Page 65 - 2005 DT 12 Issues

I n T h i s I s s u e !

Featured Article

How do you explain Henderson?..........1

Departments
News & Notes.......................................2

Programs & Hikes.................................4
September 2005 Desk Schedule.....................................6
Bulletin Board.......................................8

How do you explain Henderson? man, but he had something more: The
chairman of the RFC was Charles B.
Part 1 on how Henderson, NV came to be. Henderson, a Roosevelt bureaucrat
now, but before, the governor of Ne-
by Jack Ryan Nev., the largest lode of the element in vada and a long-time advocate of a
the world. But he had tuned into Wash- second industry for the Silver State.
t shouldn’t be. Henderson shouldn’t ington rumors that Britain, Germany, Nevada was tied to a single industry:
be Nevada’s second largest city Japan and Russia had secret projects mining. It was volatile, whipping the
Iand the fastest growing commu- studying the material. Magnesium, state between boom and bust. Eells
nity in the nation. At most, it should be because of lightness and strength, promised he would build the “Pitts-
another Nevada ghost town or at best, a was invaluable in the manufacture of burgh of the light metal industry,” and
Western version of Eastern rustbelt de- aircraft. And its flammability could Henderson began signing the checks.

cay. Take its name. It should be named set afire all the capitals from Tokyo Now Eells had the magnesium,

Magnesium. Or the City of Lake Adair. to Berlin. the Nevada site
But Henderson? It’s named for a New Eells talked big. He and the millions.
Deal Wheeler-dealer who never set would build a huge manufac- He lacked only
foot in the town! turing plant 350 miles south the know-how of
By rights, it should be named for of his mines on a vast empti- producing mag-
Howard P. Eells who started the un- ness near Boulder Dam. Eells nesium. Britain,
likely story. He was the president of reasoned that the under-uti- however, had
Basic Refractories in Cleveland which lized dam could provide all a long history
made heat-resistant bricks. He was also the water and power needed of magnesium
the kind of can-do entrepreneur who to extract magnesium from manufacturing.
made the United States the industrial the raw ore, brucite. Also, By 1941 English
colossus it is—and, not incidentally, nearby was Las Vegas, a industries were
himself a multi-millionaire. small railroad hub but with being bombed
In 1939, Europe marched into connections to all parts of Howard P. Eells nightly by the
Courtesy Maryellen Sadovich
World War II and the United States the country where the mag- Luftwaffe, and
began mustering its industrial might nesium ingots could be transformed Manchester, the center for Mg pro-
in anticipation of entering the fray. into war materiel. duction, was a particular target. It was
Eells joined other American factory The RFC was sold. It authorized so vulnerable that Downing Street
owners huckstering for a piece of their Eells $70 million to start the project considered moving its facilities to the
nation’s elephantine defense budget. with two qualifications: Build it faster safety of Ottawa, Canada. The U.S.,

He offered the Reconstruction Finance and 10 times the size he had projected. still a non-combatant, intervened.
Corp. a vague plan backed by a solid “I can do it,” Eells boasted, and he Look, said Uncle Sam, we got a
asset—70 million tons of magnesium did—for another $70 million. can-do guy building a giant magne-
(Mg) in mining claims near Gabbs, No doubt Eells was a great sales-
Henderson?, continued on page 6