200 Tons A Day

200 Tons A Day. Buffalo National River.

Not an ounce of ore will be lost if there is a machiner to save it. , George Chase, first Morning Star Mining Company

, The processing mill for the Morning Star Mine sat on these foundation pillars in front of you. During the mining boom, brought on by World War I, zine prices soared. Profits enabled the company to expand and modernize the mill, increasing the mill's capacity to crush and separate 200 tons of zinc ore a day., Inside the mine powdermen and drillmen dug the ore, shovelers loaded it into ore cars, and car men pushed the cars to the mine entrance. Mule teams pulled the cars along the tramway to the storage hopper. The hopper held the ore until the mill needed more. The ore moved by tramway to the mill, where machiners, jigmen, and helpers crushed it, rolled and screened it, and separated the metal from the rock. Once extracted, the zinc was stacked and ready for shipment to buyers., [Sidebar:] , Mill Evolution , The Morning Star mill opened in 1898. Its steam boiler, fueled by wood cut from the surrounding hillsides, powered a 50-ton-a-day ore crusher., By 1918 the mill had come of age. Using huge jaw crushers and advanced concentration tables to separate the zinc, the mill could process 200 tons of ore a day. But with the war's end and an overproduction of zinc, the metal's value plunged., Woodmen, firemen, jigmen, jig tenders, and engineers composed a typical Rush milling crew. Crews worked 10-hour days, five to six days a week for pay ranging from 20 to 35 cents per hour.