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Show Successful Men of Utah ".; ','1 1'.L.-r.'.iij-.'i.nni1;. i:1: i,;:!'i,i,iil: iiiiiii'iiM,'!.,!!.!!-,1,1!, ii'i'i th .ii'.'M-ii,!;1 :iN!;TJi.-l';ll-,:llAilv:l::lHilT;.i',l.ill;:l:;;.;lli5 bbbbbbbbbHHbbbbbbb4, Ht? BmHHbbbbbbbbIbbbbbb llllllllllll Photo by'.Hust, Monroe Studio gf OHN HOLLAND LBAVELL, one of the best and most favorably known of the younger min-yo min-yo ing experts of this section of the country was born in Georgetown, Texas, July 9, 1883. Fol-W Fol-W JL lowing attendance at the grade schools of his native town, Mr. Leavell was a student at the Exeter Academy at Exeter, Massachusetts, and later enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. In his preparatory school Mr. Leavell took a prominent part in athletics and was for one year the captain of the track team. While at Boston, from which he graduated with the degree of B. S. in mining engineering, he was the president of his class. Following his graduation he was married and the honeymoon comprised a trip to Europe, where Mr. Leavell made a careful study of mining conditions. Soon after his return to the United States he engaged as the representative of eastern capitalists and was sent to Mexico to investigate several properties. Contracting typhus fever he was compelled to return to the United States. While Mr. Leavell has been a resident of Salt Lake for seven years his first visit here was made while he was a student at the Boston institution. Even prior to attending college he became deeply interested in mining and was employed with tho United States Geological Survey in the Black Hills of South Dakota and later to obtain some additional practical working knowledge he was engaged en-gaged in various capacities in the quicksilver mines of Texas. Mr. Leavell's first business venture in this city was in 1909 when he came hero and engaged in (Continued on page 46.) El II ?! JOHN HOLLAND LEA VELL H 5! H j (Continued from page 1.) H a partnership with Horace P. Kirk, under the firm H ' name of Kirk and Leavell. They took a lease on H the Boston Consolidated Sulphide mine and H worked the property successfully for eight H N months. Mr. Leavell then went to Cobalt, On-H On-H . tarlo, and took charge of the mill and metalurgi- H cal work of the Boston Mines company, remaining H a year and a half. While in Cobalt he designed H ' several mills for the camp of Gow Gander and H completed a considerable amount of testing work Hu for the Dome Mines at Porcupine as well as mak- HL , ing many examinations for other people in that Hi ' region. 1 Upon his return to Salt Lake Mr. Leavell and HI i Mr. Kirk again engaged in partnership. Their Hjj first big lease was on the Last Chance mine at H Bingham and after working the property success- Hl fully they became its owners, buying from the Hh Nevada-Utah company and later selling to the HP! United States Smelting & Refining company. Hi, Their first venture proving a big business suc- H cess, the partners leased what is known as the H'f Minnie mine of the Utah-Apex property at Bing- ff) ham, this lease being the largest deal of its kind MM to be made in this state in a number of years. H t While Mr. Leavell had several small opera- H , tions in Utah, Nevada and Idaho following the H Utah-Apex transaction, his next important piece H of work was the opening of the Aurora mines at H t Aurora, Nevada, of which he took active charge, H representing Jesse Knight. At Aurora he super- H ' vised the construction, of a 500-ton cyanide plant, m a mill which by the way holds the record in Ne- H vada for high extraction and low cost, a record H made despite the fact that the mill is 55 miles H from the railroad. Prior to the completion of the H mill the mine was purchased from Mr. Knight by the Goldfleld Consolidated, the transaction involving involv-ing about a million dollars. In 1914 Mr. Leavell and his partner purchased the Western Ore Purchasing company from Jesse Knight and after successfully operating the corporation cor-poration for a time sold it to the Merrill Metallurgical Metallur-gical company. Since the sale of the Western Ore Purchasing company Mr. Leavell has given most of his time to a deep study of zinc mining in the intermoun-tain intermoun-tain country and has been unusually successful in several operations involving such properties in this region. At the present time Mr. Leavell is a director and manager of the Midvale Minerals company and the president of thetPark City Mines which recently purchased the old American Flag property. prop-erty. He is also an officer and heavy stockholder in many other mining and business ventures both in this cit yand in other sections of the country. Mr. Leavell is the vice-president of the Western West-ern Metals company and also vice-president of the Big Four Exploration company. He is a member mem-ber of the directorate of the Western Ore Purchasing Pur-chasing company, is -one of the owners of the Copper Cop-per Basin mines, near Mackay, Idaho, and is also a director of the Merchant's bank of this city and of the City National bank of Temple, Texas. In the vicinity of the latter city, Mr. Leavell is the owner of a large cotton plantation while in the region of El Paso he owns several big tracts of land which are irrigated under the system of the famous Elephant Butte dam. |