The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-10-25
HIGHEST. SMOKE STACK
IS LOCATED At TACOMA
ADDED FIVE FEET TO TAKE REC
ORD FORMERLY HELD
BY JAPAN.

While still possessing the distinc-
tioh of having the highest brick
smoke stack in the world, the one at
the B. & NJ smeiter at Great Falls,
honor of having the largest cement
smoke stack, one recently completed
at Tacoma being 577 feet high, which
Is 10 feet higher than the famous
stack at the Anaconda smelter which
at the time of it's completion WAS the
| largest in the world.
The stack at Great Falls is 500 feet
in height and 1t was CONSTRUCTED by
the Alphons Custodius company CT
the United States and France. Con-
rad Worms, president of the company,
superintended the building OF the
stack. The same company is now
building a 40O-foot brick stack at the
East Helena smelter of the American
Refining & Smelling company. Work
there is in charge of Simon P. ellis,
who also built the Tacoma stack.
! Originally it was the intention to
build the Tacoma stack $50 feet in
height, which would make it five feet
less in altitude than the Washington
monument. After plans had been
drawn it was learned that there was
a stack in Japan (which had taken the
honor from Anaconda by going up $50
feet, so it was decided to bring them
back to the United States by making
the Tacoma stack SIS feet high.
Great Care Is Essential.
Construction of these great cement
or brick flues, which from a distance
look like tall tapering pipe trees from
which a forest fire has taken the
branches, is a most difficult feat. The
greatest care must be exercised and Il
hundred and one minor details must
be looked after most carefully.
Before construction is started the
utmost care must be given to select
ing site The ground must be thor
,oughly investigated and the excava-
ton must be made where the soil is
found as nearly uniform as possible.
Then heavy concrete foundation has
to be built for it must sustain many
thousands of tons of weight add the
slightest error either in picking the
ground or building the foundation
might cause the stack to be ruined by
settling and topple over. Care must
be taken in tapering the stack and
keeping it plumb and in reinforcing
it with bands of steel as the workmen
proceed upward, so it will withstand
the force of the highest wind. There
are three essentials in the work, care
fful calculations, honest work and per-
feet material
Occupation Is Hazardous.
Stack buildngis listed as hazard :
Gus occupation and the Alphons Gus
todus company insures all it's work.
men, but there are very few accidents
owing to the extreme care exercised
by superintendent and the workmen
Looking up at a workman several
hundred feet in the air on one of the
great Montana stacks one wonders II
he is not going to fall. The spectator
usually becomes dizzy himself. Yet 1t
| Is seldom that a man falls from the
dizzy heights of stack. Scaftoding
is used by the brick layers or concrete
pourers and frame makers. but the
top of the stack is reached by an ele-
vator. There is also ladder built on
the outside of the stack so that the
top may be reached when smoke is
pouring through the big chimney
Some idea of the size of big smoke
stack may be gathered from the fig
ures compiled by engineers on the
Helena stack construction work. There
will be used there $4,000 Alphons-
Custodus bricks, each of which is
more than four times the size of an
ordinary brick At the base of the
stack it will measure when complet-
ed rs feet in diameter, while at the
top it will only be 16 feet. The walls
will taper gradually from four feet in
thickness at the base to IL inches at
the apex. Completed it will weigh
! IL, 600 tons. The stack at Great Falls
and the one at Anaconda are built in
the same proportion, but the height
being greater the walls are thicker,
the diameter. larger at the top and
bottom and the weigh much more.
Noted Athlete Superintendent.
Superintendent Simon P. ellis, who
has charge of the work at the East
Helena smelter stack, was one ofsthe.
strong men of Fordham college in his
school days and later as member of
the New York Athletic club went to
Stockholm and London for the Olym-
pic games. In the contests in Sweden
he broke the worlds record for throw
ing the 16-pound hammer, tossing 1t
1872 feet. This distance has since been
excelled by another American athlete.
ellis is a giant standing feet 2
inches in height, weighing in condi
ton 2S5 pounds and having chest
expansion of as inches. His size makes
him valuable as strong man and a
type on the stage and as result he
has done time in the movies. He was
cast in a number of pictures by var
ious companies and has acted for