Utah Biographies ~ Newhouse to Orem

Newhouse, Samuel

Ask the ordinary citizen of Salt Lake City what one man is doing more than any other man for the commercial and industrial advancement of Salt Lake City and Utah, and almost without hesitation the answer will be, "Samuel Newhouse." And while history alone can declare the correctness of the impression, certain it is that Mr. Newhouse has been both energetic and successful in his endeavors in behalf of the inter-mountain region.

As a mining man, Mr. Newhouse knows the business, from the work of the day laborer in the stope to that of financing the immense enterprises necessary to produce on a paying basis that most stubborn of all metals copper. In that industry he has surrounded himself by a staff of able assistants. And he has ever been ready to branch out into new fields, where he has been uniformly successful, or to try new methods, where also victory over the refractory forces of Mother Earth has come, though the experiments may have cost many thousands of dollars.

But it is not in mining alone in the West that Mr. Newhouse has shown his faith, or that he has made money. The wealth that after years of toil and hardship came to him in abundance, has neither been hoarded nor been invested where it would benefit some other part of the country. In Salt Lake City Mr. Newhouse is known as the first man who had the energy and the faith in the city sufficient to build a real sky-scraper. He built two of them. He has invested heavily in residence property in the most beautiful quarter of the city. He is building a hotel to surpass anything of its kind west of the Mississippi. His energy has interested him in all lines of business in the city, and he has won success in all in which he has been interested. Better still, such is the reputation for business acumen which this man has won in the money marts of the world that he is able to attract an immense amount of capital to Salt Lake City and to the up-building of the industries of the inter-mountain region.

Identified though he is with the West, and almost its every mining field, Mr. New-house is a product of the East. He was born in New York City, in 1854, and educated in the public schools of Philadelphia. He read law for a time, and later had ambitions in the journalistic field. It was as such that he came to Colorado, in 1879, but he soon turned his attention from the Leadville newspaper to the freighting business, and thence it was but an easy step to the mines, where he won most success.

In 1883 Mr. Newhouse married Miss Ida H. Stingley, of a Virginia family connected with one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who later became president. In 1885 he became most definitely connected with the mining business, and a power first in Colorado, and then in the entire inter-mountain mining sections.

His interests being most closely connected with mining fields, then new, Mr. Newhouse found Salt Lake City more central to his properties than Denver, and he came here in 1896, having gained control of his first great Utah property, the Highland Boy Mine at Bingham, now incorporated as the Utah Consolidated. Of this company, Standard Oil later secured the controlling interest, at a price, it is said, of $6,000,000. Mr. Newhouse's interests now include such well-known names in the mining field as the Boston Consolidated, the Newhouse and Cactus mines, and the town of Newhouse, Utah; the Newhouse tunnel, at Idaho Springs; the Denver & Inter-Mountain Railway Company, and in addition, numerous mining properties, in Colorado, Utah and California. He has extensive real estate holdings in New York as well as in Salt Lake City. He has business offices in both New York and London, and his name is one to conjure with among the financiers of the world's capitals, as it is among the hardy mining men who are wresting wealth from the interior of the Rockies.

Mr. Newhouse's public spirit has led him to take part in many of the activities of the city and State. He is a prominent supporter of the Commercial Club and of the Mining Exchange, and it was through his liberal donations that these two organizations were enabled to plan and erect suitable homes for themselves. He is known as a liberal giver to charity, but is not ostentatious in this respect. To his friends he is an amiable and pleasing acquaintance as well as a man of remarkable ability, and versatility in ideas.

Mr. Newhouse has a beautiful home on South Temple Street, the architectural beauty of which has made it an object of admiration to stranger and citizen alike.

Nibley, Charles Wilson

Charles Wilson Nibley, now presiding bishop in charge of the temporal affairs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was graduated to that position from a long and successful career of aggressive business enterprise which made itself felt throughout the whole Northwest. Eastern Oregon and Western Idaho have been his especial fields, and the lumber and sugar industries have benefited most by his energies, although his activities have by no means been confined to these branches of commercialism.

Mr. Nibley is by birth a Scotchman, and, although he came early to this country, yet his make-up possesses many of those characteristics which have made the Scot a leader among pioneers in every land. Born near Edinburgh, Scotland, February 5th, 1849, Mr. Nibley came to America with his parents, James and Jean Nibley, when he was six years old. Five years later, in 1860, the family came to Utah, and at Wellsville, in Cache County, the elder Nibley resumed the life of farmer, which he had followed in Scotland. Three years later, when the boy was fourteen years old, he went to Brigham City to live, and in the year 1869 he went on a mission to the Eastern States. On his return thence he engaged in railroad work, and afterwards, following a trip to England, he started on his business career in Logan, about 1880.

His ability at once made him prominent in religious and social as well as business affairs in the Cache County seat. Soon he began to seek wider fields for his energy, and about 1889 turned his attention to the Northwest, where, until he assumed his present position, he attained his greatest success. The prominent part he has taken in commercial and industrial progress is indicated by his prominence in organizing the Oregon Lumber Company. He is vice-president of the Sumpter Valley Railroad, president of the Payette Valley Railroad, and founder of the La Grande Sugar Company. He is also president of the Lewiston Sugar Company, president of the Grande Ronde Lumber Company, and the San Vicento Lumber Company. In the development and colonization of the Grande Ronde and Payette valleys he has played a most important part.

He is known as a man of active and progressive business instincts, of irreproachable integrity, and of sound judgment. Withal, he is prominent in religious work, and also well liked socially. He is a member of and takes an active interest in the work of the Salt Lake Commercial Club.

Mr. Nibley was married in 1869, and has seventeen children. His home is at the corner of West Temple and North Temple Streets, facing Temple Square.

Noble, Worden P.

Worden P. Noble was born December 24, 1847, in Sacketts Harbor, New York, his father, William Noble, a farmer; his mother, Jane A. Payne. Mr. Noble was educated in the public schools and in the Bryant & Stratton College at Watertown, New York.

He came West late in 1865, and reached Omaha, Nebraska, in 1866, where he was employed as clerk in the Herndon Hotel, then the Union Pacific headquarters. In 1867 he went to Fort Laramie and engaged in the mercantile business for one year. He then moved to South Pass, Wyoming, and went into the freighting business, running ox-teams for nine years.

It was in South Pass he met Margaret Halloran, whom he married there in 1869, and who has borne him four children, all of them living. In the order of their birth they are, Ida, Fred, Edith and Margaret. He disposed of his freighting outfit at a big figure, and put the entire fortune in sheep and cattle, running them successfully for twenty years, during all of which time he kept up an active trade with the Shoshone Indians, selling them what they needed at frontier prices, and getting otter skins, beaver, fox, bear, and other valuable pelts, furs and hides, including the buffalo, at his own prices.

He brought his family to Salt Lake in November, 1883, established them in a home here, and went back to Wyoming, establishing the Bank of Noble at Lander, Wyoming, which is still running, and of which he is president. At the same place, Noble & Lane have a big general merchandise store, and another at No wood by Noble & Bragg, the same company handling 50,000 sheep. Noble and Carmody are running another bunch of 20,000 sheep near Lander, Wyoming. He is president of the Clover Valley Land & Live Stock Company, the ranch being at Golconda, Nevada. His son, Fred Noble, is the manager of the ranch, the cattle and 30,000 sheep. There are a number of prominent Salt Lake men who are interested as shareholders with Mr. Noble in this enterprise. He is the owner of much very valuable improved and unimproved real estate in Salt Lake, and is vice-president of the Continental National Bank, the successor of the Commercial National Bank.

Mr. Noble was a member of the legislature of Wyoming from Lander County in 1877, and was county commissioner of Sweetwater County for eight years. When he returned to Salt Lake he was elected to the chairmanship of the Board of Public Works in 1892 for one term. Under the second Liberal Party administration, after the Police and Fire Commission had been created, he was elected to the chairmanship, and held that office until the commission was dissolved by legislative enactment. He is a member of the Alta Club and the Salt Lake Commercial Club.

Mrs. Noble died about twelve years ago. The two eldest daughters are married, Ida to L. C. Robinson, traveling auditor of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, and Edith to Robert G. Smith of the Continental National Bank, until recently the Commercial National Bank. Margaret, the youngest, is unmarried.

The home of W. P. Noble and his family is at 629 East Brigham Street.

Odell, George T.

George T. Odell, one of Utah's foremost prominent and progressive citizens, and for nearly half a century prominently identified with the growth and up-building of Utah, was born in London, England, Dec. 4, 1848. He is a son of Thomas George and Ann (Newman) Odell, who immigrated to Utah in April, 1861, crossing the Atlantic in the sailing vessel ''Underwriter,'' and arriving at Salt Lake City, September 30, 1861. The elder Odell was a printer and publisher. The opportunities for education in those early days of Utah were not advantageous, and, although George Odell was of a studious nature and ambitious to acquire an education, he did not have the facilities of the boys of the present generation, and had to acquire what knowledge he did obtain in the educational line by hard practical knocks as he grew to manhood, he being but thirteen years of age when he arrived here. The family first located at Ogden, Utah, and the early life of young Odell was spent on a farm until 1869, but he had some newspaper experience in the meantime, being a reporter on the " Ogden Junction," a paper then being edited by Mr. Penrose, and printed by Odell 's father. He subsequently, in 1869, entered the service of the Central Pacific Railway as brakeman, and later as conductor. Leaving the service in 1878, he went into the produce and shipping business in Ogden. He next went to Bullionville, Nevada, in charge of the mercantile interests of the Bullionville Smelting Company.

In 1882 he came to Salt Lake City, permanently settled here, and in 1883 formed the vehicle, machinery and implement business of Grant, Odell & Co., which later was merged into the following institutions and in the order named: First to Grant, Odell & Co. (Inc.), then to the Co-operative Wagon & Machine Co., and on February 13, 1902, into the Consolidated Wagon & Machine Co., which latter concern took over the business of the Consolidated Implement Co., with Mr. Odell as general manager. To the credit of Mr. Odell it may be said that since the interests have been merged the business has steadily grown, until to-day it is the largest concern of its kind in the world, all of which is gratifying to Mr. Odell and due largely to his efforts, ability and energy. They now have some stores all through the Western country, all operated by their own employees, and the commercial rating of the institution is the highest attainable.

 Mr. Odell is a man of diversified interests, as is evidenced by his activity as an officer or director in many of Utah's most substantial institutions, being connected with, as a director or official, the following corporations: The Bank of Garland, Capitol Hill Improvement Co., Consolidated Wagon & Machine Co., First National Bank of Montpelier, Glen Lumber Co., Heber J. Grant & Co., Karns Tunneling Machine Co., Montana Independent Telephone Co., Odell-Wright Investment Co., Apex Mines, Pittsburg-Salt Lake Oil Co., Rexburg Drug Co., Romney Lumber Co., Sugar City Hardware & Lumber Co., Sugar City Townsite Co., Teton Lands, Wright Mercantile Co., Witcher Dam Co., Beeman & Cashin Mercantile Co., of Evanston, Wyoming, and many others. Mr. Odell is well known in Eastern business circles, is a Free Mason and a member of the Alta and the Commercial clubs of Salt Lake City. He was married to Miss Florence Caroline Grant at Ogden, Utah, May 11, 1871, and they have five children, Thomas George, Joshua Frederick, Florence Louise, Adelaide Eugene and Ethel Marie. The family reside at 254 Fourth East Street, Salt Lake City.

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Orem, W. C

Walter C. Orem, one of the best known mining operators in Utah, is a native of Missouri, and was born in Ray County, May 23, 1873. His father, A. J. Orem, was a school teacher, and of old English ancestry, his ancestors coming to this country in the renowned "Mayflower." His mother, who was Martha A. Leabo, was also of English ancestry. Mr. Orem was educated in the schools of Kansas City, finishing his schooling at seventeen, at which age he arrived in Salt Lake City in 1890. His first occupation was that of a traveling salesman for a dry-goods house, and there he remained for seven years. This occupation did not satisfy his ambition and he entered the mining industry, which, with its seemingly unlimited possibilities, appealed to him. With others he soon secured an interest in the Red Wing Mine, a copper and lead property at Bingham, and about two years later he took the manage-ment of the mine, together with the York properties, both of which had a past history and a fair productive record, but there was little in sight at that time. The York was later absorbed with a number of surrounding properties and is now well known as the Utah Apex Mine, of which he was general manager for the first six years of its existence, resigning this position to give his time to properties in which he had a larger personal interest. The plans of expansion and development were carried out by Mr. Orem.

Mr. W. C. Orem is vice-president of and has charge of the operating department of the firm of A. J. Orem & Co., who are successful mining operators on quite a large scale throughout the Western States, and they have as associates many prominent capitalists in New York, Boston, and London, England. The company now owns and controls large properties at Yerington, Nevada, chief of which is the Nevada-Douglas Copper Company, where they are developing and producing much high grade copper ore. Of this the late J. D. Wood was president. Conservative experts agree that the present developed ore in these properties will go into the millions. Mr. Orem is largely interested in the Nevada-Douglas Copper Company, of which he is general manager; and is also interested in many other mining properties in the inter-mountain States.

Mr. Orem was married at Wapello, Idaho, December 19, 1894, to Miss Mabel Emery, and to them have been born four children: William Walter, Gladys M., Margaret R., and Albert E. Orem. He is a member of the Commercial Club, and resides at 663 Third Avenue, Salt Lake City.

Index

Source: Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States, Utah, Idaho and Nevada, Published by The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1909