Many of minerals were given to me by a Clemson geologist friend of my father. My father gave me some of them himself. The following material on this web page is an edited version of some comments made by my father in January 1983, only a little more than 3 years before he died in 1986.
Frank Dodd Smith - comments on the
This presentation of my knowledge of the history of the mining industry of Bartow County is made with the understanding that no changes will be made without my approval.
Some of the minerals in Bartow County are:
IRON ORE, LIMONITE AND HEMATITE
The production of these minerals started about 1800. First, it furnished the several charcoal furnaces that operated in Bartow County. In the early 1800's, several families moved from Sweden to Emerson, Bartow County, Georgia, to build a plant to produce gray iron (castings), using high grade pig iron from charcoal furnaces. After disagreements with the govenrment of Emerson, Georgia, they moved their operation to Ironton, Ohio, where it is now a major industry.
Mr. Mark A. Cooper built a furance and rolling mill on the Etowah River and was operating successfully at the start of the Civil War. General Sherman of the Union Army destroyed Cooper Iron Works on his way to Atlanta.
About 1900, there were large iron ore deposits opened throughout the district. Railroads were built from the main railroad lines to the iron deposits. The major producers were:
The output was used by furnaces in Tennessee and Alabama.
In 1939, Fred Knight, Sr ., and Frank Smith built the first iron ore washer in Georgia to be built after the Great Depression.
Later, John W. Hodge built a washer and became one of the biggest shippers in the South.
Other miners of iron ore were:
Barytes was first mined in the 1800's, near Allatoona, a town in the southeast part of Bartow County. Dornicks were hand mined. The outside dirt was chipped off and the clean ore was put in bags and shipped to Germany to make barium chemicals. At the outbreak of World War I, barium chemicals from Germany became unavailable, so the American chemical companies were forced to find sources of barite and to build plants. Barite deposits were found in Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee and Georgia. The quality of the Georgia barytes attracted miners from various states.
Among them were:
W. J. Weinman, Bill Peebles and Evans, grandfather of Marshall Evans, purchased Paga Mines & Company, which has been the largest producer of barite in Bartow County, and, along with New Riverside Ochre Company, are now the only producers.
In the 1930's, W. J. Weinman, E. P. Earle, J. M, Neel, and Ray Dellinger, son-in-law of Will Satterfield, the operator of New Riverside Ochre Company, started Chemical Products Company to make barium chemicals. Later, Weinman and Earle sold their interest in Chemical Products Corporation to Neel, Dellinger, and Fred Lester; later this company was purchased by J. R. Dellinger and J. R. Dellinger, Jr. Upon retirement of J. R. Dellinger, Jim Dellinger became owner and operator of Chemical Products and New Riverside Ochre Company. Chemical Products is under the acting supervision of J. L. Gray, President and Chemist. This is one of the largest employers in Bartow County. Paga Mines, under the supervision of W. J. Weinman, ground barytes for the filler, chemical, and oil well drilling industries. In the 1920's, W. J. Weinman, Evans and Thompson purchased an old flour mill with water power and formed Thompson-Weinman Company. Thompson was a mineral broker in New York City, Evans was in the mineral business in Charleston, West Virginia. Weinman's father had had a plant in Virginia bleaching Virginia barytes, so Thompson-Weinman installed equipment in the old flour mill to do the same to Georgia Barytes. They hired a Mr. Quasebarth to operate the plant. They could not bleach Georgia barytes. One day Mr. Weinman was in Birmingham, Alabama, and saw a pile of white rock at a furnace. He stopped and asked what the rock was. It was scrap marble from the quarries at Sylacauga, Alahama. He purchased a carload and ground it on the mill that he had installed to grind bleached baryte. This was the beginning of the calcium carbonate industry in the Ur.ited States, which is now one of the major non-metallic industries in the U. S. The original ball mill was now on display at the Thompson-Weinman plant near Cartersville. Weinman's daughter, Frances Luro, had a home in Cartersville, where her husband trained race horses. One of the horses trained was Northern Dancer. Thompson-Weinman Company iswas acquired by Amoco Mineral Division of Standard Oil Company of Indiana.
Mr. E.P. Earle, a mineral broker of New York City, was on the train to Florida when he saw yellow iron oxide in the banks of the railroad cut. He had been importing ochre from Peru for the use of making heavy lineoleum. He found that Georgia ochre was superior to the Peruvian ochre, so he built a plant at Emerson, Georgia, and named it Georgia Peruvian Ochre Company. He acquired other mineral properties in the district, which he leased to other mines. Mr. Earle later purchased the Nipissing Mining Company, in Canada, and with five associates, built the Empire State Building in New York City. Following the start of the Georgia Peruvian Ochre Company, these ochre mines and plants were built:
Large tonnages of this iron, with manganese, was shipped to the steel industry, mainly to supply manganese, which is essential to making steel. Most of this large tonnage was made during wartime, when the imports of manganese stopped. Umber is also used to color concrete, paint, etc., and is produced by the New Riverside Ochre Company, in addition to their ochre and barytes.
There are large deposits of both types of limestone, high calcium and dolomite. The calcium limestone is used to make cement and aggregate. In the 1800's, the Howard Cement Company produced high quality cement and, about 1960, Marquette Cement Company produced cement and, later, Martin-Marietta opened quarries to furnish their plant in Atlanta, Georgia. There have been several quarries opened to produce crushed aggregate.
In the 1800's, a large deposit was opened and plant built to make high magnesium lime. It was named Ladd Lime & Stone Company. Mr. Henry Harvey, with Mr. Wilson Hardy, of Rome, and Billy Jackson, of Cartersville, bought the enterprise, which was for years the largest employer in the mining industry in Bartow County. The lime produced was ideal for making baking powder and many other chemicals
In the early 1900's, the Hoagland family, owners of Rumford Baking Powder Company, of New Jersey, purchased this plant to insure a source of this type of lime. They sent a Mr. L. J. Backus, of New York, to operate this plant. Mr. Harvey's family contributed to the community (his daughter Ann married Dr. Sam Howell, whose son Harvey and grandson Sammy are prominent doctors in Bartow County).
This mineral has contributed much to Bartow County by attracting many new citizens. The mineral is essential in making steel and chemicals but, after supplying the needs during wartime, the ore was imported from foreign countries.
Mr. A. O. Granger came from Pennsylvania in the 1800's, after mining in South America. His family contributed a great deal to the cultural development of this community and to Atlanta. They built the largest telescope observatory south of the Ohio River. Others who mined manganese were:
The first aluminum made in the U. S. was mined in Bartow and Floyd counties by the present Aluminum Company of America. A local man, Mr. Gibbons, operated these mines and also deposits in Arkansas, where the town near the deposits was named for him. He became a top official of Alcoa. The American Cyanamid Company mined bauxite to make alum. Large foreign deposits caused local mining to cease.
[ According to Geological Survey of Georgia Bulletin No. 11, A Preliminary Report on the Bauxite Deposits of Georgia, by Thomas L. Watson (1904), "... Bauxite was first discovered in 1821, by the famous chemist, Berthier, at the Village of Baux, Bouches du Rhone, in Southern France, from which locality the mineral takes its name. ... The first discovery of bauxite in America was in 1887, at a point a few miles northeast of Rome, in Floyd county, Georgia. A few fragments of the unknown mineral were picked up on the Holland lot, two miles north of the Ridge Valley Iron Company's furnace at Hermitage. ... The bauxite fragments were highly ferruginous and deep-red in color, and were taken by their discoverer, James Holland, to Edward Nichols, President and Acting Chemist of the Ridge Valley Iron Company, thinking they represented an ore of iron. Mr. Nichols attached no special importance to the find at that time; but, shortly afterwards, he made a chemical analysis of the fragments. ... Mr. Nichols identified the material as the mineral, bauxite. He briefly described the discovery and occurrence of the mineral in the Transacations of the American Institute of Mining Engineers for 1887. [vol. XVI p. 105] Bauxite mining in the United States had its beginning in Georgia, when, in April, 1888, the deposits of the mineral on the Holland property, lot 61, 23rd district of Floyd county, were first opened and worked. The first shipments of the ore were made in May, 18889, to the Pennsylvania Salt Company at Natrona, Penn., and to Greenwich Point, near Philadephia. This lot of ore is said to have been used for the manufacture of both alum and metallic aluminum. In 1889, 728 tons of the ore from Georgia included the total output of bauxite from the United States. ... [The 728 tons were long tons of 2,240 pounds per ton, and the total value of the 728 tons mined in 1889 ws $2,366.] ... In number of deposits [of bauxite], the Hermitage district is the largest in the State [of Georgia]. It includes an area of more than 50 square miles, lying between Rome, Kingston and Adairsville, east of the Oostanaula rive, and north of the Etowah river. It further occupies the contiguous northeastern and northwestern portions, respectively, of Floyd and Bartow counties. ..."]
In 1923, Father O'Hara, a Catholic priest and geologist, came here looking for all minerals. Among the deposits he found was a deposit of tripoli in the western part of Bartow County. This is a high grade material, but the deposits in Oklahoma and Missouri have been able to furnish this mineral to the abrasive and polishing industry.
Before the start of World War I, all potash used in the U. S. was imported from Germany. Because of the high potash content of the local slate and shale, a plant was built by American Potash Company in Marietta, Georgia, to produce potash. They had started shipping when large and high grade potash deposits were found near Carlsbad, New Mexico, making the venture in Georgia unprofitable. There are huge reserves of potash shale remaining in Bartow County and should be profitable deposits, if the expense of foreign ore becomes too high. The slate has been a major industry in making roofing granules. It was operated for years by the Funkhauser Company and recently by Rubberoid and GAF,
These have contributed materially to make brick, roofing tile, and floor tile. Many of the buildings now standing in Bartow County were made with brick made from these shales and clays. One ceramic tile company, the Universal Ceramic Company, is now making a very high grade tile at Adairsville, Georgia, in north Bartow County.
Gold was found and mined in Bartow County before the Civil War.
An English company purchased and mined the Glade property.
A Mr. Tudor of Boston mined at Allatoona after he had become wealthy by hauling ice from New England to Carribbean Islands. The last gold was shipped by Tudor's grandson in the 1930's to a New Jersey smelter, where he received $35.00 per ton for it. This was before the price of gold shot up. This shaft was inundated by Allatoona Lake.
Large deposits of high quality granite have been drilled and should furnish the Atlanta area after the deposits closer to Atlanta have become inaccessible.
This mineral has been found associated with manganese and iron ore in Bartow County. Since there was no analysis made of cobalt in the large tonnages of iron ore and manganese shipped over the past 100 years, the possibility of commercial tonnage of this essential mineral is favorable because of the remaining large tonnages of iron and manganese.
This important mineral has recently been found in the Cartersville mineral district in commercial quantities by Georgia Tech Researchers. As this mineral is so important to U. S. industry and defense, it is possible that this ore will eventually be mined.
Recent geological surveys indicate that below the zone of weathering throughout the Cartersville Mineral District, which is some 20 miles long and 4 miles wide, there are commercial deposits of sulfide which contain the following minerals, plus possibly others:
There has never been a drill hole to the unweathered zone. All the minerals mined here in the past 100 years have been mined in the weathered zone.
These minerals have been produced throughout the years to supply the construction industry. Building stone from Pine Log Mountain has been sold throughout the South.
Halloysite, a rare type of kaolin, has been found in the mining of iron ore and manganese. It is used to make catalysts. It is mined at one location, in Eureka, Utah.
Large tonnages of this serpentine type mineral were found by W. J. Weinman and Frank Smith, but the deposit is now covered by Allatoona Lake.
The mining of this mineral was started by an English firm. They sold most of it as a fertilizer filler because of its color. They also made a vitrified brick. Both of these uses became obsolete.
Other Bartow County minerals known to have economic possibilities are:
......