Naturita Processing Plant, buildings

Abstract

Slide showing two small buildings with a bulldozer parked in front of them. These buildings appear to have been located on the upper level of the Naturita Processing Plant (the same buildings are shown on slide NMHFM-334), and this may have been where the carnotite ore was brought into the plant for processing. The Naturita Processing Plant was located three miles north of the town of Naturita and was built around 1930 by the Rare Metals Company. In 1939, the Vanadium Corporation of America purchased the plant and renovated it. Between 1942 and 1960, uranium was extracted at the plant from carnotite ore by salt roasting crushed ore and then leaching and precipitating the uranium concentrate (yellow cake) and vanadium concentrate (red cake). The carnotite ore processed at the plant probably came from the Vanadium Corporation of America's mines in the region. During the 1950s, the Vanadium Corporation of America also trucked several hundred tons of autunite ore to the Naturita ...