Its been a while since I have gone to the blog to write a long form post; but a recent scroll through my Facebook feed brought up something interesting, which I have screenshot-ed in the above photo. I have never been to Superior, Arizona and not studied up much on its history... but the loss of any building related to copper smelting history is something I take notice of.
From what I read about the demolition currently ongoing in Arizona is that the buildings were briefly considered for preservation. However the amount of asbestos, arsenic, lead, and copper contamination was high enough that it was decided for health and safety reasons to demolish the remaining smelter buildings. One cost estimate pegged the cost of demolition at $2 million dollars, the other option to clean and rehabilitate the site and preserve the buildings? A whopping $12 million! (Source)
Non-ferrous metal smelting is a vital piece of our industrial history that is rapidly being lost across the nation and falling through the cracks in terms of preservation. Many artifacts from these smelters have made it to local museums, but nowhere has an entire plant in the western USA been saved and preserved. The experiences a railfan can have walking through the historic yards in Ely, Chama, or Jamestown and experiencing the entire site cannot be replicated with non-ferrous smelters. Yes, there are preserved mines & mills; but the smelter represented a critical link in the metal's process from ore to final product.
As of 2018, only three operational copper smelter's remain in the nation, Rio Tinto's plant at Garfield which serves as a backdrop for my daily commute, and the two smelters in Arizona. The last primary lead smelter in Missouri shut down a few years ago, the local mines now shipping their lead ores overseas.
Bethlehem Steel during the early 20th century depicted in a post card. From the Library of Congress.
Ferrous smelting has fared a bit better than the non-ferrous smelters in regards to preservation. Several steel mill remains east of the Mississippi have been preserved, cleaned up and redeveloped into the communities. One of the most notable examples of this exists in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania, were the former Bethlehem Steel plant has been converted into an event center called SteelStacks. A large portion of the plant is kept as a backdrop for the event center, most notably the massive furnace structure which is over 1000 feet long from one end to the next! The site made its way into the news again this year, as the neighboring Sands Casino began plans to purchase the structure and the city entered in talks with the Casino on how to preserve the 'stacks' for the future (Source). These sites will remain a part of the local history for years to come thanks to the preservation minded outlook of the local area.
However, in terms of Western United States history, the west was not built on steel mills the same way as the east (exceptions existed of course, such as Geneva Steel in Provo and the many small mills that work on scrap metal recycling that still run to this day). The dominant force of smelting in the west's history has always been copper and lead; with the gold and silver trapped in those ore bodies.
What remains of the great copper and lead smelters of the west today? Trips to visit the great smelting sites at Kellog, El Paso, Murray, McGill or Tooele end up either in a grassy field with a lone structure or two; or an area so heavily re-developed not much remains of the old plant. Tailings and slag piles might remain, but these toxic remains tend to be removed or blocked from access due to their environmental risk. One of the few preserved smelter structures in the west is the smokestack that once served the Anaconda, Montana smelter... but now it stands alone; a structure out of context. Again, any similar preservation efforts in the west are often single buildings without the surrounding plant or simply moving artifacts off site prior to demolition of what else remains.
Bunker Hill Smelter in Kellog, Idaho in the 1970's. (Source)
I should clarify I do not intend to raise this issue as an attack directed on work such as the Superfund program. I believe it is important that areas be cleaned up to improve health and quality of life surrounding the site, and it would be economically unfeasible to preserve historic structures and clean up toxic areas at every single smelter site in the west. However, it is unfortunate that in the effort to clean up these areas that not one or two sites have been able to do such while preserving the historic plant.
This may just be the opinion of a lone amateur railfan, but when the next great smelter closes; be it Garfield or one of the ones in Arizona; and the million dollar price tag between clean up and restoring the buildings for preservation, or to simply demolish them comes up... I hope that the powers that be take the more preservation minded option next time. An entire preserved smelter plant in the western USA could be the next great historical landmark, a reminder of our nation's industrial history both the good and the bad. The preserved site could be a key learning tool in understanding the environmental, economic and cultural aspects of our actions. That is simply a story that can not be told with a bare grassy field.
-Jacob Lyman
-Jacob Lyman