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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