Smelter work hard, but employees were treated well

              Smelter work hard, but employees were treated well
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Charles Richards went directly to
the big boss, Prentiss Selby, to get a
, job at the Selby smelter on the
shores of San Pablo Bay in November 1885.
Selby introduced Richards to the
plant foreman. Forty years later in
the company newspaper, "The Cupel," Richards recalled:
"The smelter had been running
only a very short time, a matter of a
few months in fact. I struck a job
through the intercession of Mr.
Selby who introduced me to a Mr.
Williams who was foreman of the
whole job at that time.
"The reason I mention Mr. Selby
speaking to the foreman for me is
because it was a hard job to get
work in the smelter. Whenever a
man got work here he stayed and it
was very hard to get employment
along the waterfront as there were
no other industries. If you lost your
job, you were out of luck."
Thomas Selby, Prentiss' father,
got in the smelting business through
his hardware business in San Francisco. In 1850, with the demands of
the Gold Rush overwhelming all
supplies, Selby decided to get into
the manufacturing business. It
didn't make much difference whether a man made his living by mining
or farming. In this rough country he
always needed ammunition, and
that meant lead shot.
Selby ordered refined lead ore
from Spain and England, but more
often than not the supply failed to
arrive. Importing heavy ore was also
expensive, so in 1868 Selby went
into the business of refining lead
ore that was mined in California
and Nevada. By 1875 he had
two smelting furnaces and a lead refinery on. the San Francisco side of
the Bay.
But by 1883 he had outgrown the
site and went searching for another
deep-water site. He chose a point on
San Pablo Bay between Crockett
and Hercules.
Contra Costa County Historical Society
IN 1892 the top management of the Selby smelter posed for a photograph. Alfred Von Der Rapp,
seated in the center of the first row, was the manager of the plant.
The first set of furnaces at the
Selby site went into operation in the
summer of 1885. There were four of
them and together they could handle 74 tons of ore every 24 hours.
$2 a day was good money
Richards wrote:
"Everyone seemed to like Selby.
They were paying two dollars a day,
which was pretty big money for
those days. Board was four dollars a
week, and the company had quite a
number of cabins to sleep in which
rented for 50 cents a month."
The company had built some 50
redwood houses, which survived until the plant was shut down in 1971.
There was a company mess hall,
but not all the Selby workers ate
there.
"A good many of the men
boarded themselves. They had plenty of time, especially the men working shift work. They only worked 11
hours on the day shift and 13 hours
on the night shift, so you see why
they had ample time to cook."
Some of the workers took advantage of the numerous bubbling cauldrons to fix their meals. Richards
often saw them when he walked
through the grounds in the evening
on his way to Vallejo Junction,
where the closest saloons were located.
"On a small slag pot you would
see a fellow broiling a steak or frying some ham. A little further on,
chances are you would see a fellow
doing his washing so the clothes
could dry in front of the roasting
furnaces located in the center of the
works by the sinter machine screen.
"Maybe a little further on by the
refinery which was located on the
extreme east of the works, another
fellow would be cooking a stew."
Time out for beer
Management didn't seem to
mind if the crew took time to down
a few beers, according to Richards.
"A friend would say, 'Where are
DAYS GONE BY
By Nilda Rego
correspondent
you going, Charlie?' I would say To
Vallejo Junction.' 'Just the fellow
I was looking for. Will you bring me
back a bucket of beer?' And he
would hand me a powder bucket
and two bits. Or if the gang did not
locate anyone going up, one of the
boys would go himself and would
never be missed off the job for there
was only one watchman, old man
Bailey.
"Often he would rush the bucket
himself and occasionally forget to
come back, especially on pay nights
when things were rolling high at
Vallejo Junction."
When Richards first went to
work, the company hadn't yet acquired a steam whistle to signal the
beginning of the next shift.
"One thing that strikes me funny
whenever I think of it was Arthur
Beam standing in the alley down
where the High Grade now is. It
was his job to start everybody
to work.
"So instead of a whistle which
they did not have, Arthur would
look at his watch and at the right
time would strike a triangle and
ring it for a short time. At noon he
did the same and so on for the day.
I wonder how many could hear the
triangle now, the way the plant
has grown."
And the plant did grow. In 1886 a
cartridge factory was added. On
Feb. 24, 1894, some nine years after
the Selby furnaces went into operation, the Contra Costa Gazette reported:
"The larger part of the gold and
silver produced on the Pacific
Coast, from Alaska to Mexico, is
parted and refined at these works.
In addition they smelt gold, silver
and lead ores and concentrates and
are in constant receipt of such products from all points on the coast."
'A pretty tough gang'
The men who worked at the
smelter had to be tough to survive.
Temperatures around the liquating
kettles were upwards of 190 degrees. According to Manual Silva,
writing for the company newspaper
in 1929, "... most of the men working there were big devils who could
pick up a bar of lead with one
hand and throw it into a kettle as
though it were a baseball."
Richards recalled the group of
men he worked with as a "pretty
tough gang."
"There was New Orleans Jack,
Wild Bill and Sailor Jack. Each one
had his own friends, and look out
when they got started, for there was
sure to be a rough-and-tumble. Often when going to the boarding
house for meals a circle would be
made and a couple would have a
good scrap, but when it was all over
with they would shake hands and
be friendly again."
Richards spent 40 years at the
Selby plant. He always considered
his job to be one of the best.
"I never knew a day when a man
could not work if he wanted. We
have never been shut down on account of strikes or industrial trouble
of any kind. ... The weather conditions are admirable, the location
ideal, the facilities for going to the
city can't be beat, so what more
does it need to make a fine place to
work?"
NEXT WEEK: Read about the
biggest gold robbery in California.
Nilda Rego's Days Gone By appears
Sunday in TimeOut.