Evening star., 1925-04-02
S2O,0lO,O)D PLANT
NOW D|SMANTLED
End of Famous Business Ro-
nance Proves Blow to
Lake Charles, La.
BY j. C. ROYLE.

Special Dispatch TO The Star.
LAKE CHARLES, La, April 2-One
of the greatest romances of big bust
Aess has been brought to a close by
virtual completion of the disman-
sling of the S20,000,000 Union Sui
phur Co. plant near here. The tre-
mendous deposit of sulphur which
formed one of the largest assets of
Calcasieu Parish and which seemed
at one time almost inexhaustible has
been worked out, according to II. w.
Bell, State geologist, who has just
made a survey of the property
The deposit is estimated originally
60 have contained 10,349,436 tons of
the element. 1t was owned by a
party of New Orleans capitalists, but
they found themselves unable to work
1T at profit since the sulphur was
between 1000 and 1000 feet below the
surface. Attempts to remove it
through shafts proved too expensive
and the owners employed a German
chemist named Hermann FrasCh to
aid them in working out a plan for
mining it.
New Method Proves Success.
Frasch, who had occupied a minor
position with the Standard Oil Co,
evolved a plan for drilling holes to
the sulphur through the everything
earth, pumping live steam to the bot
tom, melting the sulphur ana pumping
the element to the surface. The New
Orleans men could see only the ex-
pense involved in such process and
could not be induced to install it.
FrasCh, however, believed thor
oughly in his own plan and refused
70 give it up. After many efforts he
succeeded in interesting some of the
men he had met while in the Standard
Oil Co.'S service and they bought the
M rt n q
businessmen declared did not exceed
$4,000. The plan proved highly sue
cessful and Frasch made enough
money from it to buy out his as
sociates.
Profits Reach S25,OOO, 900.
Money rolled into the pockets of
the Frasch interests, who formed the
Union Sulphur Co. with a capital
stock of only 100000. For many
years the deposit was the only large
source of supply outside Italy. Then
came the war, when production was
extended to the utmost and when
prices were extraordinarily high.
The property at this period became
more valuable than nearly any gold
mine in history. w. r. ingalls,, con-
sulting engineer of New York, de-
clared that from January l, 1914, to
the close of 1918, the net profits of
$35 600, 900. In the later year the COM
pany paid $5,711,136 in income taxes
alone.
1t is estimated that there remained
in the ground January l, 1919, 4,535, ,644
tons, or nearly half the original de-
posit. This had practically all been
extracted when the company closed
down its plant December 21, 1924.
$4,000 Net s10O,O0O,OOO.
The sulphur mine, despite it's huge
production, lasted longer than its
main owner, for Frasch died in New
York during 1924, being succeeded as
president of the company by his SON
in-law. 1t is estimated by men in
Louisiana, who have been in close
touch with the situation, that the
investment of $4,000 by Frasch and
his associates netted S100,000,000 be-
fore the end of 1924.
In the course of operation 712 wells
were drilled on the property, of which
about so failed to strike sulphur The
remarkable efficiency of Frasch's
process is shown by the fact that
Geologist Bell estimates the extrac-
tion amounted to 94.79 per cent. ct
is, no doubt, impossible to recover 100
per cent of any business in liquid
form from rock formation" he said
THE average extraction of oil from
wells does not exceed 80 per cent. The
recovery of over 90 per cent sulphur
in molten form of a stratum which
does not contain more than 35 per
cent sulphur is highly efficient op-
Grafton"
Deposit No Longer Exists.
When work was suspended in De-
cember CONSERVATION reigned in CAL
casieu Parish. The people could not
realize that the deposit, which had
seemed so huge, was exhausted. Some
of them charged that the company
was removing its plant to avoid the
high State taxes, but investigation
proved the deposit had ceased to exist.