Slag Cart

Slag Cart. Crooke Mining and Smelting Company, c.1877. , John J. Crooke (1824-1911) and his brothers, Lewis Crooke and Robert Crooke, were noted 19th Century metallurgists and New York City industrialists who were responsible for patenting the manufacture of tin-foil in the 1880s. , The brothers' Colorado firm, Crooke Mining and Smelting Company, was also largely responsible for Lake City's initial economic boom when it acquired lead and silver-producing Ute-Ulay Mine on Henson Creek for $125,000 in 1876. Also in 1876, Crooke Brothers bought the 33-acre Granite Falls Millsite with its 60' waterfall on the Lake Fork River ¾-mile above Lake City. The waterfall furnished power for the Crooke Smelter which opened with great fanfair on July 4, 1876, and continually expanded through about 1882. , At its height in 1880, the Lake City smelter had four of the largest furnaces in the United States. In addition to processing ore from the Ute-Ulay Mine, the Crooke Smelter was a custom processor of silver and lead ore in an expansive region extending from Lake City to the upper Animas River Valley at Silverton and Animas Forks. , Fired with locally-produced charcoal and coal hauled to Lake City from Crested Butte, furnaces at the Crooke Smelter produced tons of molten lead and silver which was poured into bar-shaped molds known as “pigs”. Once solidified, the bars were freighted to the terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad at Del Norte, Colorado, and then shipped to refining works owned by the Crookes in New York City. In July, 1881, it was reported the Crooke Smelter in Lake City had produced two silver bars weighing 229 pounds and valued in excess of $4,000. , Crooke Brothers transferred their ownership of the Ute-Ulay Mine and Crooke Smelter to an English company in 1882. The company failed and by 1886 the local smelter was abandoned. , A byproduct of the smelting process was slag, the foamy residue which was skimmed from the surface of the molten metal. The slag was placed in conical-shaped pots on wheeled vehicles known as “slag carts.” , This rare slag cart of cast iron was manufactured c. 1877 by The Colorado Iron Works, Denver, and shipped to Lake City for use at the Crooke Smelter. It was donated to Hinsdale County Museum by Therese Ryan in memory of her husband, James H. Ryan, Jr. (1925-2008).