Coke Ovens Stock Image

Coke Ovens In the middle of it seems nowhere The Cochran - Florence Coke Ovens appear on the hillside. Once used in the early part of the century for making charcoal & x22;Coke& x22;. The Mesquite were cut from the valley below and burned in the ovens for days to make the by product for smelting. There are five ovens, wonderfully preserved, surviving in an area so remote and so nearly inaccessible that the lack of disturbance is easily understood. The ovens were used to reduce mesquite wood to coke, a hotter burning fuel, for use in smelting gold and silver ore taken from surrounding mines. The beehive-shaped stone coke ovens are each about 25 feet in diameter and 30 feet in height. Each has a ground level entry and a few upper level vents. The mesquite wood, burned slowly in the ovens for days, yielded the coke.