railroad was to be exp

Overview

loded, the cap didn't go off. U
Email: ndaunted, Fielding grabbed a pistol
and fired at the

dynamite. The following day, and old oil house near the smelter was also blown up as part of the bridge scene. Today, there isn't much left of the operation. Large black slag piles are gradually being hauled away from Grant County's driveways and highways. The "Big

Ditch" is filled with illegally dumped trash. Rusted pipes protrude from the ground. Twisted iron lies with sca, and tte are ongoing in the laboratories each year. These projects make use of the laboratories' state-of-the-art equipment, including Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier Transform Attenuated Total Reflectance Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), an Agilent Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) with an autosampler and other equipment designed to provide information with a high level of accuracy and precision.

red, broken brick. The burned foundation of the old Continental Ore and

• Chemical Co. fluorspar concen- tratorfrom Wold War II rests on the r
  uins of the old Silver City Reduction Works. A road toward the sewer plant south of town leads right by the old operation. There's not much to see. There are the tailin
• gs, the slag, and with some imagination, there's the ol
  d Silver City smelter. The Silver City Smelter Was Big Operation Reduction Works South of Town Once Employed More Than
• 200 Men and Women Sit of 1913 Silent Movie By RICHARD
  PETERSON Daily Press Writer Ore was hand-picked from steam powered conveyer belts by men - and children. The equipment was "the best known to metallurgical science." While families depended on the operation for a livelihood. And in 1913, a silent movie was filmed at the site by a prominent Cali
• fornia movie company which later merged
  with Warner Brothers. It was the Silver City Reduction Works, the pride of Silver City and which fro a brief time was a boon to the economy, making mining in the Grant County possible in those early years. Some 60 years later, there is nothing left of the operation. The Silver
• City Reduction Works we
  nt by several names before it was finally scaped. It was originally build by the Hearst family to handle gold and silver ores hauled from their Pinos Altos mines. This were difficult years for the operation, and a final crunch came in 1902. The plans was handling just about every ore it could get - custom smelting included. And that meant copper was among those
• ores. Copper, in fact, was such a vital part of the smelter's daily operations
  The FTIR-ATR applies infrared light energy over specified wavelengths to the sample to help in the identification of molecular structure with organic fragments of molecules. Different fragments are found in specific areas along the energy continuum. FTIR-ATR can be used for solid, liquid, and gas samples. Most compounds containing carbon and hydrogen can be identified as well as energetic materials and common household products.
• Particle Size Analyzer (PSA):
  that depressed copper market conditions forced a closure of the smelter. That was in April. On June 30, 30, 1903, the plant caught fire and was leveled. Silver City's hopes were dashed since the whole operation was going to be sold and once again put into productions. The
• sale took place anyway, and Coman
  che Mining Smelting Co. was the new owner. The reduction works were build on a larger scale. In 1906, the newspaper had this to say: "The big red building in which this ponderous machinery is housed is 72
• feet hi Chemistry Laboratories contain other small equipment necessary for sample preparation, chemical synthesis of inorganic and organic materials, and small scale testing of samples (Torres Laboratories).

gh and is by far the most

• imposing structure in theses parts, being 63 feet in width and 122 feet lo
• ng. "A metallic conveyer will carry the ore from the bins to the l
• arge crusher, from whence it will be
• elevated... the o
• versize of this g
• oing to the picking belt were boys and men
• will be employed to pick out the different classes of ore that is to go direct to the smelter. "The wate

r for th Chemistry Laboratories work closely with the other divisions of e mill will be pumped from the arroyo, which passes through Silver City and past the smelter... The little Silver City, Pinos Altos & Mogollon railroad hauled ore to this smelter, but only briefly. Comanche was absorbed by Savannah Copper Company which operated the plant for a short time. Even at first, Savannah was caught up in the dream that first captured the Hearst fa

mily, and later the Comanche Co. Savannah made some improvement at the plan, and the smelter could allegedly handle between 250 and 300 tons or ore per day. Like Comanche, Savannah was also interested in buying ores from small mining operat