Back when we were
painfully recovering from the Depression, with WW-2 looming,
Dad was trying to get his mining company operating again.
Old chat piles were
found to be economic to re-process by running the tailings
through more modern mills.
Dad made a deal to lease the Brewster mill west of
Baxter since he thought it to be
a particularly efficient design. He successfully
processed a number of the old chat
piles of the Picher area in this mill.
This resource was limited though and Dad decided to
re-open the old Brewster
mine next to the mill, since it had a history and
drilling records making it of
interest. I was in college then and later in the Army
Air Force and then back
to college, so I was rarely home to see what was going
on. However the following
seems to be reasonably accurate. Dad moved his office
(including the records
Safe room) from Picher to the Brewster property. The mine
turned out to be
horrendously costly to re-open, since it was full of
water like nost of the closed
mines there. Furthermore, that water was highly
acidic from the rock's iron
content. Pumps and piping had to be made of
stainless steel, requiring special
government purchase approvals and didn't last long
even then. The removed water
couldn't be dumped into the creeks without much costly
treatment with alkalis in
settling ponds. After all it eventually reached Willow Creek
going past our home.
Anyway the mine was finally opened and proved successful
enough to pay off those
startup costs. Whenever I was home from college I did a lot
of photography both
in the mill and underground for a college research paper
project. All of those hundreds
of photos disappeared later. I still though have my
old hard hat with its carbide lamp.
Electric hat lamps common elsewhere came later to the
Tri-State.
Sometime during the War or shortly thereafter, the
traditional mine mules were retired
and the mines were thoroughly mechanized for greater
efficiency. Diesel work engines and
trucks were disassembled, dropped down the shafts, and
reassembled under-ground. The lower
emission of CO by the Diesel engines compared with
gasoline made this practical within
the abilities for ventilation. I am not too sure when the
mines of the Tri-State
finally gave up using 25-cycle power (specially
generated by the Riverton plant) to go
to 60-cycle. Those 25-cycle motors were positively
huge, running at around 50 RPM.
The fluorescent lights flickered and radios buzzed. Spare
parts for those motors
were to be had only from Buffalo - if there. Of
course nobody else wanted or could use
the things so they were cheap.
Later after the war was over, Dad built a new office
on the Baxter home property, about
halfway between the house and the Rt66 entrance.
Of course this included the records Safe room with
its big steel door dating from
grandfather's time, drafting room, Dad's office,
Polettes office for accounting, etc.
Dad landscaped it well so that it wasn't obtrusive.