Oct 06, 2018 — GREENWOOD, BC (BG)

Today we offer the final segment of this Greenwood Persons of Note series on Paul Johnson, with his family's arrival in Greenwood in late August, 1900. His holiday abroad had lasted several months, and during that time workers had completed the family's new home, near the smelter site. But in his absence, work had not slowed on the smelter._[1]

"When Paul Johnson, the superintendent of the British Columbia Copper Company's Smelting Works, left for Europe in May the impression became general that little would be done in connection with the erection of a smelter until his return. People appreciating Mr. Johnson's energy and enterprise and infectious enthusiasm, naturally came to the conclusion that a smelter without Paul Johnson was like "Hamlet" with "Hamlet" left out. A visit to the smelter would readily convince one that in Mr. Johnson's absence there has been an expert guiding the work. When Mr. Johnson went away he left one possessing, not his avordupois, but a large amount of his energy and ability. That man is Rudolf Liden, Mr. Johnson's assistant, and during his absence superintendent of construction.

Few people in Greenwood realize that the construction of the smelter has been so far advanced that three weeks after the machinery arrives everything will be in readiness to treat ore, and Mr. Liden expects all machinery here not later than August 1st."

On August 29th the Times announced the boss's return:_[2]

"[Paul Johnson] returned by last Monday's train after an absence of three and a half months in Europe. Mr. Johnson was accompanied by Mrs. Johnson and two children. They went to housekeeping in the handsome residence erected for the manager near the smelter…

"I had a most delightful trip" he said "and am now ready to take active charge of the smelter. My principals in New York cabled me to Europe to hasten here to complete the smelter as they had been receiving the most encouraging reports from the Mother Lode and were anxious to be in a position to treat the ore… When will the smelter be ready? Well, the buildings are all completed, and some of the machinery is here but owing to labor troubles E. P. Allis & Co., of Milwaukee have been delayed and it will be the 15th of October before the last of the machinery leaves Milwaukee. I intend to get the sampling mill running as soon as possible and get a good supply of ore in the bunkers. The smelter will be blown in sometime in November."

In the first week of October, with the initial promise of a smelter completion date gone by, a Times correspondent challenged the 'Smelter Messiah' on the expansive blue-sky comments he had made at the previous year's banquet in his honour. This time, the newsman was intent on saving face for his own publication, with a lengthy article entitled "Gems From Paul Johnson":_[3]

"It is some fourteen months since Mr. Paul Johnson, M. E., delivered a famous speech at a banquet tendered him by the citizens of Greenwood. He stated that the biggest mines on the continent were around Greenwood, that here was a place that would beat Butte, that the ores were self-fluxing, that this advantage together with the enormous ore bodies made Boundary the greatest mining district in the world. There were many who scoffed at Mr. Johnson's statements and a few wiseacres maintained that he was "talking through his hat."

The Times believing that a gentleman of Mr. Johnson's standing as a mining and smelting man knew what he was talking about and week after week published "Gems from Paul Johnson." For this it was charged with unduly booming the district. Time has demonstrated that Mr. Johnson took an intelligent and farseeing view of the possibilities of the district, He dropped into the office this week and a Times representative turning up the files of the paper asked him to read a report of his speech. Mr. Johnson did so.

"Were you talking through your hat, Mr. Johnson?"

The genial superintendent laughed heartily. "Let us see," said he, "that was in August last year. There has been some big changes since then. All the development goes to prove that my statements were well within the mark."

Johnson replied to the question in thorough detail, giving evidence in support of his earlier claims that Greenwood and the Boundary have some of the biggest mines on the continent, and that the ores are indeed self-fluxing.

With the Allis company not shipping machinery until October 15th there was another new completion date of December 1st, but in fact, that schedule slipped too and the blow-in didn't take place until the end of February.(See last section)

During 1901 and 1902_[4], Paul Johnson attended to a great variety of jobs associated with the smelter. In the Spring of 1901 he was also active as a director for The Rock Creek Consolidated Placer Mining company, and finding some time for play, he became president of the Greenwood Tennis Club. In August 1901, he and James Breen formed a smelter trust, presumably to take advantage of business opportunities related to the smelter that were outside the realm of B.C. Copper Co.'s business.

Smelter furnace at the BC Copper Co. smelter at Greenwood
[ Photo: BC Archives, Item# I-55687 ]

During 1902, Paul Johnson's attention seems to have been dominated by issues of commodity supply. There was a shortage of coke, and he was out on the road looking for new sources._[5] The shortage was the result of labour difficulties at the coke mine in Fernie. Hearing news of the strike, Johnson decisively shut down operations at the smelter, which unfortunately resulted in the loss of some of his own trained-up workforce. But until the strike was over, Johnson believed it was cheaper to shut down than to run short of the 100 tons of coke the Greenwood operation needed each day. Johnson urged the industry to get more competitive in coal mining, and said it was "deplorable that the whole mining industry should be at the mercy of one coal monopoly."

By the end of August coke supplies had loosened up, and the smelter brought one furnace back online._[6] Johnson had also identified good prospective coal sources in the Nicola and Similkameen region.

September brought new issues of water shortages from the North Fork,_[7] but the inventive Paul Johnson devised a means to reduce water requirements for processing the slag by about one-third. He also carried on his strenuous advocacy of Greenwood's value as a world-class mining operation. In a September 1902 issue of the Times,_[8] he gave a lengthy analysis of that value, in defense of Greenwood and in response to a challenger from Tennessee's smelting industry.

March 1903 saw the end of what had been a four-year stretch in which Paul Johnson's work at the Greenwood smelter was a point of central focus for the city. Having fulfilled his overall mission, despite several unexpected obstacles, Johnson announced he would be retiring from his position. The smelter had succeeded in achieving a higher rate of ore production per man, at a lower cost, than perhaps any other smelter in the world. Superintendent Johnson would leave behind a crew of men who held him in high esteem, and a company poised to profit long into the future… if only that future would cooperate.

In March, Paul Johnson was given a surprise reception, and a gold watch was presented in honour of his dedicated service to the B.C. Copper Company. Among the men present were several who had been working with him for years not just in Greenwood, but in Nelson, Utah, Kansas, California, and Mexico. Johnson announced that he had been offered a new position building a smelter on the southeast coast of Alaska, and his crew was welcome to follow him there.

He also invited them to join him for dinner at the Armstrong Hotel that weekend, which some 50 guests did. The evening was warm with goodwill, and toasts were made to His Majesty King Edward, the President of the United States, and to the King of Sweden and Norway (which drew rousing response). The Times offered a good summation not only of the banquet, but of the man himself:_[9]

"During the evening several references were made to good work done by Mr. Johnson here. Not only were his services of great value to the city and district but the province generally. Smelters were built before his arrival in the province but they were apparently built to boom townsites and sell shares. Mr. Johnson was the first man to make a slag dump, in running a copper furnace and to manufacture copper matte and he was the first man to make a success of the treatment of the low grade ores of the pro blister. He was also the first to make blister copper in this province and when manager of the Hall's Mines smelter at Nelson, the shipment of a train lead of blister copper shipped by the C.P.R. through Canada created a sensation in the east and did much to advertise the mineral resources of this province.

It was an easy thing to build a smelter but credit must be given Mr. Johnson for having been the first to demonstrate that smelters could be made successful business ventures in this province. British Columbia was known as a mining country for several years but it was not until Mr. Johnson took hold that any success was made in treating the low grade ores of the province."

On May 22nd, Paul Johnson and his family left Greenwood, headed for his next project — a new plant to be erected on Prince of Wales island for the Brown Alaska company. The Times continued to cover not only his travels, but details of the new plant specifications and production targets in Alaska. Rudolf Liden was also in Alaska, serving Johnson in the same support role he had in Greenwood. Mrs. Johnson spent the summer in Nelson, no doubt while the new household was being put to order in Alaska.

Over the course of the next few years, Paul Johnson was mentioned in the Greenwood press on a number of occasions._[10] A Times report from July 1903 announced:_[11]

"Since going to Hadley City, Alaska, Paul Johnson has secured a handle to his name. In the Ketchikan (Alaska) Mining Journal he is mentioned several times as Dr. Paul Johnson, a man of wide experience in the building and operation of smelting works. If he had gone to Kentucky he might have been a general or a colonel."

Johnson returned to Greenwood for a visit in January 1904. In the years thereafter, Greenwood heard reports that he had spent the summer of 1907 in Europe, generating capital for new mining projects, and in 1909 he was inspecting mining property in Nevada.

The last report of the decade mentioning Paul Johnson came in March 1910,_[12] with the announcement of the death of his close associate, Rudolph Liden, at Ronquillo, Sonoro, Mexico.

Paul Johnson's work was central to the history of Greenwood, but his personal qualities, professional credentials and great knowledge of smelting left a far wider mark on the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Greenwood Weekly Times — Jul 13, 1900, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0172803

[2] Greenwood Weekly Times — Aug 29, 1900, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0172804

[3] Greenwood Weekly Times — Oct 03, 1900, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0172799

[4] Greenwood Weekly Times — Apr 04, 1901, p. 1; Aug 30, 1901, p. 4; Boundary Creek Times — Mar 14, 1902, p. 4

[5] Boundary Creek Times — Aug 15, 1902, p. 6
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0171042

[6] Boundary Creek Times — Aug 29, 1902, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0171021

[7] Boundary Creek Times — Sep 19, 1902, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0170831

[8] Boundary Creek Times — Sep 12, 1902, p. 6
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0170831

[9] Boundary Creek Times — Mar 06, 1903, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0171077

[10] Boundary Creek Times — Mar 20, 1903, p. 4; May 01, 1903, p. 1; May 22, 1903, p. 1; Jul 17, 1903, p. 1; Oct 30, 1903, p. 4; May 27, 1904, p. 1; Sep 16, 1904, p. 5; Jun 14, 1907, p. 3; Jul 30, 1909, p. 1

[11] Boundary Creek Times — Jul 31, 1903, p. 2
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0171077

[12] Boundary Creek Times — Mar 25, 1910, p. 1
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0171255