ASARCO clean up

The Globe plant began in 1886 as the Holden Smelter and was renamed the Globe in 1889 by Dennis Sheedy who took over the failing concern. Workers endured twelve-hour shifts six days a week, exposure to heat and toxic chemicals. But displaced farmers from Eastern Europe found meager wages and dangerous conditions preferable to starvation and conscription in the old country and lined up for available jobs. Houses were built nearby and the fledgling neighborhood was named Globeville. 
In 1899 the Globe joined the American Smelting and Refining Company, (ASARCO), a multi-national trust of smelters, mines and railroads. As valuable ores were depleted, smelting became more expensive and inefficient plants were closed - the company discontinued smelting at the Globe Smelter in 1919 and began recovering valuable metals in ore shipped from other ASARCO plants. 
During World War II, the Globe plant became the nation's largest supplier of cadmium, a corrosion-resistant metal used in paint, ball bearings and as a coating for aircraft, employing over 200 workers, many of whom lived in the neighborhood. It is that legacy of heavy metals and toxic processing that affects the neighborhood today. 
A series of lawsuits by neighbors led to settlements in 1993 and 1997. ASARCO replaced soil and vegetation around homes and businesses in Globeville and improved environmental conditions in the plant itself. But the transnational company that once seemed all powerful struggled financially and ASARCO filed for bankruptcy in 2005. In 2009, the ASARCO Multi State Environmental Custodial Trust was created and title to the ASARCO Globe Smelter property was transferred to the Trust. Globeville I, LLC is the contractor selected by the Custodial Trust to manage the completion of the remediation and ultimate sale of the ASARCO Globe Smelter property. On November 7th, 2012 a meeting was held at the Globeville Civic Association to present an update on the remediation efforts.
Community Outreach Coordinator Morgan Landers gave a brief history of the problems and the remediation efforts to date. Project Manager Chris Miller described the demolition of the plant, the grinding of brick and concrete, and the disposal of asbestos. Mary Hashem gave an account of the remediation of ground water and Joseph Harrington demonstrated the use of natural materials to strip heavy metals from the ground water. A question and answer period revealed neighbors' concerns about the effectiveness of the remediation and the kinds of development that might take place. The community expressed its hope that green industries, small business or hi-tech companies could be drawn to the area, and that jobs in the neighborhood might be available. Links were given to sources of information about the remediation process, submission of bids, training for jobs, health and environmental reports and community information. 

Morgan Landers listens as Chris Miller describes the work that has been done so far.

Joe Harrington demonstrates how natural materials strip heavy metals from groundwater

Project managers Globeville I, LLC
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Remediation Contractors, Alexco Resource U.S. Corp

Once a Major Employer...

ASARCO's Globe Plant, once a major employer in the Globeville and surrounding neighborhoods, is now vacant. According to Globeville I, LLC, remediation of the environmentally contaminated site is on schedule, with the demolition of the external buildings completed in March 2012. Once cleaned up, the site will be home to a new "Globeville Commerce Center" with a potential 1.1 million square feet of commercial space. Although restoration of the area has been a goal of the community for a long time, it is hoped that the stories of the men who worked there will not be lost. 

51st and Logan, October 2011

51st and Logan, January 2012

51st and Logan, May 2012

55th and Washington, July 2016

Ghost of ASARCO

Each day, thousands of commuters pass ASARCO's Globe Smelter site with hardly a second glance at the Globeville landmark. Built in 1886, the plant operated first as a smelter that separated valuable metals from raw ore, then as a producer of specialty metals. The company closed in 2006, and plans for remediation and development of 77-acre complex are now moving forward. The many buildings and structures now being dismantled provide a glimpse of a 120-year-old company with an interior life of its own.
High, wire-topped fences surround the site and it's difficult to see all the buildings, but Steve Stevens, Safety and Personnel Manager from 1967 to 1988 recalls many of them."The tall building housed the Godfrey Roaster that roasted low-grade products from Amarillo and from Leadville, and East Helena, Montana. And there was the unloading building, the bag house, the calcine building, the tank house, and the solution department. They also had the retort department where they purified the metal, and the cadmium sulphide department where they made the paint pigment for cadmium yellow. There was the thallium department, the indium department, the litharge department, the casting department, the premelt room, the change house, the respirator room, the laundry room and the locker room.
"The two-story home near the 51st Street entrance to the plant was the superintendent's house from the old days when he lived on the property. The house contained an old safe with 'Globe Smelting and Refining' written on it. There are also ledgers with the names of employees - Slovenians, Croatians, Poles, Germans, Russians and some Hispanics - from a time when there were three shifts running seven days a week. 
"In the old days, we used to have a garden right on the property and we grew vegetables. And we had a baseball team and played for the championship in 1948 at Overland Park, beating Central Bank one to nothing."
Long gone is the housing provided by the company: the 125-room Globe Hotel for single men and the 10 or 12 houses along Sheedy Row, with accommodations for families. And there was the Globe Mercantile where men could cash their paychecks and purchase everything from food to bicycles.
"A lot of guys were very grateful for jobs at the Globe because they were able to raise a family and buy a house." 
It is hoped that the clean up of the site will also offer jobs and the opportunity for families to settle in Globeville. 

Top photo, Godfrey Roaster building

Second photo, cell house 1926

Third photo, warehouses A, B, and C in October 2010

Bottom photo, warehouses A, B, and C in January 2012

Heritage of Smelting

"Joint project expected to provide hundreds of jobs upon completion," the headline in the Metro Denver Economic Development newsletter gushes. The story describes plans to redevelop the former ASARCO site at 51st and Logan, all that remains of the important and powerful industry that once defined Globeville.
The story begins with the discovery of gold and silver in Colorado in 1858 and the "Rush to the Rockies" that followed, bringing hordes of fortune seekers to the territory. A crisis developed as business leaders realized that the mineral wealth was untouchable unless the metals could be separated from the complex ores that held them - settlers were leaving and eastern investors were withdrawing funds. What followed was a quest to find an economical, efficient and reliable method for recovering minerals - the region's survival was at stake. Entrepreneurs, businessmen, scientists and charlatans proposed remedies, but it was a professor of chemistry from Brown University, Nathaniel P. Hill, who found the solution and opened the Boston and Colorado Smelter near Black Hawk in 1867.
The smelter was wildly successful and soon outgrew its canyon location, moving in 1878 to a hill north of Denver and close to the Colorado Central and Denver Pacific Railroads. The new plant covered six acres between what is now West 44th and 47th Avenues, and Fox to Pecos Street. 350 men, mostly English, Welsh, Irish, Scotts and Swedes worked at the Smelter. The Boston and Colorado organized a classic company town, with three hotels for single men, houses for families and several company stores. The village was named Argo, after the mythical ship sailed by Jason in search of the golden fleece, and people soon referred to the smelter by the same name. 
The firm's success lead to the construction of more smelting operations in the area, the Omaha and Grant in 1882 and the Globe in 1886. Changes in technology, and the depletion of the state's mineral-rich ores made the Boston and Colorado Smelter obsolete by 1902. A fire in the smelter's refinery in 1906 spelled the end of the smelter and the town of Argo, but the legacy of mining and refining lives on in the neighborhood in the remains of ASARCO's Globe plant. Again, there is a promise of jobs in processing and reprocessing the earth's minerals.


The "mousetrap" occupies the smelter's location today
Photo of the Boston and Colorado Smelter, Colorado Historical Association