The Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada, commonly known as
Cominco, was born in 1895 by
Fritz Augustus Heinze, a Montana copper baron, to smelt the copper, gold and silver ore being mined just 7 km. to the west at Rossland. In 1898 it was bought by the CPR and operated by them for half a century or more. The capability to extract lead, zinc and rare earth metals was added and the smelter became the largest lead/zinc smelter in the world. With new technology of recent years it has also become one of the cleanest smelters in the world. It was recently bought by Teck Metals and remains one of the world's largest and most efficient smelters.
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