People/magnate, engineer

F. Augustus Heinze

F. Augustus Heinze (1869–1914), magnate, engineer, financier, from United States. Linked to copper.

The lucky break

Went to Butte in 1889 as a mining engineer. In March 1893 he set up the Montana Ore Purchasing Company, held 51 per cent of it, and opened a smelter at Meaderville in 1894 that competed directly with Anaconda.1,2,3,4

The downfall

After about a decade of conflict with Anaconda and Amalgamated Copper he was forced to sell most of his Montana properties in 1906. In October 1907 a plan with his brothers and Charles Morse to corner United Copper stock failed and helped set off the Panic of 1907.1,2,3,4

Legacy

Depositors ran on banks linked to the group, including the Knickerbocker Trust. United Copper failed in 1913 and Heinze died in 1914.1,2,3,4

Story cards

Drag to turn the globe

Where next

Places

Worked atButteA young engineer took on Anaconda in Butte's courts and out-bid it for mines.1

Sources

  1. Heinze, Frederick Augustus (F. Augustus Heinze) Encyclopedia.com (reprinting a publisher's reference work)
  2. Montana Ore Purchasing Company records Archives West (Orbis Cascade Alliance)
  3. United Copper and the Panic of 1907 Library of Congress, Inside Adams blog
  4. Wikidata item Q442136

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.