Texas Almanac, 1943-1944 Page: 184
[338] p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this book.
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TEXAS ALMANAC.-1943-1944.
-Courtesy Texas Parade, Austin.
The largest tin smelter in the world, constructed in Texas for utilization of Bolivian ores,
It is the only tin smelter of appreciable size in the Western Hemisphere.facturing company was erected in 1942 at
Port Arthur.
World's Largest Tin Smelter.
A Texas industrial development of
world wide interest during 1941 and 1942
was the construction of the world's larg-
est tin smelter at Texas City. Built with
a government loan, it is operated by the
American subsidiary of a Dutch tin com-
pany. It will utilize Bolivian ores pri-
marily. Although the United States has
long been the world's largest consumer
of tin, it had no smelter, getting its sup-
ply largely from the industry at Penang
and Singapore until these places fell into
the hands of the Japanese. The Texas
smelter will produce about 52,000 tons
annually. Other smelting industries in
Texas are the zinc smelters at Dumas
and Amarillo utilizing ores from Mis-
souri, Oklahoma and the Rocky Moun-
tain states, a copper smelter and refinery
at El Paso, getting its raw materials
from Arizona, and an antimony smelter
at Laredo, shipping its ore from Mexico.
Much of the smelting industry of Texas
has originated from the availability of
abundant natural gas. Notably is this
true of the Panhandle zinc smelters and
the tin smelter at Texas City where
availability of hydrochloric acid and goodtransportation connections were also fac-
tors.
A large new glass industry was built
at Waco during 1942, utilizing Texas nat-
ural gas and silica. Older glass industries
are located at Three Rivers and Wichita
Falls.
Smelting With Cold.
Much of the Texas manufacturing in-
dustry is the processing of minerals, as
in the cracking of petroleum, evaporation
and distillation of mercury, recovery of
silver by the cyanide process, crushing
and separation by flotation of fuller's
earth, and the smelting of iron, tin, cop-
per, zinc and other metals. One such
Texas industry is the reverse of smelting.
In this instance the "ore" is natural gas
and the desired mineral is helium, non-
inflammable gas used in lighter-than-air
aviation craft. (See page 176.) Separa-
tion is by reducing the natural gas to
liquefying temperature, thereby releas-
ing the helium which liquefies at a still
lower temperature. The only appreciable
production in the world is at the Federal
Government plant at Amarillo which was
greatly increased in capacity during 1942.
Shipbuilding-Airplane Construction.
Two other new industries, springing up
during 1941 and 1942, added tremendous-184
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Texas Almanac, 1943-1944, book, 1943; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117165/m1/186/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.