Portrait of Adolph Sutro

People/engineer, financier

Adolph Sutro

Adolph Sutro (1830–1898), engineer, financier, politician, from Germany. Linked to silver, gold.

The lucky break

Proposed a drainage and haulage tunnel for the Comstock mines in 1860, incorporated the Sutro Tunnel Company in 1865.1,2

The downfall

The tunnel was an engineering feat but did little to affect development of the mines by the time it was done.1,2

Legacy

Became mayor of San Francisco and used Comstock wealth to buy Bay City real estate.1,2

Story cards

Drag to turn the globe

Where next

Mines

Worked atComstock LodeA three-mile tunnel to drain the Comstock mines, finished after they had peaked.1

Sources

  1. Adolph Sutro Online Nevada Encyclopedia
  2. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons

Pictures on this page: Adolph Sutro by Brady.jpg, Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

Stories with these minerals

Lessons from historyBooms and busts: what mining history shows1859-2025Lessons from historyLucky breaks: the finds that almost did not happen1623-2009History of miningGold fever: the rushes that filled continents1848-1900Lessons from historyPrice shocks and the supply response1893-2025

All mining storiesThe world runs on rockAll mineralsMining by country

Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0); Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).