GEORGE MITCHELL

Los Angeles County

Biographies

GEORGE MITCHELL

MITCHELL, GEORGE, Mining, Los Angeles, Cal., was born in Swansea, Wales, Sept. 28, 1864, the son of Capt. George Mitchell and Ann (Mathews) Mitchell. He married Mary Woodwell at Swansea, Feb. 27, 1886, and t them have been born six children, Phillippa, Harry, Alvin, Mazie and George Mitchell, Jr., and Conseulla.

Mr. Mitchell attend the public schools of his native city, studied under private tutors and was graduated from Morgan Chemical School at Swansea, Wales, as a metallurgist, when he was barely sixteen years old.

Following his graduation, Mr. Mitchell was appointed sampler and assistant in the laboratory of a metal works at Swansea and remained there about three years, holding at various times the positions of smelter, refiner and reducer of gold, copper and nickel in the metallurgical department of the concern. He was chosen at the age of nineteen years, for the position of Superintendent of the smelting department of the South Wales Smelting Co., a large institution of Swansea. He remained there for about four years, and during that time handled ores from all parts of the world.

Thus far Mr. Mitchell had confined his attention to the scientific side of the mining industry and had had no actual experience in the mines, but he determined to take up that branch, and with this end in view resigned his position, in 1887, and sailed for the United States. He was engaged on his arrival as metallurgist for the Baltimore Smelting Company at its plant in Baltimore, Md., and remained there about a year. For the next few years he was associated with various other smelting and refining plants, arriving ultimately in Montana, then the center of great copper activity. There he aided in the construction of a smelter and converter plant for the Boston-Montana Copper Co. and the Silver Mining & Smelting Co., at Great Falls, and upon completion of the plant was chosen General Foreman of the smelters. Later he became Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Mitchell at this time perfected and patented the circular fore hearth of the blast furnace, which resulted in the saving of $80,000 monthly over the prevailing methods of smelting, eliminating all re-smelts in the production of copper.

Mr. Mitchell remained in Montana until late in the 1894, when, at the solicitation of Senator W. A. Clark, he assumed the management of the latter’s smelting works at Jerome, Ariz., the site of the United Verde Mine, owned by the Clark interests and the producer of wonderfully rich ore.

Not long after his arrival at Jerome Mr. Mitchell saw new opportunities for saving and invented a refining furnace and refining processes which not only resulted in great economy at the time, but have been in use in the great smelting plants ever since. Other inventions by Mr. Mitchell have been the Hot Blast Furnace, the great trough converters, now used throughout the world, and the perfection of a method of increasing the blast pressure on blast furnaces. Perhaps his most valuable invention, however, is the slag steam generator, which utilizes the heat of molten slag in making steam and results in tremendous saving on fuel.

Since the adoption of the Mitchell inventions and processes in the production of copper, the great companies of Montana, Arizona, Mexico and other sections have saved millions of dollars, it is said.

Mr. Mitchells left the Clark interests in 1899 to embark upon a mining venture destined to give him place among the most successful men in the business. Going into Old Mexico, he acquired the famous Cananea group Mines. These properties, now ranked among the greatest copper producers in the world, have a history centuries old, but Mr. Mitchell is given credit of making them a profitable investment. They were first worked, according to best records, about 1618 by the early Spaniards, who took the silver and left the slag containing a fortune in copper, lying upon the dumps. The Daly, Clark, Heinze and other mining interests had taken up the claims at various times, but each in turn failed. Mr. Mitchell realize that the others had failed because they treated it as a mining problem instead of a metallurgical one, and he soon arrived at a fluxing process, which, by mixing the ores of different sections of the property, resulted in a vastly improved smelting system.

Following the acquisition of the properties, Mr. Mitchell organized the Cobre Grande Copper Co., but actual work was held up for some time by litigation, the outcome of which was that Mr. Mitchell personally gained control of the lands. Shortly thereafter he merged his holdings with those of the late Col. W. C. Greene, as the Greene Consolidated Mining Co.

The birth of this latter concern was the birth of a new era of development in that part of Mexico, Mr. Mitchell and Col Greene building many improvements, including a railroad from the mines to Naco, Ariz., the nearest American railway point.

Mr. Mitchell devoted himself almost exclusively to the Cananea district until 1903, working in close harmony with Col. Green, but finally withdrew to take charge of the Mitchell Mining Co., which owned valuable timber and mining property in Mexico. For about four years he engaged in the development of this property, but in 1907 gave it up, and in 1908 took over the management, as President, of the Clara Consolidated Mining Co., believed by him to be great in potential gold, silver and copper values. The properties are located at Swansea, Ariz., a town built by Mr. Mitchell and named by him for his birthplace. He operated these mines for about two years and in 1910 resigned the management to a foreign syndicate.

Mr. Mitchell has been devoting his time to other properties in the Sinaloa and Durango, Mexico and the Southwest, and in the Summer of 1912 located one, eight miles from Prescott, Ariz., which he believes will rival all rich ore in the United Verde.

Like many men who have followed the precarious business of mining, Mr. Mitchell has experienced setbacks as well as successes, but on the whole his work has been rewarded with satisfactory results. His investments have extended at times from Alaska on the North to Chile on the South. He has traveled to practically every mining region on the American Continent, his investigations including mines of South America and nearly every section of North America.

Although he devotes most of his time to mining, he had been a liberal investor in real estate in Los Angeles, which has been his home for many years.

Mr. Mitchell has written numerous articles on mining and metallurgical topics for the technical press, and is a member of the National Geographical Society and the American Society for the Advancement of Science.

His clubs include the Rocky Mountains, Lambs, New York Athletic and New York, of New York City, and the California, Jonathan and Sierra Madre of Los Angeles.

Transcribed by Michele Y. Larsen 31 October 2011.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 821, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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