1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

924 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
so until the advent in this field of Captain A. B. Wolvin. Captain Wolvin
was neither a miner nor a furnace man, but was a vessel man of marked
ability, whose active mind had noted that it took only 30 cents a ton
to bring coal from Lake Erie ports to Duluth, but that it tooks 80 cents
a ton to send Minnesota iron ore from Duluth to Lake Erie. Why not,
then, he reasoned, bring the coal to the ore at Duluth? Other favorable
conditions were noted, and despite the firmly-rooted belief at Chicago,
Cleveland and Pittsburgh that Duluth was a graveyard for ironmaking
Captain Wolvin and his associates determined on giving it a trial.
In 1902 the Zenith Furnace Company was incorporated with
a capitalization of $1,000,000, which has been increased since to
$1,500,000, and the old West Duluth blast furnace was purchased, modernized
and blown in some time in 1902. Coke was brought up from
the lower lakes with indifferent results, and therefore, in 1904, a coke
plant was established at the plant.
On July 1, 1904, Mr. Harris came to this plant in the capacity of
foreman, and in October, 1905, was advanced to the superintendency. In
the latter capacity one of his first actions was to make slight changes in
the dimensions of the furnace, which caused a surprising increase in the
daily production of pig iron. In 1906 Mr. Harris was made general superintendent
of the plant, and as such has complete control of the operating
department. The Zenith Furnace Company maintains what is termed a
three-unit plant—wholesale coal trade, production of pig iron and conservation
of by-products. This company has not only proved conclusively
that pig iron can be produced profitably at the Head of the Lakes, but that
it is being produced more cheaply per ton than by any other furnace in
America turning out a similar grade of iron. Xot only is the Zenith
blast furnace producing about 60 per cent more pig iron, week in and
week out, than its rated capacity, but it is making a higher production
in tons per day than any furnace of similar capacity in the entire country.
The site of the Zenith Furnace Company covers about eighty acres of
land on Saint Louis Bay and is but several blocks from the street car
line. The coal dock is 250x211 feet in area, 300 feet having been added
in 1916, and has a capacity of 700,000 tons. Three grades of coal are
handled and anthracite recently has been added for the commercial trade.
The coking coal comes from lower lake ports in large freight boats at a
rate of 30 cents a ton. A cargo of 10,000 tons can be unloaded in about
fifteen hours, and the unloading and stock-piling rigs are of modern
design. Screened coal goes to the trade and the fine stuff to the coke
ovens, of which there are sixty-five, fifty old ones with a capacity of five
tons each and fifteen new ones of six tons each, the coking plant having
an annual capacity of about 150,000 tons. The coking ovens are of the
Otto Hoffman type, so built as to form a solid structure, 36x250 feet in
area and 40 feet high. The process practically is continuous, a movable
ram punching the contents of a retort out onto a loader, after which the
seething mass is quenched by a copious drenching of water. The cooled
coke then is shot over a screen into cars which will take it to the furnace
Coal gas, ammonia and coal tar are by-products.
General Superintendent Harris is a man thoroughly informed in ever}
detail and department of this great business, and has the confidence of
his associates and the esteem of his men. He is a Scottish Rite ^lason
and a Shriner and belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks, and in politics is a Republican. He comes of good old Welsh stock,
and his grandfather, Charles Harris, was a pioneer lumberman of Essex
County, New York, where the father of Fred C. Harris was a farmer
and lumberman and died in 1910. There were six children, and Fred C,
the third in order of birth, was born July 22, 1860. He was married in