The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-05
NEW INDUSTRY
|NAUGURATED
Utah's First Copper Smelter
Now In Operation.
HIGHLAND BOY PLANT
STAkTS ON ITS CAREER
Handling $50 Tons Of Copper Ore
Per Day.

$1,000
On the Market-Brief Description
of the Mammoth Plant-It
Was Erected at a Cost OF
S35o,ooo.
'The smelter is now in full opera
tion," said Superintendent White OF
the Highland Boy reduction works yes
terday.
Quietly and without ostentation, an
other great industry has been launched
in Utah, one that will add to the fame
and wealth of the state. The mammoth
plant of the Utah Consolidated COM
pany near Murray, costing $3.50, 900, with
daily capacity of 25O tons of ore, and
giving employment TO 200 men, has
been gradually brought into full op-
GRAFTON during the past few days With
in few days more it's output of red
metal in the form of copper bullion, SO
per cent fine, will be ready for the mar
ket.
The sampler has been running for
four days, ore has been arriving from
the mine at Bingham for nearly a
week, and test runs on machinery in
different parts of the huge plant have
been going on for several days. The
fires have been started in one roasting
and one reverberatory furnace, and one
of the stacks, and r. L. White, who
has charge of the construction OF the
plant, SAYS he expects to be running
out pig copper bars by the 18th of this
month.
Everything about the Highland Boy
smelter is. suggestive of solid worth;
generous proportions everywhere pre-
vail; nothing appears 10 have been
sighted and no convenience has been
overlooked. Wherever possible iron and
steel have taken the place of wood,
and nothing has been left undone that
money could buy and brains suggest,
for the better equipment of the plant
which marks the opening of a new in
dustry in this great state.
The plant is an adaptation of the
great Montana smelters and much bet
ter than most of them in general ar
rangement- It was designed by and
constructed on the plans of George K.
Fischer, chief engineer of the Highland
Boy company, and one Of the most
noted civil and mining engineers of
the west, whose home is at Great Falls,
Mont.
Cost OF the Plant.
There has been expended on the plant
to date, approximately, $3.50, 600, and by
the time every detail is worked out and
the plants maximum production is at
it will have cost close to one
half million of dollars.
The smelter was originally designed
for 200 tons daily capacity, but as con-
structed it will handle from 240 to $50
tons. and will give steady employment
to 125 or $50 men.
If the different buildings comprising
the plant were thrown together. they
would cover about eight acres of
ground.
On the east side of the works are
stretched out 554 feet of ore and coal
bins, over and along which runs. the
railroad trackage, so that all cars are
directly into the bins.
The sampling mill covers 1x50 feet.
The main smelter building is 232x74
feet. The roaster building is III feet
square. The power house is 64x72 feet
The boiler house is 46x4S feet. The Of
fee building 32x64 feet.
An ingenious contrivance at this
plant is a cooling tower, 20X56 feet,
through which water for condensing the
steam is continuously circulated, to
keep it cool.
4, 500 gallon water tanks or storage pur-
poses.
There are three roasting furnaces,
with capacity of eighty tons each, as
we'll as three reverberatory furnaces,
and preparations are now making to
line the converters which reduce the
matte to pig copper.
The power house is equipped with a
engine, furnished by
the Nordberg Manufacturing company,
the steam cylinders of which are 1882
inches in diameter; in character it is
tandem compound. with thirty-inch
stroke. The engine drives a 250-kilowatt
generator, which furnishes the power
to the different departments-each de-
partment having a separate motor.
The plant is also supplied with a
Cross compound blowing engine, hav-
ing a capacity of $500 cubic feet of
free air compressed to twelve pounds
pressure per minute, to supply air to
the converters during the converting
process.
Both engines are supplied with steam
1t forty pounds pressure from two
Evans locomotive fire-box boilers.
The smokestack is cylindrical in
shape, being fifteen and one-half feet
N diameter 1t is constructed of steel,
-anging from seven-eighths of an inch
.hick at the bottom TO one-fourth of an
nch thick at the top. 1t is 115 feet high
and rests on a stone base twenty-six
'eet high, which carries the top POI feet
n the air.
The ores at this plant are first
rushed, then roasted, then smelted
md converted into matte, after which
{ goes through the converters and is
into what is known as
,ommSrcial pig copper. While this
product is not what is termed pure
copper, it is SO per cent fine.
A Busy Scene.
A visit to the big plant at this time
would cause an expression of incred-
llity to creep over the countenance of
my one not familiar with what is going
N and what has been accomplished
ince last fall. Some 200 men are now
at the big plant, and the I
lang of iron, the whirr of wheels, the
,uzz of saws and merry patter of ham,
ners forms combination of noises
which are bewildering. Everything is
,ustle and bang, and from one end of
he works to the other the impression
made on the mind is that a monster
raft is being cleared for action.
Just about eight months ago (Sept.
} ground was broken and active work
on the mammoth, up-to-
ate snelter, or reduction works, of the
ltah Consolidated Mining company
amiliarly known as the Highland Boy