Evening star., 1902-03-15
A NAPOLEON|C STUDY
A Fighter Of Oil Kings and
Copper Trusts.
FREDERICK A. HEINZE
HAS BEEN A MINING ENGINEER
AND REPORTER.
His First "Hole in the Ground,
Made Him a Mil
Gonaire.
Copyright. 19O2.l

! self remarkable. Many men have fought
| this company only to go down in defeat
/ at the end. But that one man should DEFY
| TINS enormous aggregation of dollars do it
/ successfully and heretofore win every phase
| OF the contest, is astonishing 1t is more
| 1t is unparalleled in financial or industrial
| history. Yet this is what Frederick Angus
| tus Heinze CHine-say) Of New York and
| Butte has done and is now doing It's a
! 400 to l shot, and that one is still much in
| the race. 1t has been five-year run with
| handlcaps every week and hurdles at every
| month.
| HeinZe's company, the Montana Ore Pur-
| CHASING Company, has capital stock Of
s2,Ooo.0oO. The Standard Oil at market
values has $3.50 1000 and it's offshoot
Amalgamated Copper, has s135,AODO0 Two
| millions matched against So0000,OeO; one
| against a score of the richest and shrewd-
| est flnancierS in America. Thus far the one
man has been shufIiing the cards, cutting
| them, and most of the time dealing the
hands.
| Henze, who is virtually the NJ 0. p
company, was born in New York in the
| latter sixties. His father was q merchant
| IN easy circumstances. At thirteen HeinZe
| ran away and was traced to Germany. An
uncle at Heidelberg was cabled to catch
the truant and send him home He met
| the frankly earnest boy and instead of
lecturing him, praised him and kept him
two years. Heinze returned to New York
| finished the preliminary studies and enter
ed Columbia. His father designed him for
bellies lettreS HenZe went to the School of
Mines and to the disgust of his family re-
fused life of ease and affuence and left
for the west AT twenty-five he drifted to
Butte, then taking rank as copper camp.
In choosing mining he sought a channel
to wealth where expert knowledge and
brains counted far more than mere money.
Success came with quicker compensation
than in any other calling.
A Hard Worker
IIe became a mining engineer at a mod
crate salary in one of the big mines and,
in overalls and laced cowhides, he grubbed
patiently 1000 feet beneath the surface.
He studied the trend and dip of the copper
veins and compared his notes with the sur
face location of other claims. He earned
his salary by the excellence of his routine
| work. His absorption of the hidden know
ledge OF the copper bodies he buried in
memory. At night he was a hale fellow
well met. seemingly indifferent to any fu-
ture above q mine management: by day,
alert and intent perfecting his know
ledge of the underground and undiscovered
country.
When his knowledge satisfied him. he
felt the need Of capital. Brains and ability
We're his. New York had capital. He threw
and sought capital? No. He became
reporter on mining journal He could
write well and comprehensively of the
western mines and his vocation brought
him in daily contact with men of mines and
| millions. 1t was this experience which
made him a human querst. He will ask
twenty questions, and when he has extract
ed what he wants, say GOOD day" ur-
| banely. And still he did not broach his
plans to capital. year passed and he in
herited $4,000. 1t was not enough. His
brothers received a like amount, and he per-
suaded them to embark with him. He Secur-
| ed some more money, incorporated his COM
| pany for million and had s25O.o0O in cash
paid in. He erected a nondeScript Smelter.
| 1t was composed of secondhand pieces Of
| machinery, but it reduced ores. He bought
some ore. received some consigr' nent,
cheapened the existing cost of reducing
| the ores, made fair returns to mine owners.
and made money. Then he bought an
abandoned and supposedly worthless mine
| He was laughed at by the seller and by
Butte. 1t was the old, old story, and the
| kid had paid good money for a hole in the
ground
He Knew His Ground.
| They forgot the hours of underground
| toll in adjoining mines. He knew the trend
| of the ore veins. He believed there were
| ore shutes with millions under his feet. In
| a month he found them. and was a million
| aire His s25OOOO made 100000 in divi-
| dends in one year. Then he bought another
worthless mine and made it swell his bank
| account and his success became Heinze's
| luck. But 1t wasn't 1t was in his blood,
and there was something due to this tWen-
| ty-seven-y -year-old boy-man himself. AS he
| grew older his wealth increased Did he
| find fraction of an acre or less near a
! good mine, he bought it. and If a vein
apexed (come to the surface at its highest
poinD, he mined it, regardless of other
| lines because the law said a man could
| follow an apex where it led him. By this
| time location ana cross-location and relo-
| ca ton made mining map of Butte resem-
| Bile nothing much as a criss-crosS OF
| lines thrown haphazard on a sheet of white
| paper, representing original locations. re-
| loca atoms and mining claims, no two of the
same size and shape.
| BY this time, 1896, Heinze was rich. and
| his Butte business now well organized. he
| left in charge of his manager, while he
The sleepy mountains of the Kootenay
| shoulderng the upper Columbia thou
sand miles from sea had attracted the
| ever-restless American prospector. And
| when he came the snow buried Indian
| trailed southern British Columbia sprang
| into life. The winding DeWdney trail.
| where for fifteen years pack horses had
| carried supplies to isolated British OutpostS.
| became highway for eager miners. Ross
| land carved from the pine forests on a
| mountain side, grew busy with 1000 peo-
| pie and the names LIE Ro Center Star and
| War Eagle reached Toronto and Butte.
| Heinze came on horse back and saw noun
| tains of ore that to bring cash must pass
| through a smelter. He built one at Trail,
| the mines. Then he had to advance $780,
| 900 to pay for labor to get out the ore.
| Freight by team was 81 a ton, and uncer-
| tain in delivery and quantity. He built
| fourteen miles of tortuous. narrow gauge,
| climbed 1000 feet and carried the ore.
| Brigham Young's narrow gauge from Salt
! Lake south supplied rolling stock. The
| prophets former private car carried alike
| miner, schemer and capitalist to the BOOM
| ing camp. In a year the road repaid its
cost But the smelter barely held its
own. The Rossland ores were in the worst
degree refractory. and cost endless exper-
| imen enting ere they yielded their treasures.
Trouble in Butte.
Then trouble commenced in Butte. Re
| port said Heinze was losing money in Brit
| ish Columbia and was badly tied up. Liti-
! cation that threatened his Butte holdings
was pregnant. 1t was intended to crush
Heinze while involved across the border.
He sought and lost cash subsidy from
| the Ottawa government to aid in building
| a hundred miles of new railway that would
! open 100000 square miles of new country.
| This angered the Canad an Pacific He was
encroaching on their domain. and taking
| their perquisites. They threatened to cut
| Off his shipments. to parallel his road
and ruin his smelter by making lower rates
/ IInyn 1asc cl,aN