USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume II > Part 14
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It is asserted that the largest known deposits of kaolin are in Edwards County, but this, too, is some seventy-five miles from the nearest railway station, making its development impracticable.
Coal is found in Rusk, Palo Pinto, Eastland, Wise, Young. Stephens and other counties, and large mines have been opened at Thurber, Strawn, Bridgeport and New Castle. This coal is said to be superior for steam purposes, as it burns with a long flame and without any injury to the boilers. It is not suitable for smelting purposes.
The largest deposit of sulphur is near Freeport in Brazoria, where S. N. Swenson & Sons, one of the leading financial institutions of New York, is mining it in large quantities.
Full cargoes are dispatched from Freeport to all parts of the world. Texas in one plant produces nearly half of the commercial sulphur of the entire world. That statement relating to a mining or manufacturing plant in any other country except the United States would indicate that the business was one of long drawn out duration, but the single plant in Texas upon which the whole world is largely dependent for sulphur for war and commercial purposes is only eight years old.
Eight years ago the sulphur deposits had been discovered in wells drilled for oil on Bryan mound, three miles from what is now the. flourishing little city of Freeport. But the men, the means and the money to bring the sulphur from the depths of the earth and provide
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transportation to all points of the compass were not at hand. In the brief eight years the men, the means and the money have built a city. providing all modern conveniences, including a hotel worthy of a considerable city, a bank, electric lighting and water system, miles of conduits for the large amount of water used in the production of the sulphur, a modern loading and shipping plant at the mouth of the Brazos, great storage tanks for fuel oil, and a line of steamers which are constantly employed in bringing oil from the Tampico, Mexico. fields.
All of these conveniences, in addition to hundreds of residences for employes, had to be provided in addition to the plant for the extraction of the sulphur from the ores far down in the earth. Approximately five millions of dollars were expended in preliminary work before the many millions were laid out in the thousands of tons of machinery neces- sary to produce the sulphur.
In all probability there is not another mining or manufacturing plant in all the world where so much money was expended before any of it came back in profits on the investment. That represents the daring and the courage of the men who made this mighty producer of wealth known as the Freeport Sulphur Company of Freeport, Texas. It was the rea- son why it took so long to find the men and the capital to interest in the venture, and why when once they did become interested, so much was done in so little time.
THE METHOD OF PRODUCING SULPHUR
Sulphur on Bryan's mound is found associated with gypsum at vari- ous depths ranging from 840 to 1,000 feet below the surface of the earth. A decade ago, if it had been desired to get the sulphur out it would have been mined, as other minerals are mined, by the means of shafts, tunnels and cross cuts. But this would have been a dangerous and hazardous business for the miners owing to the character of sulphur and the fumes that it gives off in association with gypsum. By the method adopted by the Freeport Sulphur Company the sulphur is ex- tracted from the gypsum by being melted with steam, which is forced under great pressure through one set of pipes, and the sulphur in a' molten state is forced out of the ground by compressed air sent down through other pipes.
Sulphur wells are eight and ten inches in diameter, that is, are of a size to take an eight or ten-inch pipe. This outside pipe is set down in the hole to the top of the sulphur bed. Inside of this pipe there is a six-inch pipe which carries the steam under pressure of 300 or more pounds to the cubic inch. Another pipe three inches in diameter is inserted, through which flows the sulphur to the top of the wells and to the bins. Again, within the three-inch pipe, is a one-inch pipe through which the compressed air is forced.
To operate one well requires 6,000 horsepower, and in a day's run of 24 hours each well requires the consumption of 1,335,000 gallons of water and 770 barrels of fuel oil. Operation never ceases day or night. there are no Sundays or holidays, and a well is continuously pumped until all the sulphur is taken out of it. The continuous operation is nec-
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essary from the peculiar fact that if the sulphur is once allowed to harden after being heated by steam it cannot be made to flow again, and the well is irretrievably lost. So the work is divided into three shifts of eight hours each, and goes on without ceasing for a minute.
Wells produce various amounts of sulphur per day, and some are worked out in a few weeks while others continue to give out sulphur for several months. Fifty tons per day is a poor well, and, on the other hand, a well that will produce 500 tons per day is a good well. The sul- phur is pumped into large open bins which are built up day by day of heavy planks. These bins are approximately 400 feet long, 200 feet wide and when filled are fifty feet high and hold about 120,000 tons of sulphur.
Since the beginning of operations about 230 wells have been ex- hausted of their sulphur. Six wells are the maximum number pumped at one time, and to provide the steam to melt the sulphur and the com- pressed air to force the sulphur out of six wells requires 36,000 horse- power and the consumption of 8,000,000 gallons of water and 4,200 bar- rels of fuel oil per day. The water is brought in a canal a distance of four miles from the Brazos River, and 50,000 pounds of lime are used daily in treating it. More power is required to operate six sulphur wells than is required to operate all of the oil wells in South Texas, one well using more power than the entire Goose Creek field.
The sulphur is shipped from the loading station at the mouth of the Brazos River and four miles from the plant, which is connected by rail- road tracks. Special steel cars carry the sulphur from the bins and empty it directly into the steamships. So perfectly organized is the load- ing work that 3,000 tons have been brought from the plant and loaded on a steamship between sun up and sun down. Sulphur is shipped direct from the plant to all the ports of the world. What the monthly output is, is not made public, but a contract to deliver 40,000 tons a month could be filled without difficulty. When a bin is filled the side boards are knocked off. a double line of railroad tracks are laid to it and the sulphur broken up as desired by a low explosive and loaded directly on the cars. As fast as one bin is used up another is made ready for use and yet another is started.
The sulphur as it comes from the earth is of a rich brown color, but turns yellow on cooling. One man is stationed on the top of the bin when it is being filled who breaks the crusts formed in cooling and spreads the sulphur out so it will cool on a level. Each day the meas- urements are taken and an estimate made of the production.
New wells are constantly being drilled and made ready to take the place of those exhausted of their sulphur. As fast as one well is com- pleted the derrick is drawn to another place and another well begun. In some places the sulphur deposits are found to be much richer than in others, and wells are drilled within a few feet of each other, while in other places they are a considerable distance apart. When one realizes that only six wells are operated at a time the great astonishment is the vast amount of machinery and the number of men required to operate them. At Freeport there are 810 men on the pay rolls, equalling 135 men to the well operated. All these men, with the exception of a few heads
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of departments, live in Freeport and cars run at regular intervals to transport them the three miles between their homes and work.
Another surprising thing about such a big business, which probably represents an investment of $20,000,000, is the small number of general office men. The general offices are located in three or four small rooms above the little bank in Freeport, and a handful of men do the directing of this big business. Mr. C. A. Jones is general manager, Mr. P. George Maercky, assistant general manager, and in addition to "running" the Freeport Sulphur Company they control the Townsite Company, the Hotel Company, the Bank, the Electric Light and Water Company, the Terminal Railroad Company and the Steamship Line. Mr. Jones also finds time to manage the great landed interests of the Swensons in Texas, consisting of about 600,000 acres of land, a half dozen towns, tens of thousands of acres in cultivated farms, and many thousand head of cattle and other live stock.
THE MEN WHO DID THE WORK
In a new and undeveloped country as Texas, where there are vast acres of unexplored and undeveloped resources, the spending of millions to make millions out of natural resources is of interest to every citizen. We are "land poor" in Texas yet, even more so in this day of additional demands in the matter of living, than a half century ago, when a very few necessities and fewer luxuries represented the best of those who had the most.
Failing in the men who had not only the money, but that far better quality of daring to do something outside of the ordinary, Texas and many Texans would be far poorer than they are. For this reason it is worth while to say something about the men who did this great feat for Texas, because in adorning a tale we oftentimes point a moral and get other things done.
Eric P. Swenson and S. Albin Swenson, noted bankers of New York. are the men who made the development of half the sulphur of the world possible in Texas, and expended many millions of dollars in the endeavor before a dollar came back in profits. Both of these gentlemen were born in Texas, the sons of Swen M. Swenson, who in the early days of Texas was one of our great merchants, the financial adviser of our Republic and State and the close personal friend of President and afterwards Governor Sam Houston. As were Sam Houston, James W. Throckmor- ton, Elisha M. Pease, A. J. Hamilton and others, Mr. Swenson was a strong Union man, and when the Civil war began he was compelled to leave Texas and located in New York. But he never forgot the state on whose coast he was shipwrecked in 1838, when emigrating from Lattarp, Sweden, to the Lone Star Republic, just wrested from the toils of Spain. a young man of excellent family with the bold, exploring blood of a long line of ancestors pulsing in his veins.
From the day that the elder Swenson was thrown in a storm from a sinking ship on to Galveston Island, eighty-one years ago, the family of Swenson has been good and loyal friends of Texas. Today, the owners of great wealth, they can proudly point to the fact that it was made in developing the natural resources of an unknown domain, which,
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while having a lesser population than the big city of America, contains more land than Germany and England combined, which support a popu- lation of a hundred million souls.
Carrying on the policy, which must have orginated by word of mouth or token of the elder Swen M. Swenson, the sons, Eric P. and S. Albin Swenson, have looked far afield to plunge their wealth into enterprises where others and the body politic might prosper as well as themselves in the utilization of the raw resources of Nature.
Thousands of homes had been made possible in Texas by Swenson money and Swenson courage long before sulphur was thought of as a commercial possibility. If there ever was a man or association of men who thought of the trite and truthful aphorism of Dean Swift of regard- ing the virtue of making even two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, it was S. M. Swenson and his heirs. Would that Texas had more of their kind and sinew.
QUICKSILVER
The principal operating companies in Texas are the Marfa and Mari- posa Mining Company, with three 10-ton Scott furnaces; the Terlingua Mining Company, with one 40-ton Scott furnace ; and the Colquitt-Tigner Mining Company, with one 10-ton Scott furnace.
Texas ranks second among the states in the amount of quicksilver produced.
The cinnabar deposits of California Hill, Brewster County, near Ter- lingua post office, ninety miles southeast of Marfa, were known to the Comanche Indians, who used them as a vermilion pigment. The knowl- edge of these deposits, however, was not recorded until 1894, when sev- eral Mexicans found a few pieces of cinnabar float and took them to San Carlos, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, whence they were sent to Chihuahua and their mineralogical character determined. Mr. George W. Wanless, of the Rio Grande Smelting Works, and Mr. Charles Allen, of Socorro, New Mexico, under the direction of the Mexicans, found the veins and located the first mineral claims. Shortly after this Prof. Wil- liam P. Blake described these deposits under the title Cinnabar in Texas, the first important article concerning this subject on record. Consider- able prospecting work was carried on in the district, but it was not until 1898 that the metal was produced in commercial quantities.
The deposits of cinnabar at Terlingua are of two classes ; one occurs in hard and durable limestone and the other in soft and friable argil- laceous beds. The ores are cinnabar, mercury, yellow sulphide, and ter- linguaite, and contain in addition several other mercury minerals, such as calomel, eglestonite and montroydite, which, on account of their rarity. are of scientific interest only. Cinnabar is the principal mineral and is usually mixed with clay or iron oxide. Native mercury is present in several localities in the district, occurring in the interstices of crystalline calcite, and a single cavity in the calcite veins has yielded as much as twenty pounds of the native metal. 'The associated gangue is composed of calcite, aragonite, gypsum, and occasionally a little barite, iron oxide, pyrite, and occasionally arsenic and manganese minerals.
VOL. II-8
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METAL MINING IN TEXAS IN 1920
The Presidio silver mine at Shafter. Texas, was in continuous opera- tion during the year 1920, according to Charles W. Henderson, of the United States geological survey, department of the interior. Small ship- ments of copper and lead ores were made from the Van Horn and Sierra Blanca districts. The metal production for the state for the year was 520.000 ounces of silver and small quantities of gold, lead and copper.
LIGNITE
The Texas lignite fields, which constitute almost one-half of the known area of the United States, are estimated to have originally con- tained approximately 30,000,000,000 tons. The total tonnage mined to date is probably 19,000,000 tons. The lignite bearing formations of Texas comprise a belt with a length of over 600 miles by a width of 50 miles. This belt begins near the Red River in the northeastern corner of the state and extends entirely across in a southwesterly direction to the Rio Grande or Mexican border. This belt is parallel to the Gulf coast line, lying from 100 to 150 miles inland. Geologically these de- posits belong to the Eocene series of the Tertiary period. While the lignite bearing area is great in extent it must not be supposed that the deposits are capable of being worked at all points over this area. As a matter of fact the actual workable area is comparatively small in extent, and for the entire distance across the state there are only five points where mining is carried on successfully. Over a greater part of the lignite area the seams are thin and irregular, are overlain with water- bearing strata, or have other conditions which make mining of same impracticable.
The first lignite was probably mined about thirty-five years ago in Milam County near the town of Rockdale. The first mine was a very small affair, the coal being hoisted by a windlass and mule power and the coal delivered to the consumer via the wagon route. Since that time the lignite industry has gradually developed until today (1921) there are thirty-eight mines with a combined output of about 1,500,000 tons an- nually. The principal mining operations are at present carried on near the following towns : Rockdale, Milam County ; Bastrop, Bastrop County ; Jewett, Leon County ; Crockett, Houston County ; Malakoff, Henderson County : Alba, Wood County, and Como, Hopkins County.
Most of the mining in Texas up to the present time has been along or near the outcrop of the various seams; the depth ranging from 20 to 100 feet. In several parts of the state there are two or more workable seams, one overlying the other. In thickness the seams vary from a few inches up to twenty feet; the overburden running from 20 feet to 860 feet. At the present time no seam is mined where the thickness of the bed is less than four feet, and in most of the mines the seams worked run from seven to twelve feet. The lignite deposits have not been very thoroughly explored.
The lignite mines are worked on the room-and-pillar plan, usually on the double-entry system. Mule haulage is used at practically all of the mines, only a few mines being equipped with rope haulage or gas-
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oline motor. No gas is encountered in the lignite mines, and open car- bide lights are used almost exclusively. Most of the lignite is pick mined by hand, though it is blasted in some parts of the state. Serious acci- dents are almost unknown. At the present time there are probably not in excess of 3,500 men employed at the mines, most of these miners being Mexicans.
The fluctuating market and competition with crude oil has tended to hamper the full development of the lignite industry. The development of each large oil field has caused a corresponding decline in the lignite industry due to the keen competition with the liquid fuel. Crude oil is no longer the keen competitor of a few years ago, and lignite is becom- ing better known. Its fine qualities as a fuel are being recognized, and it is to be believed that the lignite industry will be developed on a broader scale in the next few years.
The ultimate development of the lignite industry will doubtless be similar to that of the oil industry, and will only be complete when the lignite, like the oil, is passed through a process of refining and the valu- able by-products are recovered. The by-products of the lignite, like the by-products of the oil, will be greater in value than the original fuel. The lignites of Europe, which are similar to ours, have for years been used to produce more concentrated fuels and made to yield their by- products. At the present time practically all the lignite mined is used under boilers in its raw state. Near the mines lignite is used extensively for domestic purposes. In its raw state lignite is a very satisfactory fuel, still it seems a waste to use it in this form and by so doing lose forever the valuable by-products. Texas bituminous fields are very small in extent, and quite a large tonnage has already been exhausted, so that in the years to come Texas must look to the lignite for its fuel supply.
THE STRAWN COAL MINING COMPANY
The progress and growth of Strawn and the surrounding section has been largely the result of the development of the coal industry, which began some twenty-five or thirty years ago. More recently the oil in- dustry has come into prominence and added materially to the general prosperity the initial impetus of which was due to coal.
The pioneer in the coal industry here was W. W. Johnson, who first developed the mines at Lyra, later sinking the Mount Marion shaft on the edge of the town of Strawn. The Mount Marion shaft commenced operations in the year 1903, and has been continually operated down to the present time.
The mines at Lyra and Strawn were operated under separate organi- zations up to the beginning of the year 1914, those at the former place by the Strawn Coal Mining Co. and the mines at Strawn by the Mt. Marion Coal Mining Co. In the year 1914 the properties were merged and have since been operated by the Strawn Coal Co., which was organized by the present management, and which took over the properties and holdings of both the old companies.
During the past ten years alone these mines have mined and marketed more than 1,600,000 tons of coal. This quantity of coal is the equivalent
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of 40,000 carloads, of 40 tons each, which in one train would span the state from Sherman to the Gulf.
The payrolls of the company at this time are running above $75,000 per month, practically all of which is spent at home by the company's officers and employes, the banks and business and professional men of the town being the principal beneficiaries.
The company's force of employes at the present time number about 500 men at its three mines. Its new mine, Mine No. 4, commenced operations near the close of 1920, and in a short time the number of employes at that mine will be greatly increased.
In addition to the mines of the Strawn Company, the Thurber mines are situated only a few miles away, and the Strawn merchants draw considerable trade from these mines.
It is stated that the Thurber Company is contemplating the sinking of two new wells near Strawn in the near future.
The Strawn-Thurber Coal vein is known to be extensive enough to guarantee that the mining industry will last, at least in this vicinity, for several generations. While the full extent of the vein has not been dis- closed by tests, enough diamond drill tests have shown conclusively that the Strawn Company has coal bearing lands sufficient for the location of several different mines; and inasmuch as it requires from fifteen to twenty years to exhaust a mine, it is certain that the industry will con- tinue to flourish for many years. The officers of the Strawn Coal Com- pany are : W. Burton, president ; E. B. Ritchie, vice president and general manager : A. Deffebach, secretary-treasurer. The paid in capital of the company is $500,000.
THE TEXAS & PACIFIC COAL AND OIL CO.
On the surface there is nothing in the Erath Mountains to invite human activities. The winding, barren hills have stood for centuries as frowning sentinels over waste plains where the wolf and cougar could scarce make shift for a living. The stunted post oak and black jack that fringed the red colored ridges were the only evidences it gave of even scant fertility. The few cattle that browsed upon the land found but a meager diet of roots, branches and leaves. He would have been a bold dreamer who, thirty years ago, would have dared to predict that in the heart of such a scene would arise one of the most important and successful industrial enterprises in the State of Texas.
Puny attempts had been made, from time to time, to open coal mines at several points in the state, but the results were not calculated to en- courage further experiment of that sort. Repeated failure had excited general distrust of the business among the capitalists, and the conditions under which mining was attempted were distinctly unfavorable. No man of ordinary mould could have brought success out of these conditions. All the circumstances considered the establishment and successful opera- tion of the coal mines and collateral industries that make the thriving little city of Thurber, is undoubtedly the greatest industrial achievement ever witnessed in Texas.
[Note-The above introduction is taken from an article by E. G. Senter, published in Texas Farm and Ranch, and reprinted in Texas Mining & Trade Journal, published at Thurber, October 1, 1898. Editor.]
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The notable transformation referred to began about 1886 or 1887, when W. W. Johnson and associates sunk a mine at Thurber, which they operated till the fall of 1888. The property was then purchased and taken over by Col. R. D. Hunter, of St. Louis, Edgar L. Marston, also of St. Louis, and H. K. Thurber, of New York, who with others organized the Texas & Pacific Coal Co. These enterprising business men immediately began the development of the property by sinking another shaft, erecting houses for employes, store buildings and other necessary structures, thus laying the foundation of the present industrial community.
From time to time, as the older mines declined, other shafts were sunk, there never being more than five or six in operation at any one time. These new activities gradually increased in output to as much as 3,000 tons a day. During this time and for a number of years Col. R. D. Hunter was president and manager of the company, and about 1896 he and James Green, of St. Louis, added to the activities at Thurber a new industry by organizing the Green & Hunter Brick Co., which in a year or two had become the largest enterprise of its kind in the South, its capacity (in October, 1898) being over 75,000 brick per day. A new and larger plant was then constructed for the manufacture of vitri- fied brick for street paving, the quality of shale, the material used, being the best that had been discovered for making this variety of brick, it being absolutely free of lime. The brick plant subsequently came under full control of the Texas & Pacific Coal Co. (now the Texas & Pacific Coal & Oil Co.). Mr. Green retired from the concern. It now turns out 2,000,000 vitrified brick per month and gives employment to 125 men.
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