Arizona republican., 1902-02-10
COPPER KING OWNS NO MINE.
How a Shrewd Montana Laborer
 Amassed a Fortune.

A copper king. without owning a cop per mine, is the somewhat novel posi- tion occupied by Michael McGinty of this city. He is a millionaire in all that the world implies, yet he owns not foot of mining ground, and his em- ployes are fewer than twenty-five. What he does not know about ores. levels. shifts and the like would All a big book, yet Michael is recognized as one of the copper magnates of the state.
 All this because he has brains and Is shrewd.
 Many years ago McGinty was a com mon Iaborer. employed in one of the big copper mines. He drew his s3.50 a day and was as happy as the other miners. Now his income is well up in the tens of thousands and he has not the worry of fighting lawsuits. as have the real mine owners of this district.
 McGinty's fortune came from bat tered tin cans. scrap iron, brains and native shrewdness.
 In all Butte you cannot find a tin can lynig around, nor will a long search reveal a piece of iron larger than nail that is going to waste. These things are valuable in Butte, and it was the brains of McGinty that made them so.
 There was a time when the streets of the greatest mining camp on earth" were filtered with tin cans. because all of the food that is consumed in the city is Of necessity taken in on trains, and most of it is in tins. Now all is changed, and the change has brought fame and fortune to McGinty.
 In the early days of Butte the owners of the various mines were greatly troubled by the water that continually welled up in the various shafts. To keep it pumped out was an expensive matter and for a time more than one of the mines was abandoned.
 Michael McGinty, employed as n la borer in one of the mines, was a happy go-lucky fellow, always ready to quit when the whistle blew for the men to go off shift. No matter where he was he dropped his pick the instant the first note of the big siren was heard. If his pick was in the air, all well and good he let it fall with a crash. If the head was buried in the earth, better still; it nattercd not to the careless workman.
 One night when the whistles sounded Michael had just dropped the head of his pick into the small stream of water that ran through the mine, in an en- deavor to remove an obstruction that threatened to dam the little brook of hot water. The next morning when he went on shift again, he was astonished to find the iron head covered with thin coating of pure copper.
 For a time the workman was lost in thought. Then he walked up to the shift boss. said he was going to quit stalked away from the mine and called upon a banker of the town with whom he enjoyed confidential relations. Next day he announced that he was going to put in bid for pumping the water out of the mines and that he hoped to se- cure the contract.
 And secure the contract he did, tor his bid so low that the mine offi- cials laughed at their former employe who. they figured, would lose many thousands of dollars a year in under taking to keep the mines free of water
 Michael said nothing, but began put ting in machinery to remove the water. Next he built on the hillside, midway between the mines and the city proper series of large vats or tanks, which he filled with old tin cans and pieces of iron of all kinds. To all questions he made but one reply:
 ''I know what I am doing'
 His next move was to direct the water from the mines into these vats, where it trickled over the tin and the iron as it rolled on down the hill toward the flats below. Every month or six weeks the course of the little stream is directed into a second set of vats, while the old ones are cleaned out
 It is in this cleaning that McGinty made-and still makes-his money. The