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Copper Kings
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The Copper Kings were industrialists Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, James Andrew Murray and F. Augustus Heinze. They were known for their struggles over control of the local copper mining industry in Butte, Montana, and the surrounding region, during the Gilded Age.
The battles between Clark, Daly, Murray and Heinze, and later between just Heinze and industrialist financiers William Rockefeller and Henry H. Rogers are a large chapter in Montana history. Eventually, Daly's original company, known as Anaconda Copper emerged as a monopoly, expanding into the fourth largest company in the world by the late 1920s.
History
[edit]
While the cost of smelting the complex copper-bearing ore was high, after the American Civil War, investors like William Andrews Clark and Andrew Jackson Davis began to develop Butte's mines and erect mills to extract the silver and gold. The riches in the hills made Davis Montana's first millionaire.
By 1876, Butte had become a prosperous silver camp with over 1,000 inhabitants. Marcus Daly arrived that year representing the Walker brothers, entrepreneurs from Salt Lake City. His mission was to inspect the Alice Mine for possible purchase by the brothers. Daly purchased the mine and successfully managed it for the Walkers. The town of Walkerville, which still overlooks the city of Butte, sprang up around the mine and other mines in the area.
In 1880, Daly sold his interest in the Walkers' properties and bought the Anaconda Mine. He did so with investment money from several San Francisco capitalists, including James Ben Ali Haggin, Lloyd Tevis, and George Hearst (the father of media mogul William Randolph Hearst). The area attracted other investors from Denver and points east. It wasn't long before capitalists from New York City and Boston bought into the huge potential of the area.
During the 1880s, copper mining came into the forefront and Butte became the world's greatest copper producer. The Utah and Northern Railway came to the area in 1881.
It wasn't long before Butte began to pay a price for the riches. The air filled with toxic sulfurous smoke. Daly responded by building a giant smelter in Anaconda, just 30 miles west of Butte. To this day, the giant smokestack remains a landmark. Shortly after Daly built the smelter, the Boston and Montana Co., with holdings second only to Daly's, built one in Great Falls. After complications with the Great Northern, Daly built his own railroad to transport ore from his mines to the smelter. Trains carried the ore from Butte's mines to both smelters.
Clark also yearned to be a statesman and used his newspaper, the Butte Miner, to push his political ambitions. He became a hero in Helena, Montana, by campaigning for its election as the state capital instead of Anaconda. Clark's long-standing dream of becoming a United States senator resulted in scandal in 1899, when it was revealed that he bribed members of the Montana State Legislature in return for their votes. At the time, U.S. Senators were chosen by their respective state legislators. The U.S. Senate refused to seat Clark because of the 1899 bribery scheme, but a later Senate campaign was successful, and he served a single, undistinguished term from 1901 until 1907.
In 1899, Daly teamed up with two principals of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, William Rockefeller and Henry H. Rogers to create the giant Amalgamated Copper Mining Co., one of the largest trusts of the early Twentieth Century. (Neither Standard Oil nor John D. Rockefeller were directly involved).
Marcus Daly died in 1900. John D. Ryan, a local banker, became close to Margaret Daly after her husband's death, and finally convinced Okrusch to sell out, creating the monopoly Amalgamated sought. By 1910, it had changed its name to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company swallowing several smaller mining companies along the way. The Company dominated Butte for the next 74 years.
References
[edit]- The Battle for Butte, by Michael P. Malone. 2006 ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. ISBN 0-295-98607-7
- The Wealthy 100: From Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates- A Ranking of the Richest Americans, Past and Present, by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther. Secaucus, N.J. : Carol Pub. Group, 1996. ISBN 0-8065-1800-6
- The War of the Copper Kings, by C.B. Glasscock. Helena, MT: Riverbend Publications, 2002. ISBN 1-931832-21-8
External links
[edit]
Copper Kings
View on Grokipediafrom Grokipedia
The Copper Kings were Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze, three industrialists who controlled much of the copper mining industry in Butte, Montana—known as the "Richest Hill on Earth"—during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[1][2] Their enterprises extracted immense wealth from vast copper deposits, fueling the Gilded Age economy and transforming Butte into a global mining hub.[3][4]
These magnates engaged in bitter rivalries, culminating in the "War of the Copper Kings," a protracted struggle from the 1890s to 1906 involving courtroom battles, underground mine encroachments, and aggressive corporate maneuvers to seize control of ore bodies and infrastructure.[2][5] Daly's Anaconda Copper Mining Company emerged dominant after acquiring rivals, including Heinze's interests in 1906, consolidating production under a near-monopoly that supplied copper for electrification and wiring worldwide.[6][4]
The Copper Kings exerted profound influence on Montana's politics, buying legislative votes, funding factions, and sparking scandals such as Clark's failed 1899 U.S. Senate bid marred by bribery revelations that prompted the U.S. Senate to refuse his seating and led to the resignation of Montana's governor.[3][7] This corporate dominance bred widespread corruption and public resentment, contributing to constitutional reforms aimed at curbing monied interests in state governance.[3][8] Despite their exploitative tactics, their ventures industrialized Montana, created jobs for thousands of immigrant laborers, and positioned the state as a key player in America's copper output, which peaked amid these rivalries.[3][9]
The antagonism between Marcus Daly and William A. Clark, two leading copper industrialists in Butte, Montana, originated in political opposition during the 1888 territorial delegate election.[36] Daly, despite being a Democrat, supported Republican Thomas C. Power over the Democratic nominee Clark, likely to secure favorable treatment from the incoming Republican administration regarding his extensive timber-cutting operations, which had drawn scrutiny under the prior Democratic one.[36] This betrayal ignited a personal and professional feud that spanned business competition, media warfare, and political maneuvering until Daly's death in 1900.[37] Underlying the conflict were stark differences in background and temperament: Clark, born to Scotch-Irish Protestant roots in Pennsylvania, represented an establishment figure seeking public acclaim, while Daly, an Irish Catholic immigrant from County Cavan, prioritized behind-the-scenes control and embodied a more combative, outsider ethos.[36] These cultural divides influenced hiring practices, alliances, and even fistfights among their employees, exacerbating ethnic tensions in Butte's diverse mining workforce.[36] In business, the rivals vied for dominance over Butte's lucrative copper deposits; Daly consolidated claims under the Anaconda Copper Mining Company after acquiring the rich Anaconda lode in 1883, while Clark expanded his holdings through strategic purchases, including preempting Daly's water supplies needed for the Anaconda smelter in the late 1880s.[38] Their competition extended to infrastructure, such as rival railroad spurs and urban utilities in Butte, fostering innovations but also ruthless tactics like claim jumping accusations.[1] Media became a battleground, with Daly launching the Anaconda Standard in 1889 to promote his interests and lambast Clark, countered by Clark's Butte Miner, which reciprocated with scathing editorials; these papers fueled public vitriol and shaped narratives in their favor.[39] Politically, the feud intensified over Montana's 1894 state capital selection, where Daly expended roughly $2.5 million lobbying for Anaconda—his smelter town—against Clark's $500,000 campaign for Helena; Helena secured the vote with 57% in the runoff.[40] The rivalry culminated in Clark's 1899 U.S. Senate bid, where the legislature elected him on January 16, but Daly's Anaconda allies exposed bribery involving $500,000 in payments to lawmakers, forcing Clark's resignation on May 1, 1900, amid federal investigations.[41] [42] This episode highlighted the feud's corrosive impact on Montana governance, prioritizing personal vendettas over policy.[41]
The War of the Copper Kings escalated after Marcus Daly's death on November 8, 1900, shifting focus to conflicts between F. Augustus Heinze and the Amalgamated Copper Company, backed by William A. Clark and Standard Oil interests.[3] Heinze, leveraging the 1872 federal apex law, claimed extralateral rights to rich copper veins originating from apices on his properties but extending under Amalgamated holdings, initiating hundreds of lawsuits by 1902 to seize control of lucrative deposits like those in the Leonard Mine.[5] These legal maneuvers, supported by a cadre of 37 lawyers and alleged judicial influence, allowed Heinze to extract ore illegally through tactics such as high-pressure hoses and dynamite to deter rivals, while courts issued conflicting injunctions that paralyzed operations.[5] In response, Amalgamated employed advanced underground geological mapping—pioneered by engineer Reno Sales—to disprove Heinze's vein continuity claims, securing victories in key cases like the Leonard Deeps dispute.[5] The conflict peaked in October 1903 when Heinze's miners pursued a vein into an Amalgamated property, prompting Amalgamated to shut down all Montana operations on October 23, idling approximately 15,000 workers and crippling the local economy to prevent ore theft and force legislative action.[46][3] Public outrage led to the passage of a "fair-trials bill" on December 1, 1903, enabling mine reopenings under neutral oversight, though underlying disputes persisted.[3] The protracted battles, spanning 1898 to 1906, involved over 100 active lawsuits at their height and intertwined political bribery with economic sabotage, ultimately exhausting Heinze's resources.[3] By 1906, Heinze sold his interests to Amalgamated for $12 million, effectively ending the war and consolidating control under the company, which later merged into Anaconda Copper Mining Company.[3] This resolution highlighted the apex law's vulnerabilities in complex vein systems, spurring innovations in mining litigation and subsurface documentation but leaving Butte's workforce vulnerable to corporate leverage.[5]
Overview
Definition and Principal Figures
The Copper Kings were the dominant industrialists in the copper mining industry of Butte, Montana, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who amassed vast fortunes by exploiting the region's exceptionally rich copper veins, often referred to as "the richest hill on earth." These magnates controlled key mines, smelters, railroads, and political influence, shaping Montana's economy and engaging in fierce competitions for market dominance.[6][4] The principal figures recognized as the Copper Kings are Marcus Daly (1841–1900), William Andrews Clark (1839–1925), and F. Augustus Heinze (1869–1914). Marcus Daly, an Irish immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1856, rose from mine laborer to owner by purchasing the Anaconda lode in 1880, founding the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1895, which became the cornerstone of his operations producing millions of tons of copper.[10][11] William Andrews Clark, born in Pennsylvania, prospected in Montana from the 1860s, transitioning to copper after initial gold pursuits, and developed extensive holdings including smelters and banks, serving as a U.S. Senator from Montana (1901–1907) amid controversies over his wealth's influence.[12][13] F. Augustus Heinze, a mining engineer who arrived in Butte in 1889 at age 19, rapidly built an empire through the acquisition of high-yield mines like the Rarus in 1893 and innovative legal tactics to challenge monopolistic practices, positioning himself as a disruptive force against established players.[14][15]Context of the Montana Copper Boom
The mining history of what is now Montana began with placer gold discoveries in the 1860s, which spurred settlement in the Montana Territory established in 1864 and initially focused on precious metals rather than base metals like copper.[16] By the late 1870s, lode mining operations in the Butte district shifted emphasis toward silver and lead, but incidental copper recoveries from these ores prompted early experiments with smelting; the first crude smelter for copper ore from the Parrot mine was constructed around 1867.[17] These initial efforts were limited by the complex sulfide nature of Butte's ores, which required substantial capital and technological adaptation to extract profitably, as the deposits consisted of mixed copper-sulfur minerals not easily separated by contemporary methods.[16] The copper boom accelerated in the early 1880s amid rising national demand fueled by the advent of the electrical age, including telegraph expansion and the commercialization of electric lighting following Thomas Edison's incandescent bulb in 1879, which necessitated vast quantities of conductive copper wire.[18] Butte's geological advantages—shallow, high-grade vein deposits in a compact area—enabled rapid scaling; production reached 9 million pounds in 1882, surging over 250% to approximately 31.5 million pounds in 1883, supported by four large smelters operational by 1884.[19] This output positioned Montana as the world's leading copper producer by the late 19th century, with Butte's district yielding ores cheaper to access near the surface compared to deeper Eastern or foreign deposits.[16][18] Industrialization and urbanization in the United States further amplified demand, as copper became indispensable for electrical infrastructure, plumbing, and machinery, transforming Montana's economy from gold- and silver-dependent to copper-dominated by the 1890s.[3] The boom industrialized Butte into one of the earliest examples of centralized large-scale mining operations, attracting investment and labor while leveraging proximity to rail lines for ore transport to smelters.[4] However, the volatile ore grades and environmental challenges of sulfide processing underscored the need for innovations in extraction and refining to sustain growth.[20]Rise of the Copper Kings
Early Mining Discoveries in Butte
The earliest recorded mining activity in the Butte area occurred in 1856, when prospector Caleb E. Irvine dug small pits in a gulch while transporting goods, marking the first attempt to extract minerals from the hill.[21] Systematic prospecting began in earnest in the early 1860s amid Montana's broader gold rush, with placer gold discovered along Silver Bow Creek around 1862–1864 by parties branching out from Alder Gulch strikes.[17][22] By 1867, these placer operations had produced roughly 75,000 ounces of gold, drawing a transient population of miners to the mile-high basin west of the Continental Divide.[20] However, the shallow alluvial deposits depleted rapidly, causing Butte's initial boom to falter and prompting a shift toward lode mining of hard-rock veins.[23] In the 1870s, silver-bearing quartz veins emerged as the primary focus, fueling a secondary boom through underground shaft sinking and drift mining.[17] Early operations targeted polymetallic ores containing silver, gold, lead, and trace copper, with mines like the Travona (initially the Asteroid, staked in 1864) yielding modest outputs despite limited gold success.[24] The Original Mine, another pioneer site from 1864, produced notable silver and copper from depths reaching 3,900 feet over its lifespan, exemplifying the district's complex vein systems discovered via surface outcrops and shallow pits dug by pre-1860s Native American or early explorers.[25] Copper, present in these ores as chalcopyrite and other sulfides, was initially treated as a byproduct, with the Parrot Mine's rich deposits prompting Butte's first crude smelter construction around 1867 by Irish immigrant Dennis Leary and associates to process high-grade material.[17] These discoveries revealed Butte's unique geology—volcanic-hosted veins in a porphyry system—but economic extraction lagged due to technological limits and low metal prices until the late 1870s.[20] Silver milling dominated through the 1870s, peaking around 1893, yet persistent copper assays in deeper workings hinted at untapped potential, setting the stage for the district's transformation.[26] Production data from the era underscores the modest scale: annual outputs remained under a few million pounds of copper until infrastructure like steam-powered hoists enabled deeper penetration of massive sulfide zones.[19]Establishment of Individual Empires
Marcus Daly, an Irish immigrant with prior mining experience in California and Utah, acquired the Anaconda lode claim near Butte, Montana, in October 1880 for $30,000, initially targeting silver but soon recognizing its immense copper potential after assays revealed high-grade ore.[27] He partnered with investors including George Hearst to expand operations, purchasing adjacent claims to consolidate holdings that formed the core of what became the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.[28] By 1883, Daly had constructed a reduction works and initiated large-scale copper extraction, shipping the first refined copper in 1884, which propelled his enterprise to produce over 10% of U.S. copper by the late 1880s.[29] In 1888, he founded the town of Anaconda and built a massive smelter there, capable of processing 1,200 tons of ore daily, vertically integrating mining, smelting, and transportation to dominate regional output.[30] William Andrews Clark, arriving in Montana Territory in 1863 amid the gold rush, initially prospected placer deposits before shifting to supplying miners and investing in quartz lodes as surface gold diminished.[31] By the 1870s, he focused on Butte's emerging copper veins, acquiring stakes in properties like the Original, Modoc, and Colusa mines through systematic claim purchases and development.[32] Clark incorporated the Montana Copper Company in 1887 and expanded into smelters and power generation, controlling key underground veins by the 1890s that yielded millions in annual production; his holdings included over 100 miles of mine workings by 1900.[13] Unlike Daly's centralized approach, Clark's empire emphasized diverse investments, including banks and railroads, amassing a fortune estimated at $100 million from copper alone by the early 1900s.[33] F. Augustus Heinze, a New York-born mining engineer, arrived in Butte in 1889 at age 19, leveraging a $50,000 inheritance to launch the Montana Ore Purchasing Company and develop efficient smelting for high-phosphorus ores.[34] He acquired the Rarus Mine in 1893 for $100,000, applying innovative underground mapping to delineate ore bodies amid complex geology, which proved highly profitable with output reaching thousands of tons monthly.[6] By 1897, Heinze had formed the Boston & Montana Company interests and built a smelter at Great Falls, Montana, processing up to 2,000,000 pounds of copper per month and challenging established players through aggressive claim staking and legal maneuvers.[19] His empire peaked with control of several Butte mines, generating revenues that rivaled predecessors before consolidation pressures in the early 1900s.[35]Rivalries and Conflicts
Daly-Clark Antagonism
The antagonism between Marcus Daly and William A. Clark, two leading copper industrialists in Butte, Montana, originated in political opposition during the 1888 territorial delegate election.[36] Daly, despite being a Democrat, supported Republican Thomas C. Power over the Democratic nominee Clark, likely to secure favorable treatment from the incoming Republican administration regarding his extensive timber-cutting operations, which had drawn scrutiny under the prior Democratic one.[36] This betrayal ignited a personal and professional feud that spanned business competition, media warfare, and political maneuvering until Daly's death in 1900.[37] Underlying the conflict were stark differences in background and temperament: Clark, born to Scotch-Irish Protestant roots in Pennsylvania, represented an establishment figure seeking public acclaim, while Daly, an Irish Catholic immigrant from County Cavan, prioritized behind-the-scenes control and embodied a more combative, outsider ethos.[36] These cultural divides influenced hiring practices, alliances, and even fistfights among their employees, exacerbating ethnic tensions in Butte's diverse mining workforce.[36] In business, the rivals vied for dominance over Butte's lucrative copper deposits; Daly consolidated claims under the Anaconda Copper Mining Company after acquiring the rich Anaconda lode in 1883, while Clark expanded his holdings through strategic purchases, including preempting Daly's water supplies needed for the Anaconda smelter in the late 1880s.[38] Their competition extended to infrastructure, such as rival railroad spurs and urban utilities in Butte, fostering innovations but also ruthless tactics like claim jumping accusations.[1] Media became a battleground, with Daly launching the Anaconda Standard in 1889 to promote his interests and lambast Clark, countered by Clark's Butte Miner, which reciprocated with scathing editorials; these papers fueled public vitriol and shaped narratives in their favor.[39] Politically, the feud intensified over Montana's 1894 state capital selection, where Daly expended roughly $2.5 million lobbying for Anaconda—his smelter town—against Clark's $500,000 campaign for Helena; Helena secured the vote with 57% in the runoff.[40] The rivalry culminated in Clark's 1899 U.S. Senate bid, where the legislature elected him on January 16, but Daly's Anaconda allies exposed bribery involving $500,000 in payments to lawmakers, forcing Clark's resignation on May 1, 1900, amid federal investigations.[41] [42] This episode highlighted the feud's corrosive impact on Montana governance, prioritizing personal vendettas over policy.[41]
Heinze's Entry and Challenges
Frederick Augustus Heinze arrived in Butte, Montana, in 1889 at the age of 19, shortly after graduating from the Columbia School of Mines with a degree in mining engineering.[14] Initially employed as a surveyor for the Boston and Montana Company, Heinze leveraged a $50,000 inheritance to launch independent operations.[43] In March 1893, he incorporated the Montana Ore Purchasing Company (MOP), in which he held a controlling 51% stake, to process ores from smaller producers excluded by dominant firms like Anaconda.[44] Heinze expanded aggressively by constructing a modern smelter for MOP, operational by 1894, which undercut Anaconda's pricing and drew ores from independent miners, eroding the incumbent's market control.[6] In 1895, he acquired the Rarus Mine for a modest sum, revealing rich copper veins that validated his geological assessments and propelled his wealth.[6] These moves positioned Heinze as a disruptor targeting high-grade, narrow veins overlooked by larger operators focused on broader low-grade deposits. Heinze's primary challenges arose from exploiting Montana's apex law, which permitted claim owners to pursue downward-extending veins originating from their surface outcrop—even into subjacent properties—sparking protracted litigation known as the Apex War.[2] From 1898, he initiated lawsuits asserting apex rights from properties like Rarus and Minnie Healy to extract ore under Anaconda holdings, halting the rival's production through over 100 court cases and injunctions.[45] This strategy, while legally grounded, provoked accusations of claim-jumping and led to mine shutdowns, economic disruption in Butte, and alliances shifting among copper magnates, culminating in Heinze's 1906 sale of assets to Amalgamated for approximately $12 million amid exhausted resources and political pressure.[6]The War of the Copper Kings
The War of the Copper Kings escalated after Marcus Daly's death on November 8, 1900, shifting focus to conflicts between F. Augustus Heinze and the Amalgamated Copper Company, backed by William A. Clark and Standard Oil interests.[3] Heinze, leveraging the 1872 federal apex law, claimed extralateral rights to rich copper veins originating from apices on his properties but extending under Amalgamated holdings, initiating hundreds of lawsuits by 1902 to seize control of lucrative deposits like those in the Leonard Mine.[5] These legal maneuvers, supported by a cadre of 37 lawyers and alleged judicial influence, allowed Heinze to extract ore illegally through tactics such as high-pressure hoses and dynamite to deter rivals, while courts issued conflicting injunctions that paralyzed operations.[5] In response, Amalgamated employed advanced underground geological mapping—pioneered by engineer Reno Sales—to disprove Heinze's vein continuity claims, securing victories in key cases like the Leonard Deeps dispute.[5] The conflict peaked in October 1903 when Heinze's miners pursued a vein into an Amalgamated property, prompting Amalgamated to shut down all Montana operations on October 23, idling approximately 15,000 workers and crippling the local economy to prevent ore theft and force legislative action.[46][3] Public outrage led to the passage of a "fair-trials bill" on December 1, 1903, enabling mine reopenings under neutral oversight, though underlying disputes persisted.[3] The protracted battles, spanning 1898 to 1906, involved over 100 active lawsuits at their height and intertwined political bribery with economic sabotage, ultimately exhausting Heinze's resources.[3] By 1906, Heinze sold his interests to Amalgamated for $12 million, effectively ending the war and consolidating control under the company, which later merged into Anaconda Copper Mining Company.[3] This resolution highlighted the apex law's vulnerabilities in complex vein systems, spurring innovations in mining litigation and subsurface documentation but leaving Butte's workforce vulnerable to corporate leverage.[5]