Papers - Milling Practice – Iron, Tungsten and Base Metals - Milling Practice in the Tri-State Zinc-lead Mining District of Oklahoma-Kansas and Missouri

The Tri-State zinc-lead mining district embraces an extensive area, including the northeastern part of Ottawa County, Oklahoma, the southeastern part of Cherokee County, Kansas, and adjacent portions of Missouri, mainly in Jasper County. The Oklahoma-Kansas portion of the district, in the vicinity of Picher, Okla., has been the principal producing area since 1917, and the present milling practice in that section is the subject of this paper. This district is the largest zinc-producing field in the United States. In 1926 it produced 55 per cent of the nation's zinc and 15 per cent of its lead, and in 1933 it produced 35 per cent of the zinc and 10 per cent of the lead. From 1842 to 1933, inclusive, the total output of the district was 18 1/2 million tons of zinc and lead concentrates valued at 818 million dollars. Of this production, the Oklahoma-Kansas, or Picher, field yielded over 9 million tons valued at over 400 million dollars. Mining operations in the Oklahoma-Kansas field near Picher and Baxter Springs began in 1915. The mills built it that time consisted merely of gravity concentration plants employing jigs and tables and the same flow sheets as had proved satisfactory with the free-milling ores such as were mined in the Joplin-Webb City fields in Missouri. The Kansas-Oklahoma ores proved to be much richer but also more refractory to treatment than those in the Joplin area, and contained a considerable percentage of zinc mineral not freed by the amount of crushing usually practiced in preparing the ores for jigging. Thus the old Joplin type of mill, with its usual two or four jigs and a few tables, proved inadequate and resulted in excessive tailings losses sometimes as high as 50 per cent