Arthur C. Daman

(1889-1968)

2010 Inductee from Mining's Past

Arthur C. Daman was born in Chicago in 1889, the youngest son of German immigrants. He attended an art school as a young boy, which created a passion that continued throughout his life. He began his studies at Colorado School of Mines in 1909 but left after one year to work with Western Union. Four years later he returned to Mines and graduated in 1915 with a Mining Engineering Degree. He worked as a mill man in Arizona and Nevada until starting with Stearns-Rogers in 1917. There he headed the ore dressing department for ten years. His principal work was the design and construction of concentrating mills throughout the country. He left Stearns-Rogers in 1927 believing he could design and manufacture better mill equipment than he had been procuring as an engineer with Stearns.

With that goal, he started Denver Equipment Company (DECO) in 1927. For the next 40 years the company grew under his direction into a leading manufacturer of ore processing equipment.

Daman was quick to understand that mining was a global industry and had established sales offices throughout the world by 1950. Prior to 1957 the manufacturing was done in Colorado Springs, Colorado; the company added a small factory in Lima, Peru in 1957 to support the exploding copper markets in Peru and Chile. This second factory helped alleviate the problem of getting spare parts transported and through customs in any kind of urgency. Several mills in the southwest were outfitted with new DECO machines well into the 1970s. DECO become a division of Joy Manufacturing Company in 1967. Mr. Daman had been president of DECO since inception and served as a director of Joy Manufacturing for one year until his death in 1968.

He first published the "Denver" catalog in 1936. Later editions included "Denver Equipment Index" in 1947, the still well known "Denver Equipment Handbook" in 1954, and "Mineral Processing Flowsheets" in 1962. The Equipment Handbook was an 840-page bible for our industry and particularly for operating miners. The first 300 pages were devoted to equipment description uniquely including photos, dimensions, capacities, HP and shipping weights. This was followed by engineering data on process theorem, ore testing, common flow sheets, cost data, mineral characteristics, formulas, tables, conversion factors, temperatures scales and indices. The Mineral Processing Flowsheets provides flowsheets to process all manner of metallic and non-metallic commodities.

When most companies were managed by men in their fifties and early sixties, he successfully ran Denver Equipment Company well into his late seventies. He stressed customer satisfaction as the way to continued success and lived his business until he died. AC Daman was an outstanding engineer, inventor, and illustrator. As an educator and communicator, he freely shared his mineral processing knowledge enlightening ourselves and so many of our predecessors.

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