Fitzsimmons's Plant, 1930 and 1931

Karl Clark described the scene at Robert Fitzsimmons’s plant in a letter dated October 1930:

This spring [Fitzsimmons] turned to hot water separation of bituminous sand excavated from an exposure along the bank of the river near his camp. His separation plant was of the crudest sort and worked by virtue of the fact that the bituminous sand he had to use was particularly amenable to separation. He put the excavated sand into an iron vessel set over a wood fire and stirred it about in the hot water with a long handled shovel. The bitumen frothed, floated to the surface and was skimmed off by hand.

The separated bitumen was collected in a wooden tank from which it was run in batches into a wooden trough containing cold water and a shaft provided with paddles. The agitation of the bitumen in the cold water washed mud out of the bitumen. Finally the washed bitumen was run into another wooden tank provided with high pressure steam coils and the water was evaporated from it. Next year Mr. Fitzsimmons plans to install a rather better plant, and to include the use of salt water for assisting in the dehydration of the crude bitumen.

When Clark visited again in August 1931, he saw that Fitzsimmons had been busy:

Fitzs has a new plant this year. It is located just about where we found his camp in 1925. He has some new machinery but it is all very hay wire and of course he has no knowledge of the background of separation and what has to be watched.

How Fitzsimmons manages to keep gathering up money is a mystery to me but he does it. Hard times do not seem to stop him.

Soon, the hard times did catch up with Fitzsimmons, and his new plant was shut down by 1932.