Summary: We drove around Swansea.

Thursday, January 23rd (cont): After lunch we drove around Swansea. Throughout geological time, the surrounding area has been shaped by violent volcanic activity, mountain building, and shallow seas. The sand deposited by these ancient seas has been shaped by wind and plant life to form the crescent shaped dunes in the East Cactus Plain Wilderness. Millions of years ago, large blocks of land began slipping past or pushing against each other. This still happens today. Although the movement is very slow, a huge amount of force is involved. How much? Enough force to push the mountains up along faults, or weaker "cracks" in the ground. The mountains and valleys have formed where faults exist. The extreme pressure found at these faults created mineralized rock containing precious metals. Miners working the Buckskin Rawhide fault have recovered more than 25,000 tons of copper and 15,000 ounces of gold.
We drove up to the ruins of Swansea's concentrator and flotation plant. The foundations buried under the waste rock pile and the water tank imbedded in it are from the end of Swansea's history. The concentrator and flotation plant actually replaced the smelter and were built during 1918-1919. Built on the side of a hill, it used gravity to "power" the process. The sparkling gray materials in the wash are called fines, and they filled a series of ponds to the north. The concentrates produced were near 98% pure copper and shipped out to other smelters. The concentrator, which should have been built many years before, reduced the 1920 price of producing copper to about 16 cents per pound. By the end of the WWI, copper prices fell below that point. In 1920, Charles Clark sold out to mining engineer George M. Colvoodresses who mined and milled ore worth $2 million from 1921 to 1924. American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) acquired a lease in 1929 and made a number of improvements, and rebuilt the concentrator just in time to meet the Great Depression and the fate of their predecessors. In 1937, the remaining employees cut up all the steel and the railroad, sold the materials to recover lost wages and left the area.

Then we drove up to the ruins of the copper smelter and dust chamber. This landmark brick building was part of the smelting process used to extract copper, and small amounts of other metals, from the refining process. The hot stack gases, dust and smoke from the smelters were blown into this structure and returned to the smelter. Waste gas, dust and smoke exited through the stack at the rear of this building. The shat hoists and associated mining equipment were either steam-powered or electric. Two steam-powered generators furnished electricity for the smelter, town, ore trains and water pumping station on the Bill Williams River. Three large water tanks stood on the hill south of the dust chamber. Some estimates say as much as 400,000 gallons of water per day were required for the smelter and town operations. The Bill Williams River flowed freely in the early 1900s, before Alamo Dam was built upstream in 1969. This energy all came from coal, which along with the other supplies, required shipping into Swansea by rail. Swansea's survival depended on the copper prices. Copper at one time was selling for 12 cents a pound and cost 15 cents per pound to produce. No wonder they went bankrupt.

As we looked out over the valley from the ruins of the copper smelter and dust chamber, we could see colorful mine tailings in the distance. In 1867, U.S. Mining Commissioner J. Ross Browne favorably evaluated the Bill Williams mining district. He reported that "the whole country appears to be formed of the ores of iron and copper, the hills for miles around being colored red by the iron, or green and blue in patches where waters containing carbonate of lime in solution have percolated through the copper. The dark brown rock is altered limestone. Created from ocean muds, the rock changed when it came in contact with rising molten igneous rock that lies below. Lifting and faulting continued to fracture the limestone. It is at this meeting place between the two rock types, and in the cracks and crevices of the uplifted block, that minerals and precious metals were deposited. The geological reports on the Buckskin Mountains emphasized the potential of the area to match the world's richest copper mines. Browne's 1867 report, however, held a clue to the unavoidable failure of these mines: they were too rich in low value materials that impeded mining. Browne noted, "...the miners run considerable risk of injury by being crushed by heavy masses of ore... having been held in place by large quantities of powdery oxide of iron, ...which is nothing more nor less than iron rust ... will come rushing down and block all further work till the opening can be timbered up." Thousands of board feet of big timber would be needed to expand the mines underground, quite a challenge in the treeless Sonoran Desert.

As we went back to the main road, we passed by a hill of black rocks. It turns out the big black rocks were castings of the ore cars. The hot residue from the smelting process was dumped after it had cooled and had molded to the shape of the ore cars. Pretty interesting.

As we left Swansea, we passed by the Workers' Housing, which are being restored.