Philip Deidesheimer was a mining engineer in the Western United States.
Deidesheimer was born in 1832, in Darmstadt, Electorate of Hesse before German unification. He attended the prestigious Freiberg University of Mining (Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg) and emigrated to California in 1852. He died on 21 July 1916 in San Francisco, California.
In 1852, at nineteen, the young mining engineer traveled to the California gold fields to work for several years, including in Georgetown. In April 1860 he was hired by W. F. Babcock, a trustee of the Ophir Mine, part of the Comstock Lode silver mining boom in Nevada, and solved one of the Comstock mines' most critical engineering needs. [1]
Deidesheimer invented a system, now known as square set timbering, using heavy timber "cubes" as supports for underground mining tunnels and shafts, that enabled skilled miners to open three-dimensional cavities of any size. In large openings, the cubes could be filled with waste rock, creating a solid pillar of wood and rock from floor to roof ("back" in miner's terminology). [2]
Deidesheimer created the square set timbering system for the Comstock Lode's Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1860. [3] The system, which was inspired by the structure of honeycombs, enabled mining of the large silver orebodies of the Comstock Lode, which were in very weak rock—in miner's terms, "heavy ground".
Deidesheimer refused to patent the innovation, [4] [5] which was easily the most important mining innovation of 1860. [2]
As was common with the Comstock mines, the rock in the Ophir Mine was soft and easily collapsed into the working stopes (cavities where ore is extracted). In addition, the presence of clay that would swell greatly upon exposure to air caused great pressures that the mine timbering of that day could not hold back. The square set timbering method devised by Deideshimer slowed the swelling action long enough for ore extraction, though with time and decay the timbering was crushed by the enormous pressures found in the Comstock mines.
Deidesheimer was made superintendent of the Ophir Mine by mine owner William Sharon in early 1875. He was bankrupted by speculation in mining stocks in 1878. [3]
In 1866 Deidesheimer designed and supervised the construction of the Hope Mill and smelter for the St. Louis and Montana Mining Company, to process silver ore from nearby mines in Granite County, Montana. [6] The town that formed around the Hope Mill was named Philipsburg, in honor of Philip Deidesheimer. [7]
After the decline of the Comstock mines in the late 1870s, Deideshimer continued his successful mining engineer career at the Young America Mine in Sierra City, California, where he was one of the five mine owners made rich over the five years of good production at that mine. [3]
The development of his square-set timbering method was fictionalized in "The Philip Deidesheimer Story", a 1959 first-season episode of the American television series Bonanza , in which John Beal portrayed the title character. [8] Philip Deidesheimer was the subject of the NPR radio program The Engines of Our Ingenuity in episode 1901 [9] and was inducted into the (USA) National Mining Hall of Fame. [10]
Philipsburg is a town in and the county seat of Granite County, Montana, United States. The population was 841 at the 2020 census. The town was named after the famous mining engineer Philip Deidesheimer, who designed and supervised the construction of the ore smelter around which the town originally formed. He platted the townsite in 1867.
Marcus Daly was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.
An adit or stulm is a horizontal or nearly horizontal passage to an underground mine. Miners can use adits for access, drainage, ventilation, and extracting minerals at the lowest convenient level. Adits are also used to explore for mineral veins.
Bodie is a ghost town in the Bodie Hills east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States. It is about 75 miles (121 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, and 12 mi (19 km) east-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 8,379 feet (2554 m). Bodie became a boom town in 1876 after the discovery of a profitable line of gold; by 1879 it had a population of 7,000–10,000.
James Graham Fair was an Irish immigrant to the United States who became a highly successful mining engineer and businessman. His investments in silver mines in Nevada made him a millionaire, and he was one of the famous "silver kings" who became wealthy on the Comstock Lode. Fair later became a real estate investor and railroad builder in California. In 1881, he was elected a United States Senator from Nevada. Nearly all other major so-called robber barons were Protestants while Fair himself was a Roman Catholic born into poverty.
Mother lode is a principal vein or zone of gold or silver ore. The term is also used colloquially to refer to the real or imaginary origin of something valuable or in great abundance.
In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fracture in a rock formation or a vein of ore that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock. The current meaning dates from the 17th century, being an expansion of an earlier sense of a "channel, watercourse" in Late Middle English, which in turn is from the 11th-century meaning of lode as a "course, way".
Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno–Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada, which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States and named after American miner Henry Comstock.
George Hearst was an American businessman, miner, and politician. After growing up on a small farm in Missouri, he founded many mining operations, and is known for developing and expanding the Homestake Mine in the late 1870s in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 1879, he listed it on the New York Stock Exchange and went on to other pursuits. The mine's gold production continued uninterrupted until 2001
Hearst, Haggin, Tevis and Co., a company started in California in the 1850s and headed by San Francisco lawyer James Ben Ali Haggin with Lloyd Tevis and George Hearst, grew to be the largest private firm of mine-owners in the United States. Hearst himself acquired the reputation of arguably being one of the most expert prospector and judge of mining property on the Pacific coast, and contributed to the development of the modern processes of quartz mining. Today Jastro Winkle Diamond Co continues the Diamond Production in California.
John William Mackay was an Irish-American industrialist. Mackay was one of the four Bonanza Kings, a partnership which capitalised on the wealth generated by the silver mines at the Comstock Lode. He also headed a telegraph business that laid transatlantic cables and he helped finance the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway Company.
Silver mining in the United States began on a major scale with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858. The industry suffered greatly from the demonetization of silver in 1873 by the Coinage Act of 1873, known pejoratively as the "Crime of 73", but silver mining continues today.
James Clair Flood was an American businessman who made a fortune thanks to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. His mining operations are recounted to this day as an outstanding example of what may be done with a rich ore body and a genius for stock manipulation. Flood piled up millions as one of the famed "Bonanza Kings" and is considered to have been one of the 100 wealthiest Americans, leaving an enormous fortune. He is famous for two mansions, the James C. Flood Mansion at 1000 California St. in San Francisco, and Linden Towers located in Menlo Park, torn down in 1936.
Silver mining in Nevada, a state of the United States, began in 1858 with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver-mining district in the United States. Nevada calls itself the "Silver State." Nevada is the nation's second-largest producer of silver, after Alaska. In 2014 Nevada produced 10.93 million troy ounces of silver, of which 6.74 million ounces were as a byproduct of the mining of gold. The largest byproducers were the Hycroft Mine, the Phoenix Mine, the Midas Mine and Round Mountain.
Stoping is the process of extracting the desired ore or other mineral from an underground mine, leaving behind an open space known as a stope. Stoping is used when the country rock is sufficiently strong not to collapse into the stope, although in most cases artificial support is also provided.
Julia Bulette, was an English-born American prostitute in Virginia City, Nevada, a boomtown serving the Comstock Lode silver mine. She was murdered in 1867, and a French drifter named John Millain was quickly convicted and hanged for the crime. Subsequent legends surrounding Julia's life and status as a sex worker and madam have grown over time and become a part of Virginia City folklore.
Eagle Valley is the area encompassing Carson City, Nevada. The valley was first settled during the California Gold Rush of 1849. The discovery of Nevada's Comstock Lode in 1859 established the economic importance of the area, which would become the site of the Nevada State Capitol.
The Ontario silver mine is a mine that was active starting in 1872, and is located near Park City, Utah, United States.
The Chollar Mansion is located at 565 S. D Street, in Virginia City, western Nevada. It is a historic Victorian Italianate style house, that was built between 1862 and 1864.
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