The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-07-25
mACKAY'S INTERESTS MANY
VAST WEALTH USED TO GOoE
- | ..- -
PURPOSE.
Bonanza King Was Originally a Car
perttAr-Did Not Know Extent
of His Own Weaits.

SSah Francisco, July .21.-Ricaard
ANRYasa close personal friend and form
S0ntdential secretary of the late
Jalr nv. Msnasay, says in an inter
s.slsas- tllI1 !. AackAy himself
9!gasHlgs aHSSOO 100 Xdf aat che
wasss1dk1laAs s1sis L2YnS
such orde3Ais S1a
EMere SO eBveftiIy made tha Hv9ry
lthing will go on just ID. thG1aSh ~
were still alive. He WEES yresidens
Ie9t the AackaysRsnnett Gaae com
@pany, president of the Portal Tele
graph company .and president ,of the
lprospective Pacific Commercial Gable
eempany. Vic nesideatNof the anew
S7.ooo,oo sng1pn1r spsnnery = Eonkers.
M Y, Of which Gaas A6preckles VI rres.
iii ant; director II. the Canadiaa Pa,
ciflc railway, director Of tAe southern
Paeific and dirs,cror Of the new mrD.
posed railroad fIunl Havana 10 4anti.
agode Cuba. Hevwas one OF - Nare-
est owners of the White Mob Copper
company of Maci1ay, Idaho, to which
the Union Pacific built a 9S-mile
brarfh. He was interested with c.
D. lane in the Wild Goose Mining
company at Nome. He was heavily in
~teresed in the .Sprague Elevator and
Electrical works Of New York.
Properties Vie Owned.
I'm Fan Francisco Mr.. Mackay-uwn-
ed hah the Nevada block, the Grand
opera house and the big lot at the
southeas t corner cof Market ald
Fourth streets. He owned. together
with Mood, the Bur Burr ranch IN
San Maleo county, the Coleman tract
OF about 1 500 acres in and adjoining
the city pf San Rafael and 5000 acres
of timbe, land in Mendocino county.
He ownai several Thousand acres of
wood la1hl in Nevada between Reno
and Truclee. In New York City he
owned the Postal Telegraph building,
a 16-story structure. and he was the
largest owrer Of the Commercial Ca
BILE compary's building, a 21-story
structure, and the property adjacent
to it. He owned the Territorial En-
terprise, a newspaper of Virginia City.
New. Mrs. Nackay owns the palatial
house in which he died in London.
He was a stanch republican, but be-
fore the civil war he was a democrat.
Time and again he refused to be sen
ator from Nevada and eschewed Of
flee. In religion he was a Catholic,
and two of his warmest friends were
the late Bishop Montague. who had
jurisdiction over northern C%alifornia's
mining region and a large part of Ne
vada, and Archbishop Riordan. Mr..
Mackay for a long while virtually sup
ported the Catholic Orphan asylum
and it's 100 children at Virginia, New.
In New York he maintained five Or
six free beds in the hospital in mem
DRY of his son Willie, who died half
a dozen years ago at the age Of 26.
Came From ireland.
"Mr. Mackay came to America from
Ireland when an infant with his faith
er, who vas afterward ~naturalized,
but along in 1867 James G. Fair. who
was Mr.. Mackay's partner and also
born in Ireland, couldn't remember
whether or not the elder Fair was
%naturalized, so to make sure Fair and
Mackay were n~aturalized together in
Virginia, New, by their friend, Sandy
w. Baldwin. who was United States
district judge. Mr.. Mackay was orig
inally a carpenter, and when he came
on to Comstock he was considered an
authority on mine timber"