assayer

Some of the old mining buildings are still visible in trails in Great Falls Park, and the oldest house in Potomac Falls, built in the late 1800s, was known as the assayer’s office.

There, Tom Monforton, a Golden Sunlight assayer for over 30 years, works alone in a very hot room making first what miners call a bead of gold.

The King is played in the film by Michael Shannon, a frequent assayer of the quirky and the offbeat in movies.

Steve White said he and his family would learn the history of Bend Iron Works and the assayer’s office bit by bit.

The mill and associated operations in surrounding buildings - a salt warehouse, assayer’s office and sampling operation - sprawled across 22 acres.