Pearce-de district from the 1870s to the 1890s, buying and signed plant to work silver at the Black Hawk shipping ore to smelters on the flatlands. Min smelter was heralded by the mining community ing district samplers have been described as be and, more importantly, caused immediately in ing like farm communities' rail-side grain eleva creased production at the silver mines of tors. Each bought small lots from individual Georgetown. During the mid-1870s, while Hill's producers and combined them into large-tonnage works under Pearce, located in the gold district shipments, increasing the power, in a sampler's of Gilpin County, became the major silver pro case, to negotiate more favorable rates from rail ducer in tbe territory, Georgetown and Clear roads and distant srneltcrs:15 Creek County continued as the "banner mining Taylor and Brunton converted their Clear County of Colorado.,.13 Creek Reduction Works into an ore-buying Fundamental to the continued prosperity of agency and initiated a string of samplers in other the mining region was the development of the western mining camps. In 1884, in his typically railroad system. The arrival of the Colorado innovative manner, Brunton invented a totally Central Railroad in Georgetown in August 1877, automatic sampling machine and introduced it after a decade of waiting, and its extension to into the first completely mechanical samp]jng mill the mines at Silver Plume ended the district's in the country-the Rocky J\i[ountain Reduction isolation and, more importantly, its high freight Company's sampler in Clear Creek County.'16 costs. Where twenty-dollar-per-ton rock was Concentrators-plants that increased the considered waste pre-railroad, it now became ore percentage of metal in ore by using gravity to worth shipping. The railroad acted as a funnel separate out waste rock-had operated in the for ore out of the district, causing Georgetown district since the initial smelter construction silver mill owners to add to or convert their plants boom. The concentrate they produced was al to concentrators. They produced concentrates ways shipped out of the district. Their technol to ship to distant smelters rather than bullion to ogy came clirectly from Europe: Cornish rolls for ship to the Denver mint. By 1880, the peak year crushing and the Hartz jig or Cornish budd.el for for silver production, the ore buying and ship concentrating. At the Terrible Mine an early ping business took over the district's product. concentrator used Engbsh technology, its own These shippers bullt new plants called "samplers" ers being the London-based Terrible Mining Com and sent ore to large-scale, centrally-located pany, Ltd. During the years from 1872 to 1875, smelters, near coal fields, at Denver-where Hill Cornish lVIine Captain George Teal started with moved his works- Pueblo, and elsewhere. 4 ~ hand jigs, then added a Cornish rolls crusher, T his shift had begun in 1868, as railroads si7.ing screens, mechanical jigs, and circular approached the Rocky Mountains and when budclles. This imported British technology, Charles A. Martine set up his ore-buying agency watched by an assayer, became the district's first in Georgetown. The clapper Bavarian with his successful concentrator. Imitations of this con hard accent was still buying ore in the 1870s, centrator were built down the valley of South TIJe 111gelli011S CoiiJJIIIIIIil)• 123 Clear Creek. The workforce of the Terrible Nfine cific mines, served their purpose of upgrading created a Cornish and British enclave at Silver material from an ore dump for sl,jpment, and were Plume, Georgetown's nearest mining-camp then removed. The rare, still-standing Lebanon neighborY nWl has been studied and is typical of the era. British concentrating technology dominated Designed by Berlin native and New York assayer the district, with many failed attempts at improve Julius Pohle for the Lebanon Mi1,jng Company, ment. The best example of a failed innovator is this simple plant included a Blake jaw crusher that of Devonshireman John Collom. He came to reduce the size of the raw ore, and a jig that to Colorado in 1865 via Lake Superior, Michi used water and gravity to separate waste rock gan, and was early to the silver strikes. l-Ie in from ore. The mill operated above Georgetown vented an improved concentrating machine at from 1871 to 1878, served its purpose under Lake Superior, the Collom jig, which was nearly manager Pohle, and then shut down.49 universally accepted in that copper-mining coun But Georgetown's technologists, although try. While continuing to improve l,js jig and an using the latest Emopean technology, wid1 ad ore-washing machine, he clesigned a series of aptations or improvements from the Great Lakes milling and smelting plants near Georgetown: at region, still fa iled to perfect a concentrator that Empire from 1865 to 1866, LV1ontezuma in 1867 would capture more of the mineral. They also and 1868, Swansea from 1869 to 1871 (the plant failed to separate out such problematic minerals that Pearce's backers bought), and in Golden in as zinc. State of the art plants, such as the one the n,jd 1870s. Each became a financial failure. built for a British firm, the Kohinoor and In 1880, he was still in the county, trying widl Donaldson Consolidated Silver Mining Com out success to invent the perfect concentrating pany, Ltd., contained Cornish rolls and jigs, and machine for the district's ores. One wonders vanners instead of buddies by the 1880s. about the Boston investors who continued to Cornishman Thomas A. Rickard, a graduate of back his many failecl enterprises.48 the London Royal School of lvlines, started his Other concentrating nwls were built for spe- career as an assayer with the firm, working for 1 • • I 'U!>• 1., I ' 'o • 1 'I' I I~'"'' •" Kobi11oor & Dollaldsoll} s/a/e-qftbe-aJ1 concentrator in tiJe (Com1e!J• of tbe .Jesse R.anrla/1 Collet"lioll1 Denver Public LJbrao•.) 124 2003 1\lfilling HisfOIJ' Joumal 3 an uncle at the plant. But like many of his con investment. 5 temporaries, he had become less than accepting Born Carrie] ane Billings in Massachusetts on of innovation. They relied on European tradi 27 ] une 1842, she moved to Springfield, Illinois, tion, which meant accepting mineral loss and with her parents in 1844. Her family was in the paying a penalty to smelters for shipping ore shoemaking business, one of the early industries tainted with zinc. 50 that used simple chemical treatments-in this One of the mill men of Georgetown, L. F. case tannic acid to process leather. She may have Olmsted, shared this sentiment in an 1880 dis learned the basics of chemistry there, but after trict history. After chronicling the innovations she married in 1864, Carrie Everson became her of Bruckner, Stewart, Brunton, and others, he husband's medical assistant and grew still more opined that no new processes would be discov familiar with chemicals. One biography noted ered or were needed. Indeed, in his opinion: "We that she studied "various branches of science may fidy close by stating d1at the man [or woman] and [became] proficient in chemistry."5·1 with a new process generally meets with a cool During the early 1880s, Carrie testeJ a revo reception in Clear Creek C0t.1nty." 51 lutionary process to separate metal from crushed fine rock in her husband's Chicago lab. On 4 Cat"1ie Everson and Flotation August 1886 she received a patent. In it she stated that "the discovery that forms that basis By the 1880s, Georgetown had developed a of my invention is that metals and metallic sub tourist industry, catering to Midwesterners seek stances in a commuted state will unite with com ing cool retreats in the mountains. Travelers, pounds of fats or oils and acids, and that such from politicians to Gilded Age business leaders, compounds will not unite with comminuted rode the rails to Georgetown and toured its quartz or other rocky gangue." Plainly, metal heights, especially Mount Grey; or they rode over particles from the crushed ore, when mixed in a the famous Georgetown Loop, where the rail solution of fats or oils, would be carried off, leav road looped over itself to gain altitude in the ing behind the gangue, or waste rock. gorge between Georgetown and Silver Plume. At the time of her patent, the Eversons were By the mid-1880s the mining industry left the in Georgetown vacationing and promoting their air relatively clean, since ore roasting and its sul discovery. They displayed a small model and furous fumes had by then been removed from explained how the process worked. On 5 Au the district to smelters on the plains ncar Dcn gust 1886, the editor of the GeOJgetOJJJII Co11rier ver. 52 described-unclear!y-E verson's process: Among the summer visitors to the district in 1885 were Chicago doctor William Knight The material consists of a cheap chemi Everson and his wife Carrie. The Eversons had cal compound of a plastic character, invested in the Golden Age i'vlining Company of that is six patts water. Into tlus the dry Marcus Mill "Gold Brick" Pomeroy, a philoso pulverized ore is mixed to saturation. It pher-turned-promoter of mines and a railroad is then introduced into a tempered and tunnel under the Continental D ivide near chemicalized water bath, where it is agi Georgetown. This charlatan had claimed that tated thoroughly for a few minutes, poor returns at the Golden Age were due to the when, to the astonishment of all, the technology of the period, bringing Everson and sand or rocky portion all drop[s] to the other investors to grief. But Carrie Everson de bottom of the vessel, which is so ar veloped a process she thought might save their ranged to carry it away instandy, while The Inge11iom CoJJIIJJtftlity 125 all the mineral of every kind adheres to upheld Carrie Everson's discovery of the basic the material and floats in the water concept of the process.56 above until discharged from the bottom. There may have been a bias against Everson The mineral is then precipitated from because she was a female in a male-dominated the mass, which can be used over and business-witness Rickard's tone. Women were over agam. in the mining business, however, and many suc ceeded. Mrs. Mary Krom operated an assay of Carrie Everson's discovery, which the editor fice in Denver at the time, willie the owners of crudely described, is the basic scheme for today's the Pelican-Dives Mine in Georgetown had "flotation" process of mineral concentration. enough confidence in 1vliss Helen Nelson, teleg This revolutionary process would transform the rapher, to appoint her manager of their tnine in mineral indusuy at the beginning of the t:wenti 1887. But most men shared the views of an eth cemury, but in 1886 "flotation" was far from editorialist in the Ceorgetoum Colln.e~; who wrote being perfected. That summer, the Eversons about "the formation of a Ladies' Bullion Club," offered Courier readers the chance to invest in a that it "is pleasant, in this era of women's rights, fifty-ton test plant. to see the dear creatures corning to the front from Two weeks after the above announcement, all directions; but would it not be well for the however, Dr. Everson hurried from Georgetown gentler as well as the rougher sex to know some to Abilene, Kansas. Carrie had also invented a thing of a business before they invest money in food supplement to quickly fatten cattle, and he it?"57 had found investors in that prairie cow town. What Carrie Everson also lacked was the fi His health failing, Dr. Everson's announced plans nancial support necessary for an extended pe to form a corporation to promote Carrie riod of experimentation. 1\. recent study of the Everson's process were not completed before his development of the flotation process in England death on 20 January 1889. Carrie moved to and Australia reveals a decade-long effort to Denver, becoming a nurse and rnissionary.55 perfect the complex machinery and chemical Nearly, thirty years later, after the flotation solutions needed to make the process work. Plo process had proven itself and authorities on the tation was perfected at Broken Hill, Australia, process sought Carrie Everson, Thomas Rickard, and was introduced into the United States in the the Cornishman mentioned above, now editor 191 Os, whereupon interest in Everson's early of the Engineering and Mining}ollrJJa/, became one experiments brought about a search for her. The of the major critics of the "tale" of her discov Colorado Scientific Society gathered information ery. To him, Everson's "flotation process" was in 1915, but found that she had died the year a farce. According to the legend he retold in his before. They found no evidence she ever found standard history of mining, she had discovered a strong financial backer, though a small test plant the process while "washing oil-stained ore-sacks was built in an abandoned tnill in Silver Cliff, in her brother's assay-office when she noted the Colorado, in 1891. Another limited attempt, floating pyrite on the water contaminated by the with a new partner in Baker, Oregon, failed as oil." Nothing could be further from the truth. well, and the depression of 1893 ended these Rickard, scion of a family of respected British efforts. 58 mining engineers, defended the Commonwealth The crash of 1893 and the demonitization patent holders' claim to the process and dis of silver brought an end to Georgetown's pros counted the Everson story out of hand. But perous years. The designs and hopes of Carrie twentieth-century infringers on those patents Everson-wife of a doctor who lost money in- 126 2003 i\lillillg I lisiOI)' }ollnw/ because of some lucky, rich finds, low operating costs, and the tenacity of its mining fraternity. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Georgetown district of Colorado was one of twenty major si lver-producing regions of the western United States. Prom roughly 1859 to the 1890s- from the time of the mining stampede to Colorado until the silver crash at the eml of the century- silver production in the United States rapidly increased and eclipsed that of older mining countries. rvlines in the states of Nevada, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Ari:.:ona, and Utah poured forth nearly half of the world's silver out put. Importantly, the technological innovations developed to work Georgetown ores were dis seminated to other isolated, but high-grade silver camps, from Montana to Arizona and into Mexico. The special report on precious metals prepared for the 1880 census reveals in its list of mills and their equipment, the widespread use of the Bruckner furnace, Stewart leaching works, and other innovations.c111 There were ma ny experimenters and innova CcorgctoJJJIIJ 1877) witb the Clear Creek Co111pa1!J' tors. T here were many experiences similar to JJ!Ork.r at cclllfl: (Colfrfe!J' of the Drwirll3miiiOII Georgetown's. Georgeto\\·n was marked by a spe Co//ectioll) Co/omdo Hislo1ica/ Socie(J•.) cial mingling of experimenting, inventing, anc.l vesting in Colorado mines-were never given a contriving. The voices were in many tongues, but real chance in the Georgetown district, site of bonded by the common effort to separate silver rhe c::mbryonic flotation process's ftrst display. T he [rom rock. Bruckner, supported by his German community lacked financial resources, with the colleagues and Lhe communi[)', contributed his decline in silver prices, and had settled into a long mechanical innovations and process. Stewart, a period of decline. Or, maybe, the innovative com member of the Anglo community that dominated munity of the 1860s ancl1870s, had become smck the social and political world of Colorado, was in tradition, unwilling to support Carrie Everson an able imitator and persistent mechanic who or any other innovator. The clistrict revived briefly, added as well to the improvements needed to oddly enough, thanks to the introduction of flo work the various orcs of the isolated district. tation mills in the 191 Os.59 Brunton represented the American-educated min ing engineer's influence. Important too, were the Conclusion trials of the numerous Devonshiremen, Cornishmen, and others from the United J<.ing Like so many mining camps, Georgetown's dom. dc::cline followed the collapse of the silver market \'{/hat factors anJ environments nourish in in 1893. It remained prosperous a few more novation? J\ community of support is impor years- its last million dollar year was 1896- t~tnt-as it was to Lorenzo Bowman and his The lngenio11s Coiiiiiiiiiii!J' 127 African-American partners and to the i\Iexican bined Cornish and Welsh experience, a year of miners. But let's not see Georgetown through schooling at the Royal School of i\'unes and ad rose tinted glasses. Any view that it was egali vanced stud)' of German processes at rreiberg tarian and integrated is refuted by such local and Mansfickl, plus experience working the sil newspaper items as follows: "A negro was shot ver-copper ores of Latin America, to success by a man named Joe Bush in an Alpine lStreer] fully adapt exisriug Lechnologies lO the isolated, saloon, 'just to see him kick."' Lorenzo Bow local conditions of Colorado. Pearce would man lost his mine to a claim jumper. Mexicans, continue to innovate, and became, according to always a small portion of the population, moved Rodman Paul, "a dominant figure in Colorado away from mining to lower-paid wood cutting sciences related ro mining." Pearce himself and packlng.<' 1 wrote: "Cornisbn1en as a rule do not make great Community support was impo rtan t to pretensions to high scientific attainments." But Bruckner and the short-lived German high so even he would admit that western mining ben ciety of Georgetown. As Robert Bruce points efitted greatly from the chemical revolurion of out, "Germany, as the leading producer of borh a century before, and from its more willing ac European science and political refugees, was the ceptance by Coloradans than by the rule-of main source of those refugee scientists who thumb, tradition-bound workers of Swansea, came to stay." They even brought their Dresden Wales.63 pianos. This welcome became less enthusiastic By 1880, mining boom and innovation moved with the increase of American-trained talent west over the Continental Divide to the Leadville and, oddly, the ri se of the German Empire, to district and its era of successful innovations in which many of the German emigres returned. silver-lead smelting. These technologists and Obviously, community suppon, broadly de innovators were a mobile lot; none srayed in fined, was essential to Americans li ke Stewart, Georgetown for their entire careers. They either who took over the district. The British seemed follo\\'ed rushes to new fields or settled in re to remain the longest, and to remain the most gional centers like Denver, San Francisco or Salt determined of failures- witness John Lake City. Their fortunes varied. Pearce pros Collom-but this was because of the high rate pered, while Bruckner died an impoverished of investment coming from the United King hermit at the age of fifty-two, still tinkering with dom.62 methods for assaying and reducing silver ore. Education, especially knowledge of chem As the editor of the IJ11gineering and Mi11i11g]ollmal istry, was critical, as was scientific method. wrote, Bruckner "was deficient in business David Brunton relished experimenration and his sagacity, and it is said, was not successful in chemical trials show shear joy in discovering making money by his invencions."64 answers to real problems. The methodical ap With the arrival of the railroad in the district proach of Freiberg-trained William Brunckner and the shift of smelting from local mills to large was noted by contemporaries, indicative of the scale facilities ar Denver, the era of metallurgical rarity of scientific method among carl)' Colo innovation at Georgetown closed. The amalgam rado mill men. J. Oscar Stewart advertised his acing and leaching processes used in its mills were education at the Cincinnati technical academy used in other isolated mining camps throughout a high school, but better than most educational the American West until replaced by the cranidc offerings in the 1850s-while Carrie Everson process and flotation in the twentieth century. was a self-taughr chemist aided by her Flotation, its basics discovered by Carrie EYerson husband's medical lab. Richard Pearce com- and first discussed in Georgetown, failed to 128 2003 Mini11g HistOI)' Joumal develop there because of a lack of finances, gen eager exploiters of the Great West it is der bias, and because of the protracted experi as a geologic period. In those Eocene mentation ultimately necessary to perfect the pro mornings of 1875, tvlr. Brunton found cess. Another factor may have been a shift in Central City and Georgetown in the attitude away from innovation, as mill man throes of metallurgical revolution. The Olmsted observed. free-milling precious-metal ores of the After nearly three decades of prosperity, the oxidized zone had been succeeded, at a Georgetown district, like so many others, de shallow depth, by heavily pyrite and clined until postwar interest in preserving the complex ores. Roasting before pan amal town saved its diminishing historic fabric. gamation and hyposulphite leaching had Georgetown, Colorado, today is a tourist town brought the Bruckner, Kustel, and fifty miles west of Denver. Its Victorian down Stetefeldt furnaces into prominence. town adds to the nostalgia of exploring mining's The Collom jig had just been invented; past, especially as presented by the Colorado but concentration was crude. N. P. Hill Historical Society's railroad ride and mine tour. had established his smelter at Black Nearby are the ruins of the Clear Creek Reduc Hawk, and had just been joined by Ri tion Works; fire scars still reveal the site. A wa chard Pearce, now living near Liverpool, ter siphon now marks the site of the German England, after a long career of useful Reduction Works, Georgetown's first successful accomplishment. The Stewart men silver mill, and the Stewart plant's site can be tioned by Mr. Brunton was]. 0. Stewart, faintly traced among the new condominiums and who had an important custom mill at homes. Georgetown. He had built an annex for These ruins are little noticed by tourists, the application of the Hunt & Douglas though they are the physical reminders of early process, a method lending itself to labors by Mexicans, African-Americans, Ger graphic representation by the chemical mans, Britons, Canadians, and Americans. Af formulae that used to bother many of ter interviewing D avid Brunton in 1915, min us in our student days. The process is ing-engineer-turned-historian Thomas Arthur now obsolete, but the names of its two Rickard summed up their metallurgical accom inventors live in the annals of mining.65 plishments, writing: As should the names of all of the participants in Forty years is no great lapse of time, as this diverse and ingenious community. ,.. measured by the historian, but to the Notes: 1. E nginming and lvlining ]o11mal, 13 Dec. 1870. T he 1876 (Ft. Collins: Centennial Publications, 1977), 7-17. innovations were the Stetefeldt and Bruckner furnaces This essay benefited from exchanges with the late described below. Clark C. Spence, Mining Eng1i1em and Liston Leyendecker, lost too early to the mining history tbeA11mican II?'est, tbe Lace-Boot B1igade, 184 9-193 3 rtJew fraternity. Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 370. 3. James E. Fell, Jr., Ores to Metals, Tbe Roc~ 1vfo1111tain 2. Quote from the Dai!J' Mimi!f,]OIImal (Black Hawk), 11 Jmeltli!f,lndllstl)' (Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, July 1865. Liston E. Leyendecker, Tbe Grif!itb Fami!J' 1979) 58-61 ,passim, provides a broader context as well. and tbe Fo11nding of Georgetown rtJiwot, Colorado: Quote from the Mimi'!, Repo1ter (Central City), 2 Oct. University Press of Colorado, 2001),passim. Liston E. 1866. Leyendecker, Geo1getown, Colorado's Silver Q11een 1859- The Ingeniom Co1111111111i(y 129 4. One writer described the Mississippi River lead regions 197 4): 135-58. Mimi'!, RevieJII, 6 and 26 Nov. 1866, 21 and concluded: "The smelting furnaces throughout rl1e i\fay,4June 1867. ColoradoMi11e1;24 Oct.1867, 14i\fay West [meaning the i\lississippi Valley] are all on the 1868. RorlgMomttaill NeiiJs, 14 i\Iay 1867,6 Nov. 1868. same plan, me Scotch hearm being in universal use. T•. F. Olmsted, "i\Iills and i\filling," HistOI)' of Clear The blasr is usually supplied by a large bellows, worked Creek a/1(1 Boulder Vnll~·s, Colomdo (Chicago; 0. L. by a small over-shot, water-wheel, me whole Baskin & Co., 1880), Jd2. arrangement being of me most simple description. 9. Josiah E. Spurr and George H. Garrey, Economic Geology T he slag is worked over in a round blast furnace." The oftbe CeorgetoJPII Quadrangle, USGS Professional Paper Scotch hearm had been developed in Britain in t11e 63 (Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing scventeenrl1 cenn1ry and wirl1 me opening of the Offtcc, l908),passim. American lead regions in the nineteenth, accompanied I 0. Louis T•. Simonin, Tbe Rot·~· Mo1111lain West translated furnace hands and miners across the Atlan1jc. They from original French edition of Le gnmd-o11est des 13ttiiS· worked well for the high-grade, narrow, but rich veins Unis, Paris, 1869, by \XIiJson 0 . Clough (Lincoln: of L\lissouri, Tllinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. Josiah University ofNebraska Press, 1966), 54. Italics his. Dwight Whitney, lvletallic ll~ealth o/ the United Stales 11. Quotes from the ivfining Repo11er(Central City), 5l'vfar., (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1857), 4 19- 16 Apr. 1867. Amuimn ]o11mal o/ ivlining (Iacer, 20. See also: Roger Bun, The Bntish Lead ]\,fining lndiiSII)' EnginCCiil'!, and MimiJgjlltmla~, 4 i\Iay 1867. (Redruth, CornwaiJ, U. K.: DyiJansow Truran, 1984) 12. Enginming and Minh'!, Joumal, 11 Aug. 1866. Mini1'!, 213-6; IIazd M. i\Iartell and i\f. C. Gill, "Ore Hear1h Repo11e1; 7 and 14 J\Iay 1867. Alllclicanjoumolf!!Minil'!,, Smelting," B1itisb Mining, 1\lo. 41, Alemoirs (Northern 4 i\Iay 1867. Obitual"}' in El'!,iiiCelil'!, and Minil'!,}oumal, l\ unes Research Society, 1990), 21-36. 19 Feb. 1887. DeWitt Clinton Travis biography in 5. LcycuJe~kct, Geolgt!Owll, 18-19. Roc~• t\lolflllaill New1 Po1trait and Biographical Record of Colorado (Crucago: {Denver), 14 i\[ay, 2 Aug. 1867. Colorado Afliur Chapman, 1899), 792. (Georgetown), 27 June, 25 Oct. 1867, 29 Dec. 1870. 13. A111t1iro11 }ollnlfll of AliRing, 4 i\Iay 1867, quoting the Mining ReritiJJ (Georgetown), Sep. 1872. David S. Central City Timu. Digerness, V;e Mineral Belt: An lll!utmted HistOI)', 14. Minil'!, Revie1v, 30 Oct., 11 Dec. 1866. Colorado Miner, 25 Feattoing the Dmm; So11tb Park & Pacific Railroad, alld July, 8 Aug. 1867. Rock)•Mou11/oin Ne1vs, 10 Aug. 1867. tbe Cold·olld-Jilrer Mining industry ofthe Fobttlo11s Mineml C. K. \Volfe (manager), "Story of the Chamberlain Bell f!!Colomdo, v. ITT (Denver: Sundance Books, 1982), l\lill," Apr. 190 I, Colorado Historical Society. 162-3. IS. William Crooke and Ernst Rohrig (Practical Treatise on 6. Roc~· Mo1111tai11 Nm,s, 14 May, 2 Aug. 1867. Colomdo Metollmgy Adopted ji"ollt lbe Last Gemtt/11 Edition o/ Mi1w; 27 June, 25 Oct., 29 Dec. 1867. Mining Re11iew, Professor Ked's Mctallmgy (London: Longmans, Green, Sep. 1872. Ovando J. Hollister, The Mines ofColomdo and Co., 1868), 320-62) describe the Freiberg process. (S pringfield, Ivfass.: Samuel Bowles & Co, 1867), 249- "Bruckner Cylinder" section ofRoss iter W/. Raymond's, 62, describes the plants. Jtatistics o/ Mines and .A,Iining in the Stales and Tcnitmie.r 7. ColomdoMinn; 8Aug. 1867. The smelter is described in !West of the Hoc~ · J\1/otmtains; Beit'!, tbe Si.l I hullJackson, in "Georgerown and the Terrible l\ fine," Nevada Press, 1985), 28-9. t\ustinitcs ' Juestioned the 1\"t/11 ) 'ork l11drpmdmt, 10 Sep. 1874, [reprinted in her Riti patent; see Spence, Mini!'!, l.;nginem-, 239. q/ Tmn/ a/1(1 .Home (Boston: Roberts, 1878)] wrotc: 26. Spence, Mining Engimrrs, 239. R. \'Oklahoma Press, 1970), 199, 248-SO. Quote from Company ofNe,,· York, wirh Raymond as consulrant, G uido Kustel, j\"emda and Crd!fomia Promses ofSi!rertmd held d1e parents for the Gcrtcnhofcr and Stetefeldt Cold Extmctio11 (Sa n Francisco: I'rank D. Carlton, 1863), furnaces; Allltlimn MiniiiJ5}0III7Irl/, 4 J an. 1868. During 63. rhis period Raymond also cdit cd rhc Enginming rmd 20. .J. r\1. Locke, in "The Bruckner Revolving Furnace," Mining Joumal, which ~dvt:n i sed a parenting service. Tnmsactions of tbc A meritnJJ 1wti/11/e of MiJJiJJg Engineers Raymond mentions mc n1 o ring in "Anton E ilers," 2 (May 1873-Feb. 187 4): 295-9, describes the Tennessee Engineering and Mi11i11gjounlfll, 28 i\pr. 191 7. mill, Sih·er Ciry, New 1\fexico. For Uruckner in New 28. Enginecn·,l/5 and Mining ]o11nlfll, 17 J an. 187 1, 14 J\lar. t\ leXJco see: Colorado Mi11t1; 3 1 Scp. 1869; Tbe Borden?r 1874, 16Jan. 187S. Rapnond,MiningStatistiafor/812, (Las Cruces), 20 i\far. 1872; Mining Lift (Silver City), 8 268; and for 1875, 369. C. A. Sretefeldt, "On the r ov. 1873; A1izona Star (Tucson), 6 Dec. 1878; and Progress which has been made in d1e Construct.ion of 1870 census enumeration sheets, Aztec mill, Orr-Crushing Silver .\fills, and in d1e Treatment ofSo F.liz;rbcthtown. Huepeden advenisemcnt appears in called Dry and Base Silver Orcs, in d1e \'\'est of the Colomdo Mine1; 2S Feb. I 868 to 17 i\far. 1870, United States," Am111al Repod oftbe Director 27 Dec. 1875. 46. Rickard, " David W. Brunton," 77-'d. David W. 34. D. WI. Brunton, "Technical Reminiscences," 1\1iningmul Brunton, "t\ New Sys tem of Ore-Sampling," .'lcientijlr Pre.r.r, 27 Nov. 1915. Tmnsrtclions A mnimn lmtitu/e qf i\tfinill!, Engineers '13 35. Brunton, "Technical Reminiscences." T. A. Rickanl, (1884-1885): 639-645. " David \'(1. Brunton," in l111emiel/ls IJJitb JVfillliJg E11gi11ee~:r 47. Mining Re11ie11!, Mar. 1874, 1\pr., t\ug., and 1 Nov. 1875. (Sa n Francisco: i\lining and Scienrific Press, '1922), 69- Engtitm ing allfl Mining .Joumal, 28 Oct. 1876. Clark 96. Spence, "Colorado's Terrible tlfine: 1\ Study in British 36. Rickard, "0;1\rid W. Brunton," 69-96. Investment," Colomdo J,l,lagaz!ne Qanuary 1957), 48-61. 37. Rickard, "David W. Brunton," 69-96. Olm sted, S. R. I<.rom improved Cornish rolls in the 1860s and "i\Jills," 342. Quote from Roc. 53. H. C. Parmelee, "CarrieJaneEverson anJ the Flotation Winston, 1963),passim. \XI alter R. Crane, Gold and SiiJICr Process," i\Ietallmgical and Cbemicnl Enginming, 15 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1908), 578-635. January 1916, 67-69. Dawn Bunyak, "To Float or Sink: Henderson (Mining in Colorado, 109) gives Clear Creek A Brief History of Flotation ~ f illing," Mining HiJIOIJ' County production as S87 million by 1923, $52 million ]oumal 7 (2000): 35-44. T have benefited from worth of silver and S8 million oflead. The peak year for ~xchanges with Jeremy .Mouat and Dawn Bun yak, who silver values produced was 1880 ($2.2 million), while is working on a biography of Everson. the peak for silver metal produced was 1894 (2.2 million 54. Bun yak, 'To Float or Sink," 35-44. fine ounces). 55. Bunyak, "To Float or Sink," 35-44. Georgelo11111 Comin~ 61. Horner, Silnr To11111, 76. 1\f. B. Shelton, Roc~ 1\1/ounlain 3Sep. 1886. Adnnlml'I (Uoswn: Christopher Publishing House, 56. T. A. Rickard, A HisiOIJ' ofAmnicmt Mini11g (New York: 1920),52. i\kGraw Hill, 1932),397. T. A. Rickard, "The Everson 62. Robert V. Bruce, Tbe l.B11ncbing of Modem Ametican Myth," Mining & Jcientijic Press, 15 Jan. 1916. Srimce, 1846-1876 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 57. Georgeton'n Comier12lvfay 1887; quote app~ars in 5Ju ne 1987), 27. Spence, "Terrible tiline," 48-61. Clark C. 1880 issue. Colorado B11si11ess Direc!OIJ• (Denver, 1882), Spence, "The British and Colorado J\lining Bureau," 1038. Sally Zanjani, A M.ine of Her Onm, IWomm Tbe Colomdo Mnga:{!ile (April 1956): 81 -92. Clark C. Prosptcton in tbe A111elicon ll?ut, 1850-1950 (Lincoln: Spence, 13Jitisb Inrestmml aNd tbe A11mican Mining University ofNebraska Press, 1997), 181. Fronlitt; 1860-1901 (1958. Reprint. l\loscow: 58. Jeremy i\fouat, "The Development of the Flotation University ofidaho Press, 1995),passim. Process: Tcchnologic::~l Change and the Genesis of 63. nn ~rhnn l s, ~t·t> l.l:~rk \.. Spe.nc:e., '"\V.Ie Are tl1eTrustees Modern l'v1ini ng, 1898-19'11," Austmlirm Economit· for Posterit)•': T he \XI estern Movement for a National I-lisiOIJ' Revien1(1\farch 1996), 3-31. Henry E. Wood also fl1ining School, 1850-1900," Nemda Histotiral Socie!J• claimed to have discovered the process: \'{food, Qumter!J• (Fall 1986): 155-174. C)•ril Stanley Smitl1, "Reminiscences of an Old Assayer in Colorado," "The 1nteraction of Science and Practice in the History Huntington Library, p. 3; Enginming and Mining of l\IeraUurgy," TecbnololJ' and C11lt11re (FaU 1961 ): 357- ]oumal, 13 Oct. 1928. This parallels the development of 367. Paul, Milling Frontiers, 124. F.nginming and Mini11g the cyanide process; see Robert L. Spude, "Cyanide and ]o11nwl, 13 l;eb. 1875. Rickard, "Pearce," 406. Rodman the Flood of Gold: Some Colorado Beginnings of the Wilson Paul, in "Colorado as a Pioneer ofScience in the Cyanide Process of Gold Extract ion," EssqJ•I and !\lining West," Mississippi Valli!)• Hist01ical Review Qune Monograpbs in Colorado HistOI)', no. 12 (1991), 1-35. 1960): 34-50, notes the importance of the silver boom 59. Charles W.l. l Jenderson, Mi11ing i11 Colorado, a History of of the late 1860s-1870s, but overlooks tl1e early Disrovel)', Derelopmmt and Production, U.S. Geological innovations and adaptations at Georgetown. Survey, Professional Paper 138 (Washington, D. C.: 64. E11gi11eeting a11d Mimi'!, ]o11mal, 19 Feb. 1887. C. A USGPO, 1926), 16, 32. Minn, 1Vlining, 1Vfilling, Clear Martine may be the exception on mobility; after he died Creek, Colorado (Jd:~ ho Springs, Colorado: Clear Creek in Georgetown, Lhe first ingot poured from the fife tal i\1iningAssociation, 1932),31. The last standing German Reduction \XIorks was found in his estate and mill in Georgetown is a flotation mill of the 1920s. was donated to t11e Colorado Hisrorical Society. 60. Henry Dudley Teetor, "Some of the l\fines and Miners 65. Rickard, "Early Days in Colorado," offprint from of Georgetown, Colorado," Magtt!(jne of IWe.rlem Mi11i1Jg and Scimtijic Press, 27 Nov. 19 15, 22. History (3 Sep. 1890): 490-505. Representative Guido Kustel-a Frieberg-trained 1\ ustrian who had a biographies arc: Clark C. Spence, "Robert Orchard Old significant career, primarily in Nevada, California, and t11e British and Colorado !VIining Bureau," fiLA. Arizona, and Mexico-may have been tl1e only person thesis, University of Colorado, 1951; Christine Bradley, mentioned by Rickard ro nor have visited Georgetown. IWilliniiJ A. Hamill, !be Gmtle11Jn11 from Cltnr Creek (Fort In the early 1870s, he did design a smelter in Chicago Collins: Colorado State University, 1977); "Benjamin tl1at processed some of Georgetown's high-grade Bowden Lawrence," Mining and MetallmlJ' Oune 1921), output. Obituary in Milling and Scientific Press, 19 i\ug. 25-6. Rodman Wilson Paul, Mining Pronliers of tbe Far 1882. J17esl, 1848-1890 (New York: Ilolt, Rinehart and •mond Collection, Colorado I-listorical Collection, Colorado Historical Society. Society. Bayard Taylor, Colorado, tl S11111111er Tlip (New 8. Fell, OmtoMeMs, 59-61. Duane A. Smid1, "Decade of York: Putnam, 1867), 74. See also: Isabella Bird, A Frustmtion: Colorado and California Silver i\lining in Lodfs Ufe i11 the Roclry i\1/ountains (1874. Reprint. the 1860s," Joulbem Ca/ijomia Qumte1b• (Summer SausiJito: Comstock Editions, 1972), 178-9; Helen 130 2003 1vlining His/Ot)' jollmfll