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Tooele Lead Smelter (United States)


July 14, 1910:
First ore was received at the International smelter, by way of the aerial tramway from Highland Boy. The tram 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 20,000 feet long aerial tramway of Utah Consolidated that traversed the ridge from Bigham Canyon; the 11,000 feet long tunnel of Utah Metals Company between its Bingham property and an outlet just two miles from the Tooele smelter; and the Tooele Valley Railway that operated between International and a connection with Union Pacific at Tooele Junction (later Warner), west of Tooele. 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.

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)

Source.
[url]http://utahrails.net/utahrails/tooele-valley.php[/url]

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Last updated January 22nd 2009 by carnkie
Photographs Of Tooele
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Last updated January 22nd 2009 by carnkie

Google Earth Map of Tooele Lead Smelter


Other location/mapping information:

Latitude: 40.5434
Longitude: -112.2013

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