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Utah Biographies ~ Scott to Smith


Scott, A. W.

The Scott Mines Company

The Scott Mines Company, while a Nevada corporation, has on its Board of Directors a number of Salt Lake City business men whose standing in the community is such that they have the unbounded confidence of their associates. This company was organized October 30, 1908, with an authorized capital of 5,000,000 shares of the par value of $1 per share. It is organized as a holding company, with all of the stock in the treasury. The purpose of organization was to finance and secure control of the Boston & Pioche Mining Company, the Rawhide Northern Mines Company, and other companies through the exchange of stock. The members of the Board of Directors are: A. W. Scott, president and treasurer; R. Van Buggenhoudt, vice-president and secretary; Emile M. Maertens, T. A. Snyder, J. L. Scott, Judge J. W. Burton and F. C. Richmond.

Mr. A. W. Scott, president and treasurer of the company, is a very well-known man in the mining world because of his success in a number of mining enterprises in Nevada to which he pinned his faith. The properties controlled by the Scott Mines Company, without liabilities, are the following: The Boston & Pioche Mining Company, operating in Pioche. Nevada; the Rawhide Northern Consolidated Mines Company, operating in Rawhide, Nevada; the Pioche & Arizona Copper & Gold Mining Company, operating in Bouse, Arizona. Among other Nevada holdings, the Scott Mines Company owns the Baby Fraction, in Ely, Nevada.

The Boston & Pioche Mining Company's property at Pioche, owned by this company, comprises the following: Yuba East Mine, the Boss Mine, the Nevada Homestake, North Pole, North Pole Fraction, East Peavine, Simpson, Boston, Massachusetts, Fannie, and Mary Ann, all of which constitute the Pioche group. These holdings cover approximately one mile on the famous Yuba Dike. The Boston & Pioche Mining Company owns also, in the Highland Mining District, the following properties: Mollie Gibson, Augustine, Fargo, Great West, Great Western, Hottentot, West Yuba, and a one-quarter interest in the Florence group, comprising the Florence, Florence No. 2, Florence No. 3 and Florence No. 4. In the Ely Mining District, the Boston & Pioche Mining Company owns the Louise, adjoining the Prince Consolidated Mining Company, and the Mazeppi Fraction. In the Bristol Mining District it owns the McFadden Mine, and 158 acres of water land, which is patented.

Since the Scott Mines Company acquired these properties development work has been carried forward night and day. Ore is being extracted and placed in the bins. They are developing the ore bodies, but are not extracting the ores save in development work. They purpose to sink to the 1,000-foot level, and will ship steadily as soon as shipments are begun. The property now being developed by the Scott Mines Company is on the same strike as the famous Yuba East Mine, which has produced $40,000,000. The same porphyry that produced this ore is on the Scott Mines Company's holdings. The Boston & Pioche Mining Company is fully equipped with modern power machinery, air compressor, air drills, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop, sawmill, a boarding house and sleeping quarters for the men.

In Rawhide the Scott Mines Company owns the control of the Rawhide Northern Consolidated Mines Company, incorporated for $2,000,000, which owns twelve claims in Esmeralda and Elko counties, Nevada, and owns all the stock of the Last Chance Mining & Leasing Company, and a majority of the stock of the Rawhide Northern Mining Company. The first named company of this group owns the Alta Fraction, and Leases Nos. 1, 2 and 4 on the Last Chance Company's ground in Rawhide. The lease extends three years from this date, and all of the stock was taken over by the Rawhide Northern Consolidated Mines Company, which is now developing the property. The Morrissey Lease is fully equipped with modern machinery. Excellent values in gold are found in the 300-foot shaft, which is timbered throughout. About 335 feet of work has been done on this level. Leases 2 and 4 are being explored. The Scott Mines Company is also interested in the Rawhide Northern Mines Company, owning 59 acres of ground, all lying in the heart of the gold-bearing region. This ground is being developed by leasers, who have agreed to go to a depth of 550 feet. Rawhide has four mills in operation and one under construction. A railroad is graded and steel is being laid. It will connect Rawhide with Shurz, on the Goldfield branch of the Southern Pacific. The company building the road proposes to build a 400-ton custom mill at Walker Lake, on this line, for Rawhide ores, and available ores now on the dump will be treated more economically than could be done heretofore.

The Scott Mines Company recently acquired control of the Pioche & Arizona Copper & Gold Mining Company, owning six claims in Bouse Mining District, Arizona, known as the Heart's Desire group. This property is in the lower foothills of the Plumosa Range, five miles west of Bouse, and two and one-half miles south of the A. & C. Railway, a branch of the Santa Fe. A wagon road connects the mines with the railroad. Surface indications on this property indicate an enormous copper deposit. A general sample of the ore shoots exposed, taken across the vein for a distance of 400 feet, gave returns of 20% copper and $6.80 per ton gold. The Scott Mines Company has begun active work on this property recently with a view to getting it into shipping condition.

From these details it may be seen that the Scott Mines Company, under the management of its president, who is also its general manager, will certainly make good and prove itself one of the most successful mining companies in the West.


Sharp, John

John Sharp, eldest son of the late Bishop John Sharp of the Twentieth ecclesiastical ward of Salt Lake City, and his father's right hand man in all the elder man's activities in this section, was born in Clachmannanshire, Scotland, December 28, 1841, and arrived in Utah, in September, 1850, with his parents, John Sharp, a coal miner, and Jane Patterson, his mother; also a younger brother, James Sharp, since deceased.

He was educated in the public schools of Salt Lake, and in 1866 was married to Hannah Neslen, a daughter of a well-known English family in Utah. There was but one son born of this union, John Neslen Sharp.

When Bishop Sharp arrived in Utah, Brigham Young was quick to recognize his constructive ingenuity. He was given a contract quarrying stone for the big Tabernacle, the Tithing House, and for the old Council House, which was built where the Deseret News building now stands and was burned down in September, 1883. The subject of this sketch was associated with his father in this contract, which they completed on time and with profit to themselves. When the Union Pacific was building, Brigham Young proposed to furnish the necessary men and teams to build the grade, and a contract was awarded to him and sublet to Bishop Sharp for the grade from the head of Echo Canyon to Promontory. Eighty per cent of the completed work, according to the estimates of the company's engineers, was paid each month, and when the entire job was completed and accepted, the whole figure was paid. It left John Sharp, Sr., a wealthy man, and the subject of this sketch, having been busy on the grade as a supervisor and marshal of the working forces, profited with his father.

John Sharp the younger is a shareholder and a director in the Horn Silver Mining Company, whose mines are at Frisco, Utah, and in the Frisco Consolidated Mining Company, and has been for some years president of the Twentieth Ward Grocery Company. He was also one of the heaviest stockholders, after his father, in the Utah Central and one of the incorporators of the Utah Southern and Utah Southern Extension railroads, and until the taking over of those lines by the Union Pacific, in 1889, he was for some years the general freight and passenger agent of these lines.

When Utah was made a State and Heber M. Wells had been elected the first governor, he appointed John Sharp State Fish and Game Commissioner. He assumed charge of this office May, 1896, holding it continuously until March, 1907. It was on his recommendation that the first legislature appropriated $5,000 for the first State fish hatchery, and during these eleven years, embracing the two full terms of Governor Wells, and the first half of Governor Cutler's term, under the administration of John Sharp, the appropriations for the maintenance of the department never exceeded $9,000 for any biennial period, by the legislature.

There was very little remuneration attached to the office. John Sharp was always a game sportsman, a fisherman who wanted to have the finny tribe protected for the men who indulged in fishing for pure sport and not for the market, and the same rule applied with John Sharp to game birds on both land and water. He accepted the appointment out of pure love of legitimate sport and to work for laws that would prohibit the slaughter of fish and game by the wholesale for market. Early in John Sharp's administration of the fish and game department he established the practice of closing alternate trout streams for a season, having already planted many thousands of healthy young fry in the streams from the State fish hatchery, or, as sometimes happened to good advantage, a consignment of fry would be sent to him from some of the Government fish hatcheries.

John Sharp is now in his sixty-eighth year. His life has been full of activities and he has reaped a great harvest. He has retired from active business, and is enjoying life at his comfortable home with the wife of his young manhood. He has reared one son, and there are several grandchildren, the eldest grandson being named John. There is a direct record of this line of Sharps of nine first sons whose names are John. The bishop was the sixth and he had record of five generations of Johns before himself. His son John, the subject of this sketch, is the seventh; John Neslen Sharp is the eighth, and his son, John Miles Sharp, is the ninth.

John Sharp is still the ardent sportsman and will be whipping the streams yet for years for the finny tribe, or shooting the grouse and the prairie chicken and sage hen, and when the opportunity offers occasionally goes out with his rifle for larger game. He is an expert with the rifle, revolver and shotgun, either in field shooting or target practice.


Silver, Joseph A.

President and general manager of the Silver Bros. Iron Works Company, Joseph A. Silver is prominent not only in Salt Lake business circles, but in the iron and steel industry, in which, as far as the West is concerned, he may well be classed as a leader.

From his youth up Mr. Silver has been connected with the great business which bears his name. He has devoted his time and energy to it, and this, combined with a strong sense of honor in business dealings, has made his name and that of his firm a synonym for high integrity, not only in Utah, but in the other States where the enormous business carried on by the company extends. From a small beginning, made a number of years ago, the industry carried on by the Silver Bros. Iron Works Company has grown until it is one of the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi. A small shop at its inception, it now covers an entire block. The buildings housing the plant are all modern in design, the equipment is of the latest, and the patterns the most improved, and capable of turning out a superior class of work of all kinds in this particular branch of manufacturing.

Prior to 1898 the business was not incorporated, being carried on by a partnership composed of Joseph A. Silver, John A. Silver and Hyrum A. Silver. But in that year the concern was incorporated, John and Hyrum Silver withdrawing from the company and leaving Joseph A. Silver, its practical founder, in control. Even at that time the demand for the products of the company, created by the honest work turned out, and the reputation which Mr. Silver early established for fair dealing, was such as to tax the capacity of the plant. Desiring to enlarge the production, Mr. Silver associated with himself in the enterprise several of Utah's captains of finance, prominent among whom is Mr. Lewis S. Hills, president of the Deseret National Bank, widely known through his excellent business judgment, and the fact that a pleasing personality has won for him a large circle of friends.

With such men as Mr. Hills allied with him, Mr. Silver, proceeding along modern lines, began the work of remodeling and enlarging the plant of the Silver Bros. Iron Works Company, using his long experience in the business to such advantage that the manufactory is classed among the best of its kind in the country. Its equipment enables it to take and execute in the most satisfactory manner all kinds of con-tracts relating to the work of a foundry and to iron and steel designs. Back of this great industry, employing its hundreds of men, and of which Salt Lake is proud, stands Joseph A. Silver to whose strict integrity and dogged persistence are due the great works of which he is the guiding hand.


Smith, Joseph

Index

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

 

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