The First Decade of Operations at Logan Quarry
Posted by Rose Ann Woolpert on Mar 18, 2015
The second in a series on the history of Logan Quarry by Robert Cozzens, who worked with Graniterock for over 62 years, this excerpt is taken from a history he created in 1974.
Hand work at the Quarry was brutal and far too slow, and it was clearly necessary to mechanize production. In 1901, A.R. Wilson brought in a #3 Gates crusher, operated by a 150 hp Coreless compound steam engine, which increased tonnage from 17 ½ to 20 tons per hour. A small upright engine and generator for electric lights were also added. The face was moved up ten more feet, to the twenty foot level, to bring the rock closer so it could be pushed by cars or wheelbarrows to the crusher. It also made room for the#5 Allis Chalmers crusher, installed in 1902. A 24 inch narrow gauge rail was laid, and six end dump mine cars. Three one horse, 1 ½ yard dump carts also helped carry rock to the crusher from the face.
This is how operations stood until 1905, when a #5 McCully crusher was installed. This crusher more than doubled production, increasing tonnage to 55 tons per hour, or about 550 tons and 15 railcars per day. 110 men were now employed at the Quarry, and each worked ten hour days. A year later, in 1906, two yard, side dump cars were pushed by hand from the Quarry face, which was at a level about 40 feet above the main line track. Then the 1906 Earthquake completely destroyed the Quarry crushing plant.
In 1907, a new #8 plant was built. This contained one #8 McCully crusher, two #5 shortheads and a set of 50” by 36” rolls together with screens, elevators and necessary grizzleys to separate the base rock. Two years later, in 1909, a 7 ½ McCully crusher was added and the quarry face was moved up the hill to the 100 foot level where the quarry office was located. A compressor and jack hammer were purchased, and a 1 ¼ yard Model 20 Marion coal burning railroad type steam shovel on traction wheels took over for the men who had been hand quarrying rock at the face. Mules and horses were added to pull twenty-four 4 yard dump cars to the chute on a 29 inch narrow gauge railroad.
Waste rock, as it was called prior to 1920, was all 2 ½ inch minus, except that which went to the dump. No scalping was done on any material going to the dump. The first plant fed the baserock (or waste) directly to a conveyor which went to a bunker over the rails. There it was loaded into railroad cars and taken to Southern Pacific yards throughout the region, all of which were built with free baserock from Logan Quarry. What couldn’t be given away to the Southern Pacific was brought back up the hill by conveyor and taken to the waste dump. Beginning in 1920, this conveyor was reversed and waste rock was brought back from the dump to be scalped.
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