(This page printed from UtahRails.net, Copyright 2000-2011 Don Strack)

International Smelter at Tooele

This page was last updated on May 27, 2011.

Compiled by Don Strack

(This is a work in progress; research continues.)

Additional Information

Timeline

December 1907
To solve its smelting problem, Utah Consolidated purchased land in Tooele County "just over the mountain from the mine in what is known as Pine Canyon, and not far from the town of Tooele." The smelter would use plans already drawn up by the Amalgamated Copper Company at Anaconda. A 10-mile railroad would be built to connect the smelter with the three railroads serving Garfield: Western Pacific; Rio Grande Western; and San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake. (Deseret News, December 14, 1907)

September 30, 1908
Representatives of Utah Consolidated Mining Company began purchasing land at the mouth of Pine Canyon as the site of a new smelter, to replace the old Highland Boy smelter in Salt lake Valley that was closed in late 1906 due to smoke litigation. Negotiations with American Smelting and Refining for Utah Consoilidated to furnish ore to ASARCO's Garfield smelter abruptly fell through on September 29, and a rush was made to take the option on the Pine Canyon site that was to expire on September 30. (Inter-Mountain Republican, October 1, 1908, "yesterday")

December 9, 1908
Construction work started on the International smelter at the mouth of Pine Canyon near Tooele. (Deseret News, August 27, 1910) Work satrted to connect the new smelter with the Salt Lake Route started on December 8, 1908. (Salt Lake Herald, July 25, 1910)

January 1, 1909
International Smelting Company purchased the Raritan Copper Works at Perth Amboy, New Jersey. (Deseret News, June 13, 1910, page 7, Annual Report for 1909)

February 15, 1909
International Smelting Company purchased Compania Metallurgica of Toreon in Mexico. (Salt Lake Mining Review, February 15, 1909, page 10)

June 1909
The route for the aerial tramway has been surveyed between the Highland Boy mine of Utah Consolidated, and the new smelter in Pine Canyon near Tooele. The terminal will be on the property of the smelter. (Salt Lake Herald, June 20, 1909)

October 15, 1909
Tooele Valley Railway commenced operation. The railroad operated 6.235 miles of line between Tooele Junction and International, along with 1.698 miles of yard tracks and sidings. maxiumu grade was 2.4 percent, and maxiumu curvature was 14 degrees. The railroad was incorporated on November 18, 1908; construction began on November 18, 1908 and the railroad was opened for operation on October 15, 1909. The construction was fully financed by International Smelting Co., which also furnished substantially all of the railroad's freight consignments. (Interstate Commerce Commission, Valuation Reports Volume 110, Valuation Docket 9, pages 310-322)

1910
The new aerial tramway between the Highland Boy mine and the new International smelter was to be in operation "shortly after the first of the year." (Salt Lake Herald, January 9, 1910)

April 21, 1910
Utah Consolidated was only making small shipments of ore to the Garfield smelter, with the ore being the highest grade ore coming from development work, pending the opening of the new smelter in Pine Canyon near Tooele. (Deseret News, April 21, 1910)

Mid May 1910
The International smelter was to be ready to start processing ore by the middle of May 1910. The new aerial tramway was to be put into commission at the same time. (Salt Lake Herald, March 24, 1910)

May 13, 1910
The new aerial tramway received its first trial run "today." There are 78 steel towers on concrete foundations. The daily capacity was put at 1500 tons per day. The ore bins at the smelter were to be filled beginning any day, with Utah Consolidated on contract to furnish 1200 tons per day. "The tramway will affect the company a large saving over freight tariffs to the Garfield smelter." (Salt Lake Herald, May 13, 1910)

July 14, 1910
First ore was received at the International smelter, by way of the aerial tramway from Highland Boy. The tramway was 20,000 feet long and was constructed to transport ores from the Utah Deleware Mining Co. in Highland Boy in Bingham Canyon. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 72)

Ore arrived at the Tooele smelter by three methods:

The railroad connection allowed lead-zinc-silver ores (known as galena ore) and concentrates to be shipped in from all over the west, and for shipment of concentrates and smelted metals to refineries nationwide. Ores that arrived via the aerial tramway was dumped into railroad cars and moved to nearby sampler bins for storage and later processing.

July 24, 1910
The blast furnaces were started at the International smelter. The first slag was poured on August 15th. (Deseret News, August 27, 1910)

August 27, 1910
The first copper metal was produced at the International smelter. Full production was to begin by October 1st. (Deseret News, August 27, 1910, "this afternoon")

September 1910
The new tramway had the following points of interest:

March 1, 1911
Construction started on a new lead smelter. While the original smelter had been constructed for copper, the supply of copper ore from the Utah Consolidated mine in Bingham Canyon dropped severely in 1910. A new lead smelter was constructed using much of the existing machinery from the copper smelter. The International smelter stopped processing copper completely in 1946, but continued to process lead (and zinc) until 1971. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 75)

The new lead International smelter near Tooele was completed in February 1912. First furnace "blown in" on February 29, 1912. (Engineering and Mining Journal, January 11, 1913, p. 87)

Mid 1920s
By this time the International smelter had become a custom smelter, processing copper and lead contrates and ores from Bingham, Park City, Tintic, nearby Bauer, and from Idaho. At times there were 85 to 90 rail cars from all over the west, unloading at the smelter's rail yards. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 74)

August 21, 1941
The Elton Tunnel was formally opened during a ceremony on August 21, 1941. The tunnel was named for J. O. Elton, general Manager of International Smelting & Refining Company, and its National Tunnel and Mines Company subsidiary which built the tunnel. The capacity of the tunnel was said to be 1000 tons per day. (Deseret News, August 21, 1941, "today")

(click here for more information about the Elton Tunnel)

September 1941:
Operation began on what was called the Slag Treatment Plant to extract the zinc content from the slag dumps that had accumulated over the past 30 years. The Slag Treatment Plant continued in operation until early 1972. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 77, 79)

1946
The International smelter stopped smelting copper in 1946. (Deseret News, November 5, 1971)

1958
U. S. Smelting closed its lead smelter at Midvale and contracted all of its lead smelting operations to Anaconda's International Smelting Company at Tooele. The blast furnace at the International smelter had been closed since early 1958. At the same time, International stopped processing ore at its Tooele plant and began shipping ore from its Carr Fork mine to the Midvale plant to have it milled and concentrated. The United States company was to continue its milling and concentrating operations at Midavle along with those of the International company. (Deseret News, June 17, 1958; November 5, 1971)

October 1958
By late 1958 there were only three lead-zinc-silver (known as galena) mines active in Utah: the United States mine at Lark, and the United Park City and New Park City mines at Park City. There was no mention of Anaconda's Carr Fork mine which shipped the ore from its underground mine in Bingham Canyon, to the International smelter at Tooele by way of the Elton Tunnel. (New York Times, October 12, 1958)

A newspaper ad in the Deseret News for December 16, 1959 showed International Smelting and Refining Company as being a custom lead-zinc concentrator and custom lead-zinc smelter, both at Tooele, and added that their copper smelter was in Miami, Arizona.

1967
By the year 1967, the concentrator section at the International smelter had been shut down. The United States company had been shipping concentrates from its mill at Midvale to the International smelter for smelting. By that time, the International smelter was the only lead smelter in the state. (Utah Mining Industry, Utah Mining Association, 1967, page 81)

(click here for a separte page about the end of lead, zinc, and silver smelting in Utah)

January 28, 1972:
The smelter of International Smelting and Refining Company was scheduled to close on January 1, 1972, but reduced production work continued for another three weeks. On January 28, 1972, the Tooele Valley Railway made it last run between the smelter and the interchange at Warner. Throughout its history, the railroad had made the trip at least twice daily. The last trip was made with only a single boxcar and a caboose. The boxcar had been used to bring the last load of newsprint paper for the Tooele Transcript newspaper. (Tooele Transcript, February 11, 1972)

When the Tooele smelter closed, it left over 30 mining properties without a nearby smelter. These mines were forced to close due the high costs of shipment of their ores to the nearest custom smelters at El Paso, Texas, East Helena, Mont., or Kellogg, Idaho. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 111, citing Deseret News of November 9 and 13, 1971)

The smelter was closed to save costs to Anaconda following the loss of its properties in Chile, which were taken over by the Chilean government in 1971. To save the company, its unprofitable properties were either closed or sold. The sell-off did not work, and by 1975, Anaconda was purchased by Atlantic Richfield. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 118)

Tooele Valley Railway operations continued after the smelter was closed. Until about 1975, the railroad was used to ship outgoing scrap from the dismantling of the smelter, and until 1981, the railroad was used to accept inbound shipments of construction materials for the development of the new Carr Fork Mine. (Mining, Smelting and Railroading in Tooele County, page 118)

January 12, 1977
Atlantic Richfield Company, a major oil company based in Los Angeles, took over Anaconda Company, a major supplier of copper. The Federal Trade Commission tried to stop the purchase, but was unsuccessful. The FTC immediately started anti-trust proceedings, and in February 1979 a settlement was reached in which Anaconcda was required to sell its interest in certain copper mines, and refining and smelting assets in Montana and Arizona. (New York Times, March 9, 1979, which includes a list of the properties to be sold in Montana, Nevada and Arizona)

1980:
Tooele Valley Railway ceased operations in 1980. Offically abandoned by owner Anaconda Copper in August 1981. (Extra 2200 South, Issue 80, May 1984, page 33; Pacific News, Issue 233, January 1982, page 24)

August 1981:
Tooele Valley Railway ceased operations in August 1981. TV SW900 104 in storage on SLG&W at Salt Lake City. (Pacific News, Issue 242, October 1982, page 21)

August 28, 1982:
Tooele Valley operation ceased on August 26, 1982. (The Mixed Train, September 1982, page 14, reported by Larry Deppe)

From EPA documents for what EPA labeled the International Smelter "Superfund" site:

International Smelting & Refining Company began operations in Tooele in 1910 on approximately 1,200 acres. At various times, from 1910 through 1972, the company operated copper and lead smelters and a lead-zinc flotation mill. The smelter processed ores mined from several areas in Utah and Nevada. The copper plant was originally designed to process 4,000 tons of ore per day, although it never sustained a rate this high. In the early years of operation, tailings and slag were produced at an estimated annual rate of approximately 650,000 tons per year with declining output in later years. The copper smelter was closed in 1946, followed by the closure of the lead/zinc flotation mill in 1968, and finally, closure of the lead smelter in 1972. With the exception of a few incidental buildings, the smelter facility was demolished or scrapped in the mid-1970s.

From 1974 through 1981, the Anaconda Company constructed and operated a mine and mill known as the Carr Fork Operation. The main mill of the Carr Fork operation was one mile east of the Internnational Smelting smelter property in Pine Canyon on approximately 12.5 acres. The Carr Fork operation began processing ore in 1979 and ran for less than two years.

From Tooele County Department of Health website:

The copper smelter was closed in 1946. The lead smelter was closed in 1972, and was demolished during the years 1972 - 1974.

In 1974, Anaconda constructed and operated a copper mine and mill known as the "Carr Fork Operations". It was located just east of the IS&R Smelter Site in Pine Canyon. It was in operation from 1974 - 1981. (Atlantic Richfield purchased Anaconda in 1977.)

The Carr Fork mine stopped production in November 1981, while Anaconda waited for copper prices to rise. When this did not happen, the processing facilities were torn down, sold, and removed from the property in late 1984. The Carr Fork Operation property was sold to Kennecott Copper in October 1985. This included the mine and mill along with several acres of land east of the smelter site.

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