People/engineer, magnate

Alexander Agassiz

Alexander Agassiz (1835–1910), engineer, magnate, from United States. Linked to copper.

The lucky break

Born in Neuchatel, he visited the Calumet outcrop on the Keweenaw Peninsula and saw that its native copper conglomerate dipped at 35 degrees. He became superintendent of Hecla and Calumet in March 1867.1

Legacy

President of Calumet and Hecla from 1871 until his death. In 1883 he installed a giant engine able to lift 24 tons of rock from 1,200 metres. He gave about 500,000 dollars to Harvard from his copper fortune.1

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Mines

OwnedCalumet and Hecla (Keweenaw)The Swiss-born professor who ran Calumet and Hecla for 39 years.1

Sources

  1. 2026 Inductees from Mining's Past Mining Foundation of the Southwest

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.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.