Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-03-10 | Page 44 | Engles Copper to Double Production

ENGELS COPPER TO DOUBLE PflODUm j Annual Report of Company; Stimulates Interest in Copperfield District. Special to The Tribune. COI'rERKIKi.D, New. March 9. The annual report of General Manager Paxton of the JCmkl-Is Copper company, which has recently been made public, is stimulating j interest in that great copper belt lying" on j the east side of the Sierra Nevadas which i has the Engels mine on the northerly end, the Nixon-Nevada mine on the south, with the "Walker mine and a fourth that is being df-veloped by Herb Humphrey of Reno in between. The report shows that the Engels mine produced last year 5,941,741 pounds of copper, cop-per, which was an increa.se of 38 per cent over the production for the previous year. There is little doubt that the output for this year will be at least double that of 1D17 as an immense new mill has been just completed at the lower mine, and the Indian In-dian Valley railroad, which connects the mine with the main line of the Western Pacific, is now operating with full equipment. equip-ment. During the year covered by the report $.",22,240 was spent for, improve- ments of plant and $179,000 for completing I the railroad. The gross earnings for the year were $1,307,123 ; the net earnings were S"90,007 ; dividends amounting to ?295,2",.'l were paid, and the cash balance I December 31, 1117, was $400,210. While there has been more or less mining along this belt since the days of the Comstock, it is only in the last three years that work has been prosecuted on a commensurate scale, with scientific management and modern methods. One of the striking features Is the fact that nearly all of the properties passed directly from the hands of the poor prospector to the big moneyed interests. This Is not usual, as the real big fellows seldom take over a prospect, no matter how promising they want a developed mine with the ore blocked out. Another striking feature is the fact that, while the general public has1 not yet fully-sensed fully-sensed the importance of this belt and is little represented In the ownership, the big fellows who are interested are scattered from Maine to Hawaii. Robert W. Shingle, Shin-gle, president of the Waterhouse Trust company of Honolulu, was one of the early investors in the Engels mine, getting in at 25 cents a share and seeing it go as high as $9. The Spreckels and Paxton : interests of San Francisco got in Ion the ground floor and Mr. Paxton is given full credit for putting the mine on such a substantial basis in so short a time. The Walker mine, which is also developing devel-oping wonderfully, is under the control of a subsidiary of the Anaconda Copper company, com-pany, owned by John D. Ryan, the Rockefellers Rocke-fellers and other financial giants. Among the prominent owners of the Nixon-Nevada are William H. Butler, former vice president of the American Tobacco company; R. E. Owen of the Owen Magnetic Motor Car corporation; C. B. Halsey of C. B. Halsey & Co.; John R McDonald, vice president Hibernia Savings Sav-ings bank, Boston; Samuel A. Cunningham, Cunning-ham, president Bankers Safe Deposit company. New York City; George H. Allen, Al-len, vice president Commonwealth Savings bank, director Manufacturers' National bank, Lynn, Mass., and George J. Gould, Jr., son of the railway magnate. Herb Humphrey, who is one of the wealthiest men in Nevada, is developing a mine on this same copper belt north of Reno which is very promising. That there I will be a number of big mines developed 1 along this belt is predicted by those who should be able to judge.