This collection chiefly contains reports from various American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) plants, dating from 1911 to 1919, presumably accumulated by Frederick Roeser while superintending company smelters in Colorado. Subjects include metallurgy, metallurgical plant construction and design, and mining engineering.

On April 4, 1899, the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) was chartered in the state of New Jersey. ASARCO, frequently referred to as the smelting trust, had consolidated a number of American smelting concerns with production plants east and west of the Mississippi. At its inception, ASARCO controlled 2/3 of America's smelting and refining capacity, although several major firms remained independent of its ownership. Two years later, a second merger took place which brought M. Guggenheim's Sons into the company, absorbing a principal competitor. In turn, Meyer Guggenheim's sons took control of ASARCO after the merger and directed the company's continued expansion. ASARCO's plants dominated much of the Rocky Mountain smelting industry in the early twentieth century, although the severe decline in silver, lead and copper prices which followed the Panic of 1907 and persisted until American entry into World War I forced it to curtail many operations.Frederick Roeser was the superintendent of several Colorado smelting plants owned by the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO). He served at different times as superintendent of ASARCO's Arkansas Valley and Globe smelting plants in Colorado (the latter near the city of Denver). During the 1890s, he may have lived in Revelstoke, British Columbia; he certainly invested in British Columbian land and mining stock during that decade.

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