A Valley Landmark

The Tall and Short of It

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Collegiate Peaks Scenic and Historic Byway

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Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 23, 2025

1. A Valley Landmark Marker

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Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 23, 2025

2. A Valley Landmark Marker

This is the leftmost of three related interpretive panels located near the base of the Ohio-Colorado Smelting & Refining Company Smokestack.

Touch for directions.

Valley,

Divide.

West.

America,

Mountains,

Hemisphere,

World,

Anglosphere.

From the National Register Nomination prepared by Wendell F. Hutchinson and Kenneth E. Waddell, 03/31/1975:
The Smeltertown Smokestack was built for

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 23, 2025

3. Ohio-Colorado Smelting & Refining Company Smokestack

the Ohio-Colorado Smelting and Refining Company. Commenced in 1916 and finished in 1917, this majestic brick and tile structure stands 365 feet into the air, twice as high as the 179 foot Leaning Tower of Pisa. Upright standard gauge railroad rails were placed in the concrete foundation to give strength; steel rods run throughout to the top of the structure, which is capped by a wide, flat, circular collar of steel, bolted onto the upright rods. Construction cost was $43,000.
The smokestack is located one mile west of Salida and one-quarter mile north of the Arkansas River. To the south and east is the community that long has been referred to as Smeltertown. The site of the smelter was an ideal one, including three mesas, affording every facility and advantage for handling ores and dumping slag.
The structure is remarkably well preserved for its many years of standing in all kinds of weather. Only a few superficial bricks are missing, due to lightning strikes during a time when the stack was not grounded. The connecting flue chamber is remarkable also in the span of its arched roof, made in radiating voussoirs without trusses. Attesting to the excellence of construction is the fact that vibration from rock crushing machinery during most of these years has not visibly impaired either the smokestack or the adjoining flue chamber.
The Smeltertown Smokestack is a highly

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visible monument to the industry of mining, an industry vital to the settlement of Colorado. Hundreds of people from the first great influx of miners in the years following the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859 stayed on as ranchers, merchants, and railroaders, becoming the citizens of the towns and communities along the Upper Arkansas River Valley. Early gold pans, long toms, sluices, and rockers gave way to smelters such as those at Leadville and Salida.
At the time of its completion in 1917, the 365-foot tall Smeltertown Smokestack was called the tallest structure of its kind west of the Mississippi, and among the tallest in the world. Incorporated in 1902 for three million dollars, the company spent over one million immediately for buildings, stacks, and machinery. The value of ores treated in 1903 was $1,355,455. The average tonnage treated in 1904 was 1,000 tons per day. At one time the plant had a capacity of handling 1,500 tons of ore daily with 24-hour operation. Ore and coal were shoveled by hand from the narrow-gauge cars to the smelter's wide-gauge cars. Horses were used to pull the slag pots to the slag dump 24 hours daily. At night the molten mass, at white heat, poured over the bank along the Arkansas River, a most impressive sight.
Advantages to the community were many; the smelter employed over 300 men during its construction and about that many during its operation. Workers were paid from $2.50 to $4 per day and the monthly payroll ran as high as $34,000. High ore and coal tonnage and the need for transportation developed business for railroads. The community of Smeltertown was composed of working people who bought milk, beef and vegetables from local farmers. Large amounts of hay, straw and grain were purchased from local farmers as feed and bedding for the smelter's workhorses. Money was made at home and stayed at home. Wages or farm produce were obtained at reasonable prices and many people became prosperous. The familiar landmark serves as a monument to those earlier men who worked at the smelter. Here they came — from Austria, from Greece, from Ireland, from Italy. Many of these families still reside in the Salida area and are counted among its finest citizens.