This is a summary of Thomas A. Rickard’s experience at the Engineering & Mining Journal in the early 1900s.
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After Rothwell’s death in 1901, a publisher named John McGraw bought the Journal in September 1901 for $183,000. He resold it three months later to William Johnston for $283,000, which yielded McGraw a $100,000 profit.
William Johnston was a budding entrepreneur who hired T. A. Rickard, a successful mining engineer and a friend and colleague of both Eilers and Raymond. Rickard soon learned that Johnston had run out of money and needed to raise cash to save the Journal. Rickard helped Johnston organize a group of seventy-two investors that included Anton and Rossiter. Johnston was more interested in purchasing additional technical journals than managing and promoting the Journal, but without any capital, he struggled to piece together his empire.
By late 1903, Johnston was in deep financial trouble again and began to court New York publishers. John McGraw approached Rickard to talk about throwing Johnston out and taking over the Journal. Though he was intrigued, Rickard declined. Another publisher was John A. Hill, who, like McGraw, owned several technical journals.
Rickard met with Hill, but found him too brusque to deal with on a daily basis. Eventually, a third publisher, Mr. H. M. Swetland, approached Rickard. Rickard found him sagacious, which he liked.
In January of 1904, Swetland purchased the Journal, but, just nine months later, Swetland sold it to John Hill without informing Rickard. Hill and Rickard’s relationship quickly soured and Rickard resigned. Meanwhile, Rickard purchased the San Francisco-based Mining and Scientific Press.
John Hill and John McGraw would continue to compete before merging their publishing companies in 1909, forming the McGraw-Hill Company. Some years later McGraw-Hill approached Rickard about purchasing the Mining and Scientific Press, an offer Rickard declined.
Also, see T. A. Rickard, “A Chapter in Journalism,” Mining & Scientific Press, May 22, 1920, p. 749-756.
The letter was written with letterhead from the Engineering & Mining Journal, where Anton and Rossiter Raymond headquartered as Deputy and Commissioner, respectively, for the Mines and Mining Commission In and West of the Rocky Mountains. Anton had just returned from his first trip to Arizona. The letter is in very poor shape and I only had photocopies. The originals are with Nila Savell, whose husband was descended from Regina Haueser Deilmann and Louis Armbrust. Regina Haueser original originally married Anton Dielmann, Anton Eilers’ uncle (and possible namesake).
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Office of The Engineering and Mining Journal and The Manufactuer and Builder.
Western & Company Publishers
37 Park Row.
New York, January 6th, 1870
Dear William (William Henry Phillip Dielmann – Anton’s cousin by marriage),
On my return from a protracted voyage to Arizona I found two letters from you, one for myself and one for my wife, the latter of which has not been answered. I returned on the 24th, just in time to help prepare the Christmas Tree for my little ones and there of course was great joy in the the house. I will not attempt to give you any of my adventures in that wild and distant country, the perils I had to overcome in regard to the Indians and the hardships I had to endure from heat and want of water; it would fll many pages and I am pressed for time, as I find a great deal to do after my return.
Your last letter to my wife contains your wish, that she might send you the “Weekly Herald” and “[indecipherable word in german] New-York Heraldzeitung”. Now you must excuse my wife for not attending to this little business at once, for you know, that she has been confined a short while ago and besides she has not been to the city; and even when she does go, she hardly ever comes low enough down town in the neighborhood of the offices of those papers. I would have attended to it before this, had not my wife been suddenly prostrated shortly after my arrival by a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs. She is now a little better, but still in bed. As soon as I can spare more time in town . . . an hour every day. (I do not dare to stay away from the house long). I will send you both papers, probably to-morrow or day after. I think they cost $2 each for the year.
With the exception of my wife all are well at home. Mother is no a great deal better, than she was, when you were here. Still she can walk around and look a little after things. Emma and Fritz are well and doing fine. Their boy, little Fritz is getting heavier every day and just commences to walk.
My wife sends her thanks for the photograph of your little sister. I do not remember, where you or your mother have ours. If you have not got them I will send them sometime.
It is right you want to sent Margaret to a better school. Where do you propose to send her? Have you good schools for young ladies down there [Mississippi], or will she come here? If so, she shall stop in my house. I shall never move from New-York any more. I am glad you have received the offer of interest … a few words unclear .. it will give you some business knowledge.
It’s not clear who wrote this letter. It may have been more of a note to themselves?
November 28, 1929
Else F. Eilers And K. Eilers
Ueber Friedrich Anton Eilers
Friederich Anton Eilers geboren zu Laufenselden, Nassau, am 14 Januar, 1839, waehrend einer reise der mutter von Mensfelden nach Hof Roedel, dem Besitz seines Vaters.
Er besuchte die gymnasien zu weilburg und wiesbaden in Nassau. Studierte in Goettingen und clausthal; kam in Mai, 1859, nach Amerika. Vermaehlte sich am 3ten Mai, 1863, mit Elizabeth Emrich; geboren in der stadt New york den 10ten Februar 1844 (Ihre Eltern Jacob Emrich aus Bingen a/Rhein und Henreitte Mauer aus Freimersheim, Baiern.
(switches to English)
Luise H. Eilers was born at the Hale Copper Mine near Hillsville, Virginia.
Kalr born a the Schramm Farm near Marietta, Ohio, where Friederich Anton Eilers was boring for oil
Rough Translation:
Anton born to Laufenselden, Nassau, on January 14, 1839, during a trip to the mother of Mensfelden to Hof Roedel, the possession of his father.
He attended to weilburg the high schools and wiesbaden in Nassau. Studied in Goettingen and clausthal; came in May 1859, to America. Married on the 3rd May, 1863, with Elizabeth Emrich, born in the city of New York February 10th 1844 (Her parents Jacob Emrich of Bingen a / Rhein and Henreitte wall of Freimersheim, Bavaria.
On July 27, 1919, there passed away a simple, unassuming gentleman, who, throughout his life, allowed his intense modesty to keep himself in the background and during his later years effaced himself so thoroughly that but few of his acquaintances knew aught of him. Yet he was one of our accomplished metallurgists, who did good work in the practice of his profession and lived an upright life. Now that he is no longer with us Franz Fohr cannot plead to be overlooked, and those who fondly remember him will be gratified by his receiving his due.
Franz Fohr was born, Sept. 7, 1838, in Mannheim, Germany. Of his ancestry, education, and early career we know scarcely anything. We do not even know just when he came to America, or what led him hither. The first record of his professional work in this country, found among his papers, shows that from July, 1870, to Jan. 1, 1872, he was superintendent of the Newark Smelting & Refining Works, then owned by Edward Balbach & Son. At that time the Balbach works at Newark, established in 1850, and the Selby works at San Francisco, established about 1866, were the only important silver-lead refineries in the United States. Mr. Fohr may have been associated with the Balbachs for some time before he became superintendent of their plant or he may have come from Germany but a short time previously. At all events, it is certain that he was at that time an experienced and accomplished metallurgist. After leaving Newark and going to San Francisco, he soon formed a connection with Thomas H. Selby & Co. Early in 1874, this firm sent him to New York to procure information respecting the manufacture of white lead. His engagement in New York terminated on Jan. 31, 1875. …
In this May 30th, 1885, dictation from Anton Eilers he mentions traveling in Europe for two years. However, he wasn’t there longer than six months (Jan 1882-May 1882). I can only conclude this was a transcription error or some other mistake. The original is Hubert Howe Bancroft Collection.
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Mr. A. Eilers
So Pueblo, Colo. May 30th, 1885
Was born in Germany January 14th, 1839 and educated at the Mining Academy of Clausthal and University of Goettingen. Graduated when 20 years of age and came at once to the U.S. Was employed by a firm of Mining Engineers in N.Y City for a number of years and in Dec. 1869 was appointed Deput of U.S. Mining Statistics and held position until 1876. Was in Salt Lake and rebuilt the Germania Smelter running it in 1877 and 1878. Next to Leadville, Colorado, in 1879 and built smelter there, remaining two years when health failed and sold out and traveled in Europe for two years and returned to Colorado.
Organized the Colorado Smelting Co in Pueblo and broke ground for the works in April 1883. Started work in Aug same year with one furnace and now have 4 furnaces with a local capacity of 200 tons per day. Employ 125 men and will increase capacity of works as fast as business demands it.
English Translation of Hahn’s 1938 Article on Karl Eilers
Below is the letter from Karl Eilers to Maxwell Hahn about an upcoming biography by Hahn on Eilers for a German newspaper. The German version can be found here.
March 15 1938 Letter from Karl to Mr. Hahn
Mr. Maxwell Hahn Room 1811–570 Lexington Avenue . New York City
My dear Mr. Hahn: I was much pleased with your biographical article concerning myself, and I have done as you suggested– made a few corrections in pencil; also, I am having your article re-written, with some copies for my children.
On your last page you make a very nice and very proper comment about Frank Van Dyk. I wish you could also say something to the effect that I am very grateful for the friendly, congenial assistance given me and our Associated Hospital Service by Homer Wickenden and yourself; and if you do not think it would clutter up the article too much, I would also like to have recognized the fine assistance given us by Mr. Pyle, Wm. Breed, Jr., Mr. Stanley Resor, and the many other important members of our Executive Committee and the Board. I had thought that something could be said immediately after your paragraph about Frank Yan Dyk covering Homer and yourself. Perhaps to add the other names at this point might be too cumbersome; but if your ingenuity could work it in somewhere advantageously, I should like very much to have it.
Very truly yours, enc. KE/S;
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Maxwell Hahn’s biography draft of Karl Eilers (English Version):
“Because I wasn’t worried, and because I had confidence . . .”
With these words, Karl Eilers, American-horn son of a German father, explains how he has traveled the long road from his birth seventy-two years ago in a small Ohio town to a position of prominence in New York City as President of the Associated Hospital Service of New York and President of Lenox Hill Hospital.
Today tall and portly, with the erect carriage of an army officer Karl Eilers is as full of confidence and faith in the future as in his youth. White-haired now, he goes about his tasks with the energy of a younger man and greets each day with the zest carried over from his colorful and adventurous past.
He has watched the Associated Hospital Service grow until now more than 650,000 men, women and children in the New York metropolitan area are enrolled and entitled to hospital care when needed. The skeptics who questioned the non-profit three-cents-a day plan for hospital care at its beginning less than three years ago have found their answer in the fact that subscribers have share and individually saved more than $3,7l5,000 in hospital bills.
And with the faith that enabled him to accept the presidency of the three-cents-a-day plan when others were doubtful of its success, Karl Eilers is convinced that enrollment in the plan will exceed in in York City a million members by the end of this year.
Mr. Eilers’ confidence in the idea of placing hospital care on the family budget for payments of a few cents each day has been strengthened by the confidence of the public.
But for a decision made eighty years ago, Karl Eilers might have been a ministers son, pursuing his destiny in Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Germany.
The decision was wade by his father, F. Anton Eilers, who, given the choice of the ministry or mining for a life’s work, decided to be a miner. He was sixteen at the time, and from America came reports of a great Western territory as yet hardly touched, and of minerals that slept under the grass roots, ready to yield their wealth to the finder.
And so, in 1859, Karl Eilers’ father came to America. He brought his small savings and a stout heart to a country soon to be torn with internal conflict. Slavery, not minerals, was the subject he heard discussed at every corner. In that year, a man named John Brown had led a raid on Harpers’ Ferry in Virginia to incite a slave revolt. John Brown was killed, but the issue grew sharper and sharper. There were rumors of war in the air. Disturbing rumors to the ear of the young man who had left a quiet home in Germany.
He found a Job in a clothing store on Chatham and Pearl Streets, and a place to live in the Tremont section of the city. He worked there for several years, meanwhile seeking an opportunity to carry out his determination to be a miner. In 1861 Civil War was declared. Mr. Eilers remained in New York. In 1863, when he was courting the girl who was to be Karl Eilers’ mother, the draft riots broke out in New York City and left 1,000 dead to decide whether or not Republican officials had stuffed the draft lists with the names of Democrats. But the violence of the times proved no handicap to romance and in that year Mr. Anton Eilers married.
Shortly after his marriage, he left the clothing store where he had been employed and started his career in the mining industry in an assay office on Park Row. His employer was Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond of Adelberg & Raymond, assayers.
Mr. Eilers and his young bride traveled about the country from one mining operation to another. In 1865, while with a company drilling for oil near Marietta, Ohio, his son, Karl Eilers, was born.
The first American-born son of the Eilers family opened his eyes in a perplexed country. Abraham Lincoln had been shot and torn from the helm of the nation when it most needed guidance. Andrew Johnson was inaugurated president of the United States and assumed leadership of a broken and uncertain people.
The family returned to New York and took up residence in the Morrisania section of the city. Young Karl Eilers developed into a tall husky boy, receiving his first formal education at a public school in the Melrose section. His father was advanced to the position of Deputy Mineral Surveyor. Dr. Raymond had become United States Com-
miasionor of Mining Statistics for the western part of the United States and had six men scouting around the country, gathering information concerning the mineral resources of the nation.
In 1873 Karl Eilers witnessed his first financial panic and saw a city demoralized. With business structures tottering the depression began with a series of bank failures on September 20. The Stock Exchange closed that day and remained closed until September 30. Dr. Raymond retired from his position in 1876. Karl Eilers’ father also resigned, and went to Colorado to investigate the copper resources there at the request of a Boston organization.
At Saints John, Colorado, Karl Eilers received the first indication that his life was one curiously favored by fate. He was in the flimsy shelter of a small smelting plant that had been set up at the foot of a towering mountain. He stood watching the progress of a rainstorm that had been raging about him for hours when he heard a roar as though the whole mountain were collapsing. Tree-roots, loosened by the torrents of rain, gave way. Tons of earth crumpled and roared down the mountainside, throwing a barrage or trees and rocks into space. It was useless to run. Karl Eilers watched the mountain as it flattened and spread towards him. When the slide had spent itself, the twisted trees and broken rocks were piled a scant fifty feet from the plant there Karl Eilers stood and breathed thankfulness.
Mr. Eilers left the exciting life he had led with his father in the west and returned to New York to study at the Hill School, Pottstown, Pa., and at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1883. Later he took courses in mining and metallurgy at Columbia University.
In 1889 he finished his studies in America and returned to his father’s native Germany to study in Berlin. Interested in European mining operations, he visited France May, 1891 to see the mines there. While in Paris, he studied Spanish in preparation for a trip to Spain. He left for that country in fall and lived for several weeks at the American Embassy. Later he traveled through the southern part of that country, inspecting mining conditions.
Karl Eilers returned to the United States in 1892 and, like his father, arrived at a time when the country was in upheaval. Labor trouble had swept the land. Riots were frequent. He joined his father who had become a power in the mining industry and worked with him. In 1894, that industry, too, became the target of labor manipulations. A nation-side strike of miners paralyzed operations throughout the country. Again, the Eilers weathered the storm, moving alertly from one organization to another.
In 1896 at the age of thirty, Karl Eilers married. He had acquired a reputation by that time for his knowledge of smelting theory and practice, and in 1900 was sent to organize a lead smelting plant that the American Smelting and Refining company had built in Utah. The Guggenheins had taken control of the American Smelting and Refining Company in 1901, and his association with them lasted until 1920 when he parted company with Simon Guggenheim and his organization.
Recalling the problems met during his smelting career, Karl Eilers remembers that their troubles were not all under ground. The smoke that poured in great volume from the chimneys of the smelting plants made the smelters unpopular with the eastern farmers, and lawsuits were frequent. The farmers protested that their crops and animals were stifled by the rolling clouds and carried their complaints to the courts. Efforts were made to change this condition by building the plants at the mouths of canyons and valleys so that the smoke would be swept out and up by the air currents. These efforts were futile, however, and the smoke continued to sweep over the land for a radius of twenty-five miles and more from whore the plants were constructed.
But that, and the mountain slides, forest fires and ruggedness was part of the expansion and development of the West in which Karl Eilers played such an active part, It was to be, if cities were to grow where forests and empty plains stretched limitless and forbidding.
The men who met and solved the difficulties of that forced and hurried growth of a nation had to have confidence, they had to be unafraid.
In New York four years before Karl Eilers was born the second and more peaceful half of his destiny began shaping itself. The German Hospital and Dispensary was founded in 1861. Because of Civil War, the first building was not completed until 1868 although six beds were then in use at the dispensary which had been establish at 8 East Third Street.
It, too, expanded and developed. Now known as Lenox Hill Hospital, with modern buildings at 111 East Seventy-sixth Street it has taken its place as one of the leading hospitals in New York City.
When Karl Eilers was invited several years ago to become a member of the board of trustees of the hospital, he accepted because he ‘considered it a civic duty.’
Today, as president of Lenox Hill Hospital, he continues to regard his position as a fulfillment of a civic duty, one more contribution to a community he loves.
In 1934, he was asked to accept the presidency of the Associated Hospital Service of New York, a non-profit community organization that planned to put hospital care on the family budget of the man and woman in the metropolitan area for payments of a few cents a day.
There were critics of the idea, and others who warned Karl Eilers that it would not work.
“Why become associated with an organization that is pre-destined for failure”, they argued.
Enrollment rates had been estimated at $10 a year for a single subscriber. They were too low, the doubters pointed cut. Too many hospital benefits were provided, the cost of operation would be too great. And, anyway, the public would not be interested.
Karl Eilers shrugged his heavy shoulders. It was not a new idea to him. For in Pueblo, Colorado, many years ago, the miners and smelters had agreed upon a similar plan to ensure themselves proper care in times of illness and injury. From each man’s monthly rage was deducted a certain sum which was put into a central fund. From this fund, the money was taken when needed for medical care. The plan had worked well and served its purpose. And Karl Eilers had confidence in this plan to serve millions of people in the New York metropolitan area. He accepted the presidency.
Today, more and more people are learning that they don’t have to worry about unexpected hospital bills. Letters pour into the headquarters of the three-cents-a-day plan at 570 Lexington Avenue from grateful subscribers, stating that, because of their membership, they have been able to meet the problem of unexpected hospitalization without financial concern. The bills are paid in advance.
Every day, 1,198 incoming calls are handled by Associated Hospital Service telephone operators. Most of the calls are from persons who want to know more about the plan and its methods of enrollment. The doubters have been silenced, and Karl Eilers maintains his well-placed confidence in the plan and the people who are responsible for its success.
The three cents-a-day plan has upheld its standards as a non-profit community service. If it were otherwise, it is doubtful whether Karl Eilers would be associated with it.
He speaks proudly of Frank Van Dyk, executive director of the Associated Hospital Service of New York, and credits him with the growth of the plan and the extension of hospital benefits to subscribers.
[Large empty gap in the draft document at this location between the paragraph above and below. No obvious reason why]
He is proud, too, that as president he never interferes with the activities of his executives.
“One of the biggest things I have learned is to keep my hands off the man who is doing the work”, Karl Eilers explains. “I believe it was the father of John D. Rockefeller, who said, ‘Find the man that knows more about your problems than anyone else, put him in charge, and then let him work them out’”.
He looks up from his desk and smiles. Not a young man now, but certainly not an old man. With a past already filled with rich memories, he keeps his eyes to the future and the opportunities that may be in it for him to serve the community further.
Karl Eilers might have been a minister’s son, resigned to old age in Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, Germany. He might have failed in the West and been swept aside by the waves of progress. He wasn’t.
“Because I wasn’t worried, and because I had confidence—“.
Karl Eilers, Der Mann und Sein Werk, March 27, 1938
This article about Karl titled “Der Mann und Sein Werk” appeared in a German newspaper March 27, 1928. It was written by Maxwell Hahn. The english translation can be viewed here.
Karl Eilers article “Der Mann und Sein Werk” by Maxwell Hahn, March 27, 1938.
Karl Eilers drafted this unfinished autobiography three months prior to his death in August of 1941.
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My earliest recollection of where my parents [Ed Note: Anton & Elizabeth Eilers] lived about New York were in Harlem, not far from where the Third Avenue Street Car came to an end, at the Harlem Bridge. We lived in a two-story, two-family house, with Grandmother Eilers [Elizabeth Dielmann] and her daughter Emma [Ed Note: Anton’s sister, not his daughter the painter] on the top floor and father’s small family on the first floor.
To the south and east were unoccupied lands, which at times in the summer served for circuses.
In Virginia my earliest recollection were of a trip with Else and some grown lady a short distance from the house towards Wytheville. All along, the ground was covered with tall willow trees and other vegetation in which I became lost from the other two and of course, was terrified.
Another recollection was on the trip from New York to Virginia. Stopping at the hotel in going through Washington, where leaning out of the window, running in and out of the trees, I saw a monster which frightened me terribly, evidently a switch engine. In Virginia another recollection is of the time when it became necessary to slaughter a few hogs for food and the squealing of those hogs still is strong in my memory. My sister Lu was born here and father always spoke of her as belonging to the F. F. V. [Ed Note: Possibly the First Families of Virginia]. Else was born in Grandfather Emrich’s house, 156th Street, South Melrose. I, as related above, was born near Marietta, Ohio. Annie again in New York. Now Lu in Virginia and Emma in 1870 in New York. Meta in 1875 also in New York.
On returning from some of these trips to the mines we lived first in Morrisania then in Tremont and finally in a more pretentious place in [Ed Note: just a big blank line, apparently didn’t know or remember the answer].
Else and I went to school with Minnie Emrich [Karl’s mother’s youngest half sister], south from Grandfather Emrich’s house a little way on Third Avenue and my memory is strong of a large woods, “Bathgate’s Woods”, the famlly name being retained even today in “Bathgate Avenue”. …
Hard to fix a website when a Killer Bee has you pinned down! (Texas, 2015).
In May of 2016, I re-arranged the deilers site. Now, my author site will stand as the entry point to this domain. The research storage area (an internet beacon if you will) has become a secondary site. I will rebuild this as time allows.
Anton Eilers by Rossiter W. Raymond
From the Engineering and Mining Journal, Vol 103, No. 17. Pages 762 – 764. April 28, 1917.
Frederic Anton Eilers was born in Nassau, Germany, Jan 14, 1839. He received his technical education at the University of Gottingen and the mining school of Clausthal. In 1859 he came to the United States and in 1863 became an assistant in the office of Adelberg and Raymond, New York City, consulting mining engineers and metallurgists, of which firm I was the junior partner.
The death of Mr. eilers removes the last survivor of a group of young men who began in our office and under our directions careers of considerable importance and honor — Hereman Credner, afterward professor of geology at the University of Leipzig and Director of the Royal Saxon Geological Survey; Charles A. Stetefeldt, destined to international fame as the inventor of the Stetefeldt furnace; Otto H. Hahn, a distinguished contributor to the rapid development of American metallurgy and one of its most skillful practitioners; and, last, but not least, Anton Eilers – all began their technical careers as employees of Adelberg & Raymond. I cannot say that they learned their business from us, but their expertise with us carried them to some extent over that period of acclimation which was in those days often disagreeable and sometimes disastrous to foreign experts in this country.
Of all those whom I have named, I think Eilers became the most completely Americanized. Though he retained the thoroughness, simplicity, directness and geniality which he brought with him, he acquired the ability to recognize new conditions and me and to adapt himself to them. From 1866 to 1869 he had charge of the Betty Baker copper mine and furnace in Carroll County, Virginia. This enterprise was based on the superficial “black” oxide copper ores resulting from a “secondary enrichment” along the outcrop of a formation like that of Ducktown, Tenn., and of course the supply of ore was soon exhausted.
Having become in 1868 United States Commissioner of Mining Statistics for the states and territories in and west of the Rocky Mountains, I was very glad to secure in 1869 the services of Mr. Eilers as my deputy. Of the eight volumes of my annual reports, all but the first contain results of his faithful, intelligent and intrepid labors. I say “intrepid,” because they sometimes involved personal danger, as for instance, in Arizona, the mining districts of which he visited while the Apaches were still on the warpath. In the preparation of the annual report, Eilers and I traveled separately through different parts of the great field, inspecting mines and securing trustworthy agents and correspondents. In the course of the eight years of my commissionership, we managed to reach personally all the states and territories concerned.
This method (the only one possible with an annual appropriation of never more than $15,000 to cover all salaries, traveling expenses, correspondence, clerical and editorial labor) produced in the resulting volumes a peculiar series of public documents. Each volume contained the personal impressions and observations of the commissioner and of the deputy commissioner as to certain regions, together with the reports (edited by me) of special agents in the remaining regions. Since this fact was clearly stated in each successive preface, it is easy now to find what portions of any one of the eight volumes represent the special work of Eilers, and whoever makes such an examination will gain a betteer notion of its remarkable extent and quality than I can here impart.\n\nOne pleasant exception to our habit of separate work was furnished in 1870 [ed note actually 1871] when, after completing our individual tours, we met by appointment in Virginia City, Mont., and proceeded with four other persons to explore the then newly discovered geyser basins of the Yellowstone. An account of this exploration, including our running interview with Sitting Bull and a dozen of his braves, who had chosen that time for a raid off the reservation, was published thirty-odd years ago in my little book, “Camp and Cabin.” This episode became a lifelong memory of humor and adventure to us both.
I confess that I am surprised, in my old age, to see how much we did with exuberant strength and enthusiasm when we were young. Our work was that of a special agency, not of a government bureau. Perhaps it was at the time more helpful to the young industries which it represented than an expensive systematic collection of statistics would have been. But, when I finished my volume for 1876, I frankly advised the discontinuance of Congressional appropriations for the work; and in due time it became a part of the United States Geological Survey, to the great advantage of the country and the mining industry and those engaged in it.
One thing, however, it had unquestionably done. It had made both Eilers and me exceptionally familiar with all parts of the Pacific slope, their natural resources, industries prospects and people. And so, in 1876, when I resumed my private practice, Eilers selected the Salt Lake valley as the scene of his technical activity and became part owner and general manager of the Germania Smelting and Refining Works in that valley. This was the beginning of an uninterrupted progress in professional reputation and business success, which made him one of the universally recognized and adequately rewarded “captains of industry.”
It was not difficult, indeed, for a graduate of Clausthal to improve the Salt Lake practice of that day. The valley contained many little shaft-furnaces, smelting argentiferous galena, and experiencing a “salamander” pretty regularly once a week or oftener. If I remember correctly, eight days’ run without “gobbling-up” and “digging out,” and “blowing-in” again, was considered good practice.
The Germania furnaces, running indefinitely without such interruption, were a revelation to the metallurgical pioneers of the valley. But, German-American enterprise was not satisfied with that. Soon, from Salt Lake and other American districts we began to hear of larger furnaces, better apparatus – in short, of a new practice, which made Clausthal and Freiberg and Swansea sit up and take notice. In this surprising advance Eilers was one of the leaders, daring yet prudent.
In 1879, he formed a partnership with the late Gustav Biling and built and operated for several years the Arkansas Valley smelting works in Leadville, Colorado. This concern also was highly successful.
Meanwhile, he had entered the field of technical authorship. Having joined the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1871, the first year of its existence, he united with O.H. Hahn and myself in the preparation of a paper on “The Smelting of Argentiferous Lead Ores in Nevada, Utah and Montana. “ This was followed by several metallurgical papers, and in 1875 (just before he took charge of the Germania works) by one on the “The Progress of the Silver-Lead Metallurgy of the West During 1874.” These contributions show him to have been a close observer of the progress, in which he afterward played so conspicuous a part.
But the great opportunity for which many years of manifold preparation had fitted him came in 1883 [ed note this should be 1881]. Eilers had been called in to show the owners of the Madonna Mine, at Monarch, Colorado, near the Continental Divide, how to run its little charcoal furnace on lead-carbonate ores, without salamanders. It was Salt Lake over again. But after remedying the immediate trouble, he convinced the owners that they could not succeed commercially by local smelting of a single ore, low in silver, while hauling all the supplies and shipping all products in wagons. The result not only vindicated his business judgment, but also illustrated his power to command confidence through honest frankness.
The Colorado Smelting Company was formed, the owners of the mining taking their share of stock, and Eilers and his friends receiving the rest upon the fulfillment of certain pledges, including the securing of a railroad to the mine and the erection of smelting works at Pueblo. This combination proved profitable even beyond expectation. Cheap freight rates on the downgrade via Marshall Pass to Pueblo brought the Madonna ore to the furnaces at low cost; the mine itself developed enormous bodies of nonsiliceous fluxing ore, admirably suited for smelting with high-grade siliceous ores, and was for years the largest tonnage producer in Colorado; so that the company did not have to buy barren fluxes or compete in the market for fluxing ores. As a consequence it enjoyed a secure prosperity so long as the Madonna held out.
But the joy of his life came to Eilers in the opportunity to select freely a suitable site, build model up-to-date smelting works, surround himself with chosen assistants, and train them in his own notions of technical efficiency.
Those of us who visited the works of the Colorado Smelting Company in the days of its glory will never forget that oasis of beauty and rest – the clean and airy buildings, the orderly yards, the reservoir masquerading as an embowered lake, beloved of ducks, the sociable clubhouse for young men. Travelers made haste to arrive there and were slow in leaving. The birds of a continent steered in their migrations to that haven of rest. Yet, business routine and the technical system of the place were as good as if it had been dirty and ugly. Indeed, the absence of ugliness and dirt had a direct relation to the cleanness of slags and the proper handling of by-products and waste.
Here in full freedom, a kindly dictator, Eilers trained his young men. Robert Sticht, Walter H. Aldridge, Arthur S. Dwight, H.C. Bellinger, Howard F. Wierum, Frank H. Smith, Karl E. Eilers, and others whose names stand high in metallurgy, were “Eilers’s boys” and still acknowledge gladly their filial debt to him.
About 1890 Mr. Eilers, with the same friends who had joined him the Colorado enterprise, organized the Montana Smelting Company and built large works at Great Falls Montana. These works, together with the East Helena smelting works, became part of the great consolidated Amercian Smelting and Refining Co [Ed note aka Asarco], which was formed in 1899 and which comprised most of the important establishments of Colorado also. Of this company, and of the subsequently organized American Smelter’s Securities Co., he was director and the technical member of the excecutive committee until 1910, when he retired from active business, though he still visited his New York office almost daily until within a comparatively recent period and retained many incidental positions of trust, such as vice presicent of the Last Dollar Gold Mining Co., of Cipple Creek, Colorado, and president of the Colorado Mines Exploring Co.
As already noted, he was one of the earliest members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, of which was a manager for six years (1875-7 and 1882-4 inclusive) and a vice president in 1876 and 1877, to the Transactions of which he contributed valuable papers, besides those specifically mentioned. He was also a member of the American Forestry Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Technical Society of New York, and of the following clubs: The Engineers’, German and Rocky Mountain (New York); Germania (Brooklyn); Denver (Denver, Colorado); and Alta (Salt Lake City, Utah).
Mr. Eilers was married to Elizabeth Emrich in 1863, just before he came to me as an assistant. His death makes, I believe, the first break in his large an happy family. Two daughters and a son, together their mother, survive him [editors note: One son and 5 daughters]. The son, Karl, has achieved a reputation worthy of his blood and is now a vice president of the American Smelting and Refining Co. I have known them all from cradle. Their home has been a home to me, in Salt Lake City, Leadville, Pueblo, Denver, Brooklyn and Sea Cliff. It was at Sea Cliff, Long Island, the beautiful country seat where he had indulged to the full his love of tress and flowers and hill-horizons and cordial hospitality, that Anton Eilers, after long illness, passed away on Saturday morning, Apr 21, and this is my farewll, so far as earthly companionship is oncerned, to my genial, upright, generous comrade through four and fifty years of loyal friendship and mutual trust unmarred by doubt or discord.
