The 1st photo was taken on July 9, 1907. It shows the foundation for the reverb smoke stack that will be over 300 feet high
I am always amazed at how smart and capable these men were back in those days. This had to be a giant undertaking to say the least. The civil engineers had to be accurate to a fraction of an inch. If there was the slightest error, it would compound itself into a massive error at the top of the stack. The compaction of the dirt had to be perfect or the stack would lean to one side and eventually fall over. The bricklayers had to do a perfect job. It must have been hard to lay bricks in a perfect circle and level all the time. One wonders what they stood on. Was it a scaffold of some kind? And was it inside or outside the structure? The hod carriers had their work cut out. The bricks and mortar had to be hand carried up ladders. Were there stairs or just ladders? When one ponders all these things, the end result is a miracle.
The back of the 2nd photo had the following explanation—-This reverberatory stack carried the smoke and flu dust from the reverbs by means of induced flow of air. The air flow went through a Cottrell plant inside the flue. There were several compartments and inside each one was a set of electrically charged wires that attracted the flue dust particles. From time to time these wires were vibrated by means of an air driven jackhammer. The flue dust was thus collected and fed back into the reverb furnace.
The ladder and guard hoops were located on the north side of the stack. The single wire on the south side was a lighting arrester.
How would you like to climb up that ladder? How did they get that strap to go all the way around the stack? What the heck did those guys stand on, or hang from?
Note-These photos were part of Earl Gibson’s collection.
Sadly, all that hard work and superb engineering and bricklaying ends up like this. (3rd photo) Boom!!!
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