McIntyre Mine (National Lead Company mine), Newcomb (formerly Tahawus), Adirondack State Park, Essex Co., New York, USA
CalciteMcIntyre Mine, Newcomb, Adirondack State Park, Essex Co., New York, USA
Photo: Neuzil, M. Latitude: 44°3'14"N
Longitude: 74°3'29"W
Ref.: www.openlens.us (Article By William Gill).
War Shortages made the McIntyre site viable for modern development. Iron would be considered a by-product of ilmenite extraction. It may be hard to imagine a workforce of 400 working at a remote local in the 1840's, When the area first began it's mining history as an iron mining and smelting center; however, when National Lead (NL) and the federal Defense Plant Corporation teamed up in 1940, they sent in an army by comparison. The Defense Plant Corporation arranged for New York State legislation protecting the Adirondack Park to be set aside during the war emergency. Interestingly enough, NL faced the same challenges as the site's original developers: transportation into the remote area. The federal government promised a solution and NL sent 1500 workers into the wilderness to build a 30 mile highway, a village for the workers, and the entire ore refining plant in one year.
In 1944, the Defense Plant Corporation completed the 29 mile rail connection to the Delaware & Hudson in North Creek. The line was blasted into the headwaters of the Hudson with hundreds of workers and $2.5 millon. Having finished the rail line, The Defense Plant Corporation went on to build a sinter plant a hundred yards from the NL Plant. The transportation problem being solved, McIntyre development grew rapidly. Payroll doubled to 450 in the two decades after WWII.
The original pit reached a depth of 300 feet and was no longer economically workable. In 1963, the entire town was moved 15 miles south, to make way for a new pit directly aside the Tahawus plant. In the 1970's a recession reduced the need for domestic titanium dioxide. In 1982, McIntyre Development stopped sending ilmenite southward. The Delaware & Hudson fell into bankruptcy in 1983 and, with only two customers on the branch, stopped serving the remote location. NL bought a locomotive and just as its workers learned to be miners 30 years earlier, they now learned to be trainmen. NL continued to run trains of iron ore to North Creek, where they were picked up by the D&H until McIntyre Development closed in 1989.
Today, plenty of ore still sits in the now filled in open pit mines. The vital rail connection to the site was purchased by NL to protect the property value, should ore ever be extracted in the future. The improved McIntyre furnace still sits in view from NL�s Tahawus Plant. At times it is hard to tell where natural mountains end and where the huge piles of over burden and slag start as vegetation slowly reclaims the area. Everything around the plant itself is covered in the finely ground black ore, and it will be some time before anything grows there. The most striking part of the entire site is how well it is preserved; miles from anywhere, it sees little vandalism (NL still keeps staff in the area).
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