Galena, Kansas taking the present name of Galena in 1877, which is named after the lead ore galena found in the area. The city was part of the tri state mining area and had over 30,000 inhabitants. After the mines closed in the 1970s, population decreased. The Jayhawk Ordnance Works northwest of Galena, built during World War II, was a large ordnance plant producing ammonium nitrate. After the war it was privatized by its operator Kenneth Aldred Spencer and at one point was the world's largest producer of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the world. It would form the basis for the Spencer
Iron ore foundry iron should have less than 0.15% sulfur. In the rest of the world a high sulfur cast iron can be used for making castings, but will make poor wrought iron. There are a number of remedies for sulfur contamination. The first, and the one most used in historic and prehistoric operations, is avoidance. Coal was not used in Europe (unlike China) as a fuel for smelting because it contains sulfur and therefore causes hot short iron. If an ore resulted in hot short metal, ironmasters looked for another ore. When mineral coal was first used in European blast furnaces