Introduced to mining at the age of seven, when he sorted gold ores at his father’s mine for a nickel a 50-pound sack, E.H. Snyder became a renowned mining economist and engineer. He was instrumental in developing a treatment of complex lead, zinc, and silver ores and was a pioneer in the uranium, perlite, and resin industries in Utah.
A combination acid flotation and acid leaching process, one of several developed by Snyder and his metallurgical staff, added greatly to the future of the United States zinc industry and particularly to major facilities at Bauer, Utah and Pioche, Nevada, which treated low-grade ores profitably.
He was a contract engineer when he joined Combined Metals, Inc. in Salt Lake City in 1915. He later was Vice President and Manager of the firm when it became Combined Metals Reduction Co., a subsidiary of the National Lead Co. In 1943, he advanced to President and, in 1963, he became Chairman of the Board, a post he held at the time of his death. At the peak of his career in the 1940s he had nearly 1,500 employees on the payrolls.
As President and Chairman of the Board of Uranium Reduction Co. (Ureco), he and industry legend Charles A. Steen were early developers of Utah’s uranium industry. Their mill at Moab, Utah was called a “modern miracle” in the 1950s. When Atlas Minerals Division of Atlas Corporation bought the corporation in 1962, Snyder continued to serve in an advisory capacity to the President.
He was a front-runner in the development and marketing of perlite and resins, and predicted mining’s future depended upon such non-metallics. He helped found the Perlite Institute.
He was President of the Utah Mining Association in 1946. A graduate of the Michigan College of Mines (now Michigan Technological University) in 1911 with an engineer of mines degree, he was awarded an honorary doctor of engineering degree in 1946.
