Background
Frederic Anton Eilers was born at Laufenselden, Nassau, Germany, the son of E. J. A. Frederic and Elizabeth Eilers.
His father was chief forester of Nassau.
Frederic Anton Eilers was born at Laufenselden, Nassau, Germany, the son of E. J. A. Frederic and Elizabeth Eilers.
His father was chief forester of Nassau.
Following the gymnasium, Eilers attended the mining school at Clausthal and the University of Gottingen.
He came to America in 1859, his first engagement being with Adelberg & Raymond, a firm of mining engineers.
From 1866 to 1869 he operated a copper smelter in Carroll County, Virginia.
In 1869 he was appointed a federal deputy commissioner of mining statistics, which position he occupied for seven years, making extensive journeys of investigation throughout the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Slope region in collaboration with the commissioner, Rossiter W. Raymond.
In those days of inadequate transportation facilities and unsettled condition of the country, such journeys demanded the greatest resourcefulness and involved no little personal danger.
At the conclusion of this engagement, Eilers chose the Salt Lake Valley, Utah, as his field of activity, and acquired a part ownership in the Germania Smelter.
The present-day practise, however, with so largely pretreated charge, precludes such meticulous regulation.
He moved to Leadville, Colo. , in 1879, with Gustav Billing building what is now the Arkansas Valley plant, and in 1883 made another move, building at Pueblo, Colo. , the Eilers Smelter, which became a veritable metallurgical training school and produced a number of the best-known metallurgists of the United States.
With the purchase of the Eilers plant by the American Smelting & Refining Company, he became metallurgical head of that organization, which post he retained until his retirement from active work.
Eilers was unquestionably the dean of American lead-silver smelting, the recognized leader in metallurgical theory of that group of well-known pioneers who, throughout Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, developed American lead, silver, and copper smelting so effectively. He also showed ability as a mechanical engineer, devising improvements in furnace and smelter design and construction.
From the very first he had recognized the necessity of a more adequate system of metallurgical accounting, that metal losses and operating costs be more accurately known.
Notwithstanding his undoubted Americanism, Anton Eilers constantly gave evidence of devotion to his native land, by the practise, for example, of using German at table in the smelter mess at his Colorado plant, and of having served a menu reminiscent of the Fatherland.
He was a leader among those who “changed lead smelting from a rule-of-thumb affair to an exact science by working out the theory and practise of slag formation on an accurate chemical basis” (Engineering and Mining Journal, Apr. 28, 1917).
The many friendships which he made throughout his eventful career were shared by his wife and children and his home was one of greatest charm.
In 1863, four years after arriving in America, he had married Elizabeth Emrich; one son, Karl Eilers, became distinguished as a metallurgist. His own death was the first break in his large and notably happy family.
