The Briquetting Plant made briquettes of iron ore for charging the furnace to make pig iron. The ore taken from our mines at Neda was high in phosphorous which caused the ore when handled to turn to dust. When the ore was dumped into the furnaces (from the top) by the carts called skip jacks it created a tremendous cloud of dust. Everyone in those days had laundry hung outside to dry. Continuous complaints about the dust, from wives doing laundry to workers breathing in the stuff, caused the Iron Company to build the Briquetting Plant. There the ore was compressed into briquettes which cut down on the dust dramatically. Think of today’s charcoal briquettes.
There were no bricks of clay made in the plant. After the plant closed the wood building on top of the foundations was moved to the Clark farm on Bayview Road. There it stood until it was finally taken down two or three years ago.
South of the foundations in the open field of Andrew Thomas stood the Ironman baseball stands. In the 1930's the stands were moved to Fireman’s Field and there they stand proudly to this day.
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Message to this blogger from W.J. Lee 10/25/2018
