Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1893-08-26
MONEY IN OLD TIN CANS.
How an Ingenious Ohio Negro Is Making
from al to IS Per Day.

How an Ingenious Ohio Negro Is Making
from al to IS Per Day.
Elliot Spillin is an ingenious man
of color who claims to have amassed
fortune by reducing the solder used
IN making tin cans to its original
shape. Down under the Ohio ter
minal Of the Southern road the re-
mains OF cans are strewn all over the
ground, and in places lie in great
heaps. The old fellow was hard at
work the other day when a Cincin-
natl Times-Star reporter invaded this
can-strewn territory. A sheet-iron
box ten feet long, two feet wide and
one deep served the purpose Of a fur
mace and fierce wood fire burned in
the midst of what appeared to be
about hundred tin cans of all sizes
Spillin busted himself keeping the
tire hot and examining his stock. He
explained that it required the solder
from l2O cans to make one pound.
He gets out from ten to twenty
pounds every day, he says, and sells it
for from 81 to l24 cents pound to a
Pearl street tinsmith. The process
he employs Is simple. The solder all
melted from the cans the latter are
scraped up to one end of his box or
furnace, while the solder and ashes
are dipped up in shovel and put
into kettle to be re-heated. Then
the whole mass is sifted, the hes
easily separating from the solder,
which runs out as bright and clean as
when first put on the cans. 1t is al
lowed to cool and harden in cakes and
are offered for sale in that shape.
EThis miniature smelling establish
ment is operated right out on the
levee few yards from the waters
edge. The city's garbage boat is
moored near by and here is where the
smelterer gets his tin cans. He helps
load and unload the boat and this la
Dor is taken in lieu of other consider
alton in payment for the cans. He
gets most of them before the boat
pushes off for the garbage consuming
plant down the river, but when he
misses any they are generally taken
care Of and brought back to him.
The city's garbage supplies him with
more than a thousand cans a day, so
it can be seen that he is kept pretty
regularly at work. 1t is his object to
handle the cans as he gets them, but
occasionally they get ahead of him.
He generally does his smelling during
the morning and collects his cans in
the afternoon, but to keep them from
accommodating he sometimes smelters
all night long. He makes all the way
from 81 to S. day, and has kept it
up for seven years, although he has
been in Cincinnati only one year.
Spillin was = laborer at the great Ar
gentine smelling works at Argentine,
Kan, until he conceived the idea Of
getting into the business himself. He
had learned something about it, and
being intelligent beyond the ordinary
launched his fortunes in the venture.
He first operated at Kansas City, but
tin cans grew scarce there after a
time and he resolved to seek better
location. While at Kansas City,
however, he made money rapidly
ana this invested judiciously put him
in easy circumstances He was still
eager to add to his wealth, however,
so he pulled up stake and came to
Cincinnati. While his business does
not pay as it has in the past. Spillin
plods merrily along, well satisfied
with his lot