Asheville Minerals Research Laboratory, 1946

Engineering Research Building, NC State campus in Raleigh (UA 023.031)

In 1946, the Engineering Experiment Station was renamed the Engineering Research Department, and continued to serve as the research agency for engineering at NC State College.  The Engineering Research Department worked closely with the departments of Ceramic and Geological Engineering. William Gardner Van Note served as head of the department from 1946 until 1951, followed by N.W. Conner and R.F. Stoops.  Dr. Van Note, a native of New Jersey, received his Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University in 1941 and worked in industry briefly before beginning a career in academic research and instruction. His research focused on metallurgy and hardenability in plain and alloy steels, using conventional and induction heating methods.[1]

N.W. Conner and W.G. Van Note (UA 023.024)

N.W. Conner served as head of the Engineering Research Department from 1951-1967.  A native of Blacksburg, VA, and graduate of VPI and Iowa State University, Conner joined the faculty at NC State College in 1937 at the request of Chancellor J.W. Harrelson; Harrelson told Conner that in coming to NC State he would be “getting in on the ground floor of a school that would really be something.”[2]  Conner worked closely with industry in North Carolina as a technical consultant for Cone Mills, Long Leaf Mills, Aycock and Rand Co., and other North Carolina companies. He was involved in bringing Chemstrand Co., the research arm of what would later become Monsanto, as the first corporation to build in Research Triangle Park. Conner became the first NC State faculty member to be elected president of the Southeastern Section of the American Society for Engineering Education in 1963.  In 1967 he became Assistant Dean for Research at NC State and received a certificate of commendation from Governor Dan K. Moore for his contributions to the industrial development of North Carolina.[3]

Asheville Mineral Research Laboratory, founded in 1946. (UA 023.012)

The Minerals Research Laboratory, founded in Asheville, NC, in 1946, allowed NC State to meet the growing need for research and development in mineral resources in North Carolina.  Plans for the laboratory began in 1941, when the Division of Mineral Resources of the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development and the Regional Minerals Section of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) launched a cooperative investigation of minerals resources in western North Carolina that determined a need for dedicated research and processing of minerals in order to develop these resources to their full potential.[4]

Asheville Minerals Research Laboratory (UA 023.012)

Following this determination, Jasper L. Stuckey, State Geologist and head of the department of Geological Engineering at NC State, met with H.S. Rankin, Head of the Regional Minerals Section of the TVA, in 1944 to discuss establishing a laboratory in western North Carolina.  Rankin stated that if the State of North Carolina would furnish a suitable building and some salary funds, the TVA would provide laboratory equipment and additional salary funds to operate the lab.[5] Stuckey brought the discussion to NC State College Chancellor J.W. Harrelson and to state officials and finally to Governor J.M. Broughton, who “approved enthusiastically.”[6] TVA representatives determined that the ideal location would be in Asheville, NC, and secured a lot at 180 Coxe Avenue.  In 1945, Rankin and Stuckey agreed upon a contract defining the laboratory as a partnership between the Department of Geology at NC State College and the Tennessee Valley Authority.  Ross Shumaker, Architect for NC State, designed the building; construction began in October 1945 and was completed August 1946.  Philip Sales was hired as a chemist on payroll through the Division of Mineral Resources of the Department of Conservation and Development, making the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development an informal cooperator in the operation of the Minerals Research Laboratory.[7] 

Researcher in Asheville Minerals Research Laboratory (UA 023.012)

Chancellor Harrelson appointed Dr. Jasper L. Stuckey as Director of the Minerals Research Institute, as it was first named, in September 1946, and the Executive Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina authorized the appointment of an Advisory Committee for the laboratory that included representatives from NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke University, the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, and former Governor J.M. Broughton.  Later that month the laboratory received its first request for a major project from the Feldspar Milling Company, who requested “a complete Pilot Plant test on the separation of feldspar from associated minerals by froth flotation.”[8] The laboratory was formally dedicated by Director James P. Pope of the TVA in May 1947.  While the laboratory was staffed by a NC State faculty member, Dr. Stuckey, it did not come under the administration of the NC State School of Engineering until 1954.[9]

In 1950, the TVA announced that it was being required by the United States Budget office to curtail its operations and that the TVA would be discontinuing support of the Minerals Research Laboratory.  The TVA agreed to give the State of North Carolina the equipment in the laboratory “if the State would continue to operate the Laboratory for the benefit of the mineral producers in the area.”[10] Governor William B. Umstead determined that the Minerals Research Laboratory should become “a function of State College,” and following authorization by the Board of Trustees of UNC in 1954, the continued operation of the laboratory became the responsibility of the Department of Engineering in the School of Engineering at NC State College.[11]

Samples of North Carolina minerals in Minerals Research Laboratory (UA 023.012)

After the Minerals Research Laboratory came under the administration of the Department of Engineering Research, the new Director Professor N.W. Conner, in consultation with Chief Engineer Mason K. Banks and State Geologist Jasper L. Stuckey, created a new advisory committee.  They invited seven men representing the mineral industries of North Carolina to form the committee, with the purpose of providing “a closer working relationship between the work of the Minerals Research Laboratory and the needs of the mineral industry.”[12]

As the range of research projects conducted at the Minerals Research Laboratory grew, focused research sections began to develop in the laboratory in the 1950s. The Pyrochemical Section conducted research on changes in minerals at high temperatures. In 1957, research projects included explorations in creating colored brick, foam concrete, and thermal expansion of pyrophillite bodies by research assistants J.T. Tanner and W.M. Kenan.[13] Tanner identified oxides that were available in North Carolina and added them to North Carolina buff-clay to obtain various fired colors, and Kenan described the “promising results” of foam concrete as a lightweight, cellular building material purportedly featuring the same chemical properties used by the ancient Romans.[14]

The Industrial Experimental Program supported the work of the Minerals Research Laboratory through a liaison service, connecting prospective consumers and producers of minerals in North Carolina, and through a Metal-Working Facilities Directory, listing tools and facilities for minerals processing available throughout the state.[15]

In 1958, the North Carolina General Assembly helped to fund the construction and opening of a second building adjacent to the original Minerals Research Laboratory, with funds for equipment provided by the North Carolina Mining Association.[16]

Pilot plant processing of spodumene ore at Mineral Research Laboratory (UA 023.007)

The Minerals Research Laboratory responded to changing conditions in mining and mineral industries in North Carolina with new research projects over the years, spurred on at different times by advisory committee members such as Bruce Silvis and Charles E. Hunter.[17] By 1959, the Advisory Committee reported that more than $12 million was invested in plants using processes developed at the laboratory, with concentrates made by those plants valued at $16 million.[18] In 1960 the goals of the laboratory grew to include investigations into waste disposal problems at mineral processing plants and research into the potential economic utilization of these waste materials. The Advisory Committee determined that the problem of disposal of mineral wastes or tailings was “becoming more critical as public concern with stream pollution mounts, as regulations are tightened, as production costs increase, and as disposal areas are exhausted.”[19] One proposed research project would explore the possible development of quartz products from discarded materials. The laboratory’s priorities shifted to reflect growing concern over the environmental impact of minerals processing in North Carolina, while remaining aligned with its original mission to meet the growing demands of the mineral industry.  A report echoed that the problem of waste disposal entering the 1960s was “staggering,” and stated that “the real need for conservation of the State’s mineral resources, rivers and streams are increasingly important ones and are recognized by the entire mining industry of North Carolina.”[20]

By 1970, an estimated $100 million had been invested in North Carolina mineral producing plants using processes developed at the Asheville laboratory.  At that time the laboratory was administered through the office of Henry B. Smith, who was then serving as Associate Dean of Engineering for Research and Graduate Programs, and through the Engineering Research Department headed by R.F. Stoops.[21] The laboratory established a record for developing processes to convert unmarketable ores into valuable products, in particular in the area of mineral beneficiation, “the separation of minerals to produce marketable products” through froth flotation and other processes.[22] Another significant contribution made by the laboratory was in the evaluation of North Carolina’s feldspar deposits and the development of processes that “resulted in making North Carolina the country’s largest producer of feldspar, a mineral important to the ceramic industry.”[23]

The Minerals Research Laboratory expanded its facilities in Asheville to 26,000 square feet by 1985, with a staff of 15 people and an Advisory Committee consisting of twelve representatives of the North Carolina minerals industry. The Laboratory conducted state-support projects for the development of North Carolina resources as well as projects for individual industry partners on a contractual basis.[24] A 1985 report stated that the Laboratory worked to develop new and improved processed for extracting minerals from ore deposits, and conducted research studies for the development of mineral resources in North Carolina and beyond.  Industrial mineral concentrate samples were shipped from Asheville for evaluation to prospective customers around the United States and as far as Japan and Europe.[25]

Next section: Department of Mineral Industries, 1954