Fluorspar Mills in operation in the County in 1958

Fluorspar Mills in 1958

I think most all of us that have lived our lives in Crittenden County are always interested in reading the old history about our fluorspar mills and mines. They were so much a vital part of the history of our county. It is fortunate that our local paper, The Crittenden Press, reported on the happenings of these mills, by doing this we are lucky to have all this information to read about those days when Fluorspar was king in our county. This following article, written in 1958, was in the ending days of the great fluorspar era in our county. 

April 24, 1958. Fluorspar Mills

Several Companies Identified with Fluorspar

• The West Kentucky Fluorspar industry is represented by numerous companies who are active in Crittenden and Livingston Counties.

• The Calvert City Chemical Company is the largest producer with a mine in Livingston County and a mill at Mexico. The Kentucky Fluorspar Company, with office and plant facilities at Marion, prepares various grades of fluorspar and fluorbarite for the steel and ceramic industries.

• The Nancy Hanks fluorspar mine is located in Livingston County near Salem. The Delhi Fluorspar Company has office and plant at Marion where various grades of fluorspar are prepared for the general market.

• The Willis Crider operations at Mexico with office and processing plants there prepare fluorspar and barite for the general market.

• Mico Mining and Milling Co. has a plant in Crittenden County where barite is being prepared for the general market. This plant is located on Highway 91 North about 2 miles from the Cave-In-Rock ferry landing. Barite or barium sulfate is sometimes called heavy spar, and is used in drilling oil wells and for other industrial uses.
  

Fluorspar occurs naturally in veins or beds as crystalline calcium fluoride disseminated in vein rock commonly associated with calcite and silica. The crystals vary in color from whites, cream, yellow, blue and purplish. The crystals are cubic with octahedral cleavage and rare specimens are of semi-gem quality and clear specimens may be of optical quality.

Fluorspar is used by the steel companies as a flux in iron smelting, by the various ceramic industries for quality and opacity control, and the acid grades are used for the production of a wide range of important chemicals. The range of chemicals includes hydrofluoric acid, fixed dyes, refrigerants, propellants, insecticides and moth repellents, jet fuels, and other chemicals used by the aluminum processors and the Atomic Energy Commission.

• Calvert City Chemical Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pennsalt Chemicals Corporation, is producing acid grade fluorspar for their hydro fluorite acid plant at Calvert City. Calvert City Chemical Company has a fluorspar mine at Dyers Hill in Livingston County which produces the ore requirements for the mill located at Mexico. The mill at Mexico recovers commercial quantities of lead and zinc concentrates as by-products as well as production of the acid grade fluorspar concentrate.

• Calvert City Chemical Company is an important factor in the local economy with a total payroll of about 75 men.

• The Kentucky Fluorspar Company was organized in the early 1900s by Judge Northern, C. S. Nunn, J. W. Blue and others. The company operated various mines in Crittenden County until about 1922, at which time they sold all of their mines to the United States Steel Corporation.

•  DELHI Fluorspar Corporation was organized in 1940 by H. F. McVay and Claud A Fletcher. At that time they were operating the Babb Mine, North of Salem, under the Delhi Foundry Sand Company, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Claud A. Fletcher became president of Delhi Fluorspar Corporation. The Corporation continued to mine, mill, grind, buy and sell fluorspar. Since the sale of the mine in 1944, the Corporation has continued to buy, process, and sell all grades and sizes of fluorspar.

• The REYNOLDS ALUMINUM Company has an exploration office at Salem. Mr. John W. Hook is resident geologist, and Mr. Tom Winans is assistant geologist. The office has a staff of six men who are active in their search for ore reserves. The company has been in the area for about five years and has acquired several fluorspar properties.

• J. Willis Crider Fluorspar Company purchased the current operation from Crider Brothers in 1951. Since that time the J. Willis Crider Fluorspar Company has been in continuous operating, buying, producing and selling gravel fluorspar. In 1955 the company purchased a new heavy media separation plant as an addition to the original mill in order to increase production. In 1957 the log washing plant was installed to wash and clean barite ores. At the present there is one shaft operating on fluorspar and stripping operations are going on for the barite ore. Properties owned and under lease for mining operations are located in Caldwell, Crittenden and Livingston County. Officers are J. Willis Crider, owner, and Billie Travis, superintendent.
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The Year 1940 Had Extreme Weather

Extreme Weather Conditions Hit The County in 1940

The year 1940 in Crittenden County was a year of extreme weather conditions. From the archives of The Crittenden Press, let's take a visit to 1940 and see what was in store for the county.

January 5, 1940. The year started out with the Ohio being frozen over at Dam 50 for two days. W. D. Hatcher, lockmaster at Dam 50, reported a two-inch depth of ice over the Ohio from bank to bank extending from Dam 50 to the mouth of the Wabash. This was the first solid freeze of the river since the winter of 1936 when a low of five below was reported and the weather remained below freezing for a period of four days.

The season's low was reported Jan. 2nd when the mercury dropped to two above. In downtown Marion,temperatures of two to three above were reported Jan. 3^rdwith Tuesday night being the most severe. Following a two inch snow fall, a thaw proved detrimental. A light mist began to fall and froze as it struck the ground. Highways were coated with ice and became treacherous.

Down in the Tolu area of the county, Claude Arflack and a group of men who had stock wintering on Hurricane Island, opposite Tolu had to cut ice before placing a boat in service to remove the stock.  The men laid a board plank walk and used large saws. After sawing the ice in blocks the loosened portion and then shoved it downward into the current with the aid of skid poles. After completing the path a ferryboat will be used to remove the stock.

Several residents of the Tolu community walked across the river and reported solid ice from Kentucky to Illinois.

January 26 came and with it temperatures 15 degrees below January average. The third blast of the season struck the county Wednesday night driving the mercury to 5 below. At noon if only had climbed to 10 above with no thawing. A two-inch snowfall early Tuesday morning making the total for the past thirty day 17 inches. Freezing temperature and piercing winds followed, placing crusts on the coating making walking hazardous and halting traffic.

***

April 3^rd. Spring finally came and with the change of season more severe weather.

On the night of April 3^rd the county was struck by a twister. Freakish in all respects, the sections suffering heaviest were Tolu and the Iron Hill and Sugar Grove areas.

In the Sugar Grove-Tribune sections, a barn was unroofed on the farm of Henry Paris, a similar structure of Frank Woodsides was twisted from the foundation and practically demolished. Sol and Cecil Baker each lost barns and the home of Hubert Hunt was completely unroofed. P. P. Lamb and Homer Travis, adjoining farms, were the largest sufferers. Lamb had two barns destroyed and lost a large steer when the animal was trapped under a falling roof. Travis' home was blown several feet from its foundation and in addition a large barn and small shed was down.

Cedar Lane, known to all Crittenden countains, was twisted, torn and will never again be the picture of scenic beauty that it previously presented.

One of the largest trees in the Iron Hill-Deanwood sections was uprooted directly opposite the front porch of the home of Joe Dean with roots protruding several feet in the air and within jumping distance of the porch, but no damage was done to the porch or house. The storm was apparently split by Iron Hill as no damage was done beyond.

It was reported that buildings on the farm of George Dowell were damaged and the home of Hodge Tabor, near the E'town and Tolu-Y was twisted and blown from the foundation. Luther Hardesty had a barn town down and house unroofed.

In the southern section of the county, the storm unroofed several sheds and a home in the Mexico section, the blow next struck Mott City at the intersection of Princeton-Dycusburg highway. Mr. Mott and son, Glenn, were in the large stone building attempting to hold the doors closed and were thrust aside, the doors blew open and the velocity of the wind was sufficient to blow the rear wall of concrete blocks aside as if it were paper. Some of the blocks were thrown a distance of 12 feet from the wall.

April 26^th. With melting snow from the north mixing with heavy rainfall along the path of the river, the Ohio river flooded.

The river bottoms were covered and many ferry boats were not operating. No stock drowning or damage had been reported, the owners being warned and having time to remove the animals and anchor buildings in the areas that would be flooded.

The damage to roadbeds was severe caused by heavy winds that lashed at dirt fills for many hours and complicated by the swift current. All bottoms and lowland had been under water for ten days with many low lying roads being cut off from any traveling.

***

Next came summer with it's heat wave and drought.

July 26^th. Severe and intense heat over the entire county has caused much suffering and discomfort during the last four days with temperatures ranging well above 90 degrees. In many fields pastures and crops are drying badly.

August 2^nd. Fourteen days of heat wave, and for several days the Mercury was near 100 degrees for the last five days. Crops in the fields were wilting and pastures searing and in many sections ponds for stock watering purposes dry and water being hauled from wells to pastured stock.

August 8^th. Heavy showers finally bring relief and broke the fourteen day heat wave.

August 23^rd. Severely high winds hit the county and damaged many acres of corn in all sections of the county and fall yields were decreased by 40 to 50 percent. The wind was freakish, shattering large trees and unroofing several barns in scattered sections. The rains following the high winds did much to aid late crops but many acres of corn were beyond aid. In the lower river bottoms pastures assumed green surfaces and ponds filled that had been dry for the past three weeks.

***

Fall comes and with it more damage from the weather of 1940.

On November 11^th comes a severe windstorm that wrecks a familiar landmark.

The severe windstorm that struck Monday, Nov. 11^th, blew down the covered portion of a familiar landmark, the Covered Bridge, on old Fords Ferry Road at the crossing of Crooked Creek. Abutments and floor had been repaired recently and these were not damaged.

In addition to the bridge damage, several barns were unroofed, trees uprooted and chickens killed.

The blow came early Monday morning following the severe downpour Sunday night.

Marion water supply was replenished and the spillway reported overflowing.

After the windstorm Monday, the temperatures began to drop and ice was reported in many places on Tuesday. Wednesday, Nov. 13^th, was the coldest of the fall season.

So ends a rough weather year for Crittenden County. It's interesting to read and learn of these past weather conditions that affected the area in years past.

Some Early County Lawyers

Marion seemed well-blessed with the number of attorney's that were available in her early years. From the archives of The Crittenden Presses you can find many ads placed there telling of their services to help the public. Here are just a few of the attorney's that were practicing law in Marion in the late 1880s.

JAMES & JAMES

Lemuel H. James, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, June 7, 1844, received his education in the common school's and when only twelve years of age was left an orphan and began working to support himself and widowed mother. No doubt his trials and had work gave him a great deal of the push, pluck and perseverance which has made all that have a personal knowledge of his character and of his work pronounce him as a thoroughly capable and reliable lawyer.

He practices in all the state and federal courts and is noted for his success in winning cases.  L. H. James wields a jury as one man.  He is a self-made man who began educating himself at 19 years of age, and studied law under the Honorable Sumner Marble.  He was admitted to the bar in 1859.

He has made a successful specialty of criminal law, and has in the most severe litigation been equal to the task and come off conqueror.

He is noted for the quickness and vigor with which he compels attention to the governing questions and the same quality has given him is enviable reputation among businessmen.

Associated with him in business, is his son, Ollie M. James.

***

Ollie M. James, born to legal purple, his success might have been great through the illustrious name of his father, but his own merits give him a prominence that is distinctly his own.

He was born on a farm in Crittenden County July 27, 1871, attended the public school and academy at Marion receiving a thorough general education. 

In 1887 he was elected page to the House of Representatives and in 1889 was made cloakroom keeper of the Senate.

He was admitted to the bar in 1891, under Judge Givens, formed a partnership with his father in 1892. His naturally strong and well-equipped legal mind together with his persuasive address has won him an enviable reputation, he has that magnetism that commands strict attention when he talks.

He is a good jury lawyer, always gaining his prestige by honorable means. He has a larger acquaintance over the state than any man in the county and before him opens a bright prosperous future.

L. H. James died in 1928 and is buried in the James flamily plot at Mapleview Cemetery.

His son and partner, Ollie M. James, went on to have a brilliant political career, and had bright prospects for the future but he died Aug. 28, 1918 of kidney disease and is also buried at Mapleview cemetery.

***

 Cruce & Nunn

The law firm of Cruce & Nunn occupy a fine suit of rooms in the Carnahan building, and are they are never too busy to talk and execute business, although they have a large law practice, one that has proven alike satisfactory to the lawyer and the client.

Their large library, composed of the authentic works with the latest reports and publications, brings them in touch with the brightest minds of this and every other age, and much time is devoted to a careful perusal of its volumes. 

They are both men of experience and ability, whose practice has won the favor of all with whom they have met in business connection.

Wm. I. Cruce, the senior member of the firm, is a Kentuckian, born in this county, near Crayne. His legal education was thorough and he possessed the necessary qualifications to make practical use of it. 

He is a lawyer of recognized ability and Marion has cause to feel proud of him. Well versed in law and unusually ready and quick in repartee, it is not strange that he has established a position among the best lawyers in the state.

William I. Cruce after this time moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma with other members of his family. He died there in 1928 and was also buried there.

***

Clem S. Nunn is also a son of Kentucky and is a rising young attorney. He has the natural adaptation and educational training for a good, sound lawyer, and thus far in his professional calling has every reason to be pleased with his success. 

He is careful and painstaking, looks closely after the interested of his clients, and secures favorable verdicts by the employment of honorable and professional methods. The firm as now composed is one of the best in this part of the State.

They have incorporated into their law practice live business methods. The are not only able to handle any matters entrusted to them, but they give close and prompt attention to all cases of whatever magnitude, and it they take it al all, it is "to win." Their live methods are continually adding to their already large volume of business.

Clem S. Nunn died June 19, 1935 and is buried in Mapleview Cemetery.