Balbach Smelting & Refining Company

[2] The company president was Edward Balbach Jr., a metallurgist born in 1839 in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany.

[5][6] In 1881, the Balbachs began to manufacture copper, just in time for a boom in demand thanks to the invention of the telephone and shortly thereafter electricity.

[7] In 1919, Edward Randolph died and in the 1920s the Balbach operation was closed by its directors in favor of facilities closer to where the ore was mined.

It could also be dangerous, if water seeped into a boiler it turned to steam and could cause an explosion, spraying molten metal onto workers who, if not immobilized, were known to run into the Passaic River.

[2] The accidents were not limited to workers - in January 1881 a boiler exploded causing a flying brick to strike a sleeping guest in the head through a third floor window at the nearby Balbach family mansion.