The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1943-06-24
Old Ore Mines
Are Busy Again
They Produce for This War
AS They Did in Days
OF Washington.

WASHINGTON.-T mines Wnlcn
produced the iron that was forged
into rude guns for George Washing
toms ragged, shivering volunteers
may soon feed another war.
The giant blast furnaces at Pitts
burgh, Bethlehem and Johnstown
need 139 million tons Of iron ore
and the hundreds Of little, abandoned,
overgrown outcroppings OF rcd.
black and brown ore that are scat
tered through the hills Of Maryland,
PENNSYLVANIA and New Jersey may
supply five million tons OF the ma
tional quota.
The Great Lakes, whose fleets car
~ the ore mined in the tremendous
Minnesota and Michigan ranges. can
only handle shipping part OF the
year. The rest of the year, the ship
ping lanes are frozen.
This year, the bureau OF mines OF
the department of the interior. feels
there is too much risk attached to
depending on Great Lakes shipping
for all the ore needed to produce
the tremendous steel quota to feed
the nations war plants.
Road machinery can be used to
mine the ore, which is at the surface
| in open-pit mines. II the ore Is to
be made into sponge iron, it can be
processed in the brick kilns in the
vicinity-kilns which have become
war casualties. ',......f
Under the plan submitted both to
the budget bureau and the War Pro.
duction board, the ore produced by
the small mines would be bought by
the Metals Reserve corporation, a
subsidiary of the Reconstruction
Finance corporation. and resold to
the steel mills. -.
The little mines did not shut down
because the ore ran out. They were
abandoned because competition from
the giant Minnesota and Michigan
ranges drove them out Of business
The ore is there. 1t is impure. but
can be washed in any gravel-wash'
ing machine, and according to the
bureau of mines. it requires less
coke for processing into steel thar
the lake ore.
A revolving fund Of $50, 000, 0ot
would be established to buy the ore
assuming price of S. per ton de
livered for the eastern ores.
/ Already, the Scotia mine, neal
State College. Pa, has been re
opened. It has been completely
closed down since the last war. Sam
pies of ore from the mine-whicf
produced the ore that made New
York city's famous Brooklyn bridge
have been tested by one OF the
Pittsburgh steel mills, and the mil
has guaranteed to buy million ton!
Of such ore. r. -. e..
The main iron belt runs from the
northwest shore of Chesapeake bay
up west of Philadelphia-througf
Valley Forge-southeast Of Bethle
hem, and into New Jersey and New
York. ..--.r- 81.
From the Chesapeake bay to Phila
delphia, the ores are red. From
Philadelphia on into New Jersey anc
New York the ores shift to black.
There are outcroppings of brown
ores southwest of Harrisburg, anc
in the region northeast of Altoona
running up little beyond State Col
lege. ... -..-- .-
The bureau of mines says that il
the Appalachian belt-largely by
passed by war industry so far-thers
are so to 100 fairly good iron mine:
that could be- reclaimed, and hun
dreds of "pinholes" where the ore
crops out of .hillsides and could bs
spooned out by bulldozers.
The same mines fed the FORCES o
the early settlers. n .....