HENRY KENYON BURCH

Los Angeles County

Biographies

HENRY KENYON BURCH

BURCH, HENRY KENYON, Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineer, Los Angeles, California, was born in Vlysummit, Washington County, New York, April 19, 1873, the son of Adalbert Le Roy Burch and Rachael (Kenyon) Burch. He married Grace Colburn at Moscow, Idaho, October 5, 1905. They have one son, Kenyon Colburn Burch.

Mr. Burch, who has attained a high position in his profession, received his early education in the public schools of Greenwich, New York, a town near his birthplace, and after attending the high school left to enter Marshall Seminary at Easton, New York. He completed his academic work there and then took up his professional studies at the Washington State College of Science, from which he was graduated in 1901 with the degree of A.B.

Within a month of his graduation, Mr. Burch went to Anaconda, Montana, where he entered the employ of the Anaconda Copper Company as a mechanical draughtsman and clerk to the Master Mechanic of the Company, a position he filled for about eighteen months. In the latter part of 1902 he left the Anaconda Company to accept a position as mechanical draughtsman for the Daley-Judge Mining Company, but only remained with this concern for about three months. He was next associated with the Park City Metals Company as draughtsman, continuing there until May of the year 1903.

At this time he was selected by J. M. Callow, of Salt Lake City to assist him on plans for a metallurgical testing plant for the University of Utah, and also drawings of plans for the Yampa Smelter. When this work was completed he went to Morenci, Arizona, and there entered the service of the Phelps-Dodge Company, one of the leading copper mining corporations of the country, and designed and constructed for the Detroit Copper company, a subsidiary, its 1500-ton concentrator.

This was the beginning of an association with the owners of the famous Copper Queen Mine and other properties which has continued almost uninterruptedly down to the present day, for during the several years which have elapsed Mr. Burch has designed and constructed all of the company’s milling plants in the United States and Mexico. Upon completing his work at Morenci, he was sent, in 1906, to Nacozari, Sonora, Mexico, where the Phelps-Dodge interests are represented by the Moctezuma Copper Company, and there took charge of the construction of an entire plant. This included the design and construction of a concentrator of 2000 tons daily capacity, pumping plants and other adjuncts of a big mining operation. His work kept him at Nacozari until November, 1908, when he became associated with the Miami Copper Company, at Miami, Arizona. For this company Mr. Burch designed and constructed a concentrator of 3000-ton capacity, a power and pumping plant of five thousand house power and other surface equipment, including a hoisting plant, crushing plant and head frame. He planned and carried out many other details necessary to the completed work. In all, Mr. Burch was engaged at Miami for a period lacking one month of three years, leaving there in October, 1911.

When this work was finished, Mr. Burch went to Los Angeles and a short time afterward opened his offices as a Consulting mechanical and Metallurgical Engineer, and in addition to his general work, he was chosen by the Phelps-Dodge Company as Consulting milling expert, one of his principal works being the design and construction of a crushing and concentration plant for the Old Dominion Copper Mining & Smelting Company, having a capacity of one thousand tons.

In July, 1912, he was engaged as Chief Engineer of the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company of Miami, Arizona, and in that office designed a concentrating and mining plant to have an initial capacity of 7500 tons of ore per day. The construction work will be completed some time in 1913, and the concentrator building alone will cover more than eight acres of ground. In addition to this there will be pumping plants, crushing plants, machine shops, and hoisting plants, the whole forming one of the largest mining plants in the world, erected at a cost of several million dollars.

Another important commission executed by Mr. Burch in 1912, was the design and construction of a 3000-ton rock crushing plant for the Temescal Rock Company, near Corona, California, one of the most up-too-date crushing plants in the United States.

To the average reader, these terms and figures convey little meaning as to the work of Mr. Burch, but to the initiated they show that he has, within a few years, accomplished tasks which place him among the leaders of the mining profession. The mining, milling and smelting of copper at the present time is one of the most gigantic industries in the world, and the plants which Mr. Burch has designed and constructed form a large part of the physical equipment necessary to the total output of this product. The various concentrators with which he has had to do, burning out nearly ten thousand tons of commercial copper per day, contribute a large percentage of the country’s total copper supply. In his private capacity, Mr. Burch is engaged in other important works.

He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Mining Engineers.

Transcribed 5-22-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 24, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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