Tahawus Titanium Mine Site

Mining resumed on the old McIntyre Iron Mine property in World War II, nearly a century after it had ceased in 1857. This time it was not for iron, but titanium, an element found in the iron-rich deposits, used primarily to provide white pigment for paint. Titanium was considered a strategically critical military material (for things like painting naval ships grey), and the operation was subsidized by the federal government, which built a railroad to the mine site from its previous terminus at North Creek. The mine grew quickly, and employed hundreds of people, some of whom moved into the buildings at the old town site, after the Tawahus Club members were evicted. Most employees lived in a new town built closer to the mine, which was further downstream, at what was referred to as Tahawus’ Lower Works. As the mine expanded, that town had to be moved, and some of its relocated buildings can still be found in Newcomb. National Lead, the company that developed the mine with the government’s support, was one of the nation’s largest paint and coatings companies, extracting extensive amounts of lead at other locations. It was a diversified federal contractor, too, and operated a uranium processing plant for the Department of Energy in Fernald, Ohio. The mine was an open-pit operation and continued long after the war, transforming the headwaters of the Hudson into something else entirely. It closed in 1989, after 40 million tons of titanium had been extracted, forming two large pits, which are now flooded, and are the deepest lakes in the Adirondacks.