The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-06-19
MILLIONS INVOLVED IN It
Mrs. Iva e. Tut Successfully Projects
and Manages Huge Electrical
Enterprises in Arizona. -

~ k0AOA IA NJ AAoSADo
Times, with more than passing III
terest. The lady mentioned in the
article formerly made her home ut
Billings and also on a ranch at Rapids,
and was we'll known to residents OF
this part of the valley, where she re-
sided a number OF years with her hus-
band. Although regarded as an ex-
ceptionally clever and bright woman
by all that knew her, o Of her
friends ever suspected her OF being
capable Of the things credited to her
by the Times. That paper says:
Mrs. Iva E. Tut OF Los Angeles has
more beauty than most women and
more brains than most men. He
beauty is OF a purely feminine sort,
her brain purely masculine. Just how
masculine is evidenced by the fact
that without any necessity for it she
chose for herself a business career,
and in that choice decided Upon me-
chanical and electrical engineering.
At the present time Mrs. Tut is en-
geged in a three-million dollar enter
prise in Arizona-the erection of two
electric power plants which will sup
ply power exclusively for mining pur-
poses. The project is a big one, and
bigger when n realizes that it
ear that the mining industry of Ar
iona will be revolutionized by the in
production of a power that will cost
but one-third as much as the power
now in use. '.
The scheme is Mrs. TUFTS own.
While on a visit to Arizona she dis
covered two unused water rights that
could be had at a price and a promise
to organize a company and proceed
with the storage of the water and the
development of electrical current.
This may sound easy, but it took a
lot of pluck for a woman single-handed
to take hold Of the proposition. Be-
sides pluck it took money and hard
work. But Mrs. Tut has grit, and,
best of all, she believes in herself.
She contracted for the water rights,
took out her engineering party, fol-
lowing the transit every step of the
way back into the mountains, where
few men and no women had ever gone
before, to the head of Fossil creek,
and returning with all plans formulat-
ed for the prosecution of the work.
Last, n by no means simplest,
was the financing of the enterprise.
The fact that she vas willing to risk
her W money in the scheme helped
Mrs. Tut in interesting additional
capital, and two companies were form
ed, one to erect a 6,OO0-horse power
plant, the other 1900. OF both com
panies Mrs. Tut is vice president
and general manager, and all that the
rest of the stockholders know about
the work is what she reports to them
from time to time. She has entire
charge of the construction work, with
headquarters at Prescott, Ariz., and
the directorate is so divided that
wherever Mrs. Tut happens to be,
whether at Prescott or Los Angeles,
there is a quorum and a meeting can
be held-"Where Macgregor sits,
there is the head of the table"
And such a Macgregor. She is not
ever aggressively tailor made, except
when she undertakes a SO or 2OO-mile
engineering trip. Then she can live
for a week, two, il need be, in a
smartly severe riding dress, forgetting
entirely the pretty gowns in which she
has a purely feminine delight.
Mrs. Tut would be the last in a
mile of women that one would take
for a business woman, that r%esolute,
aggressive, p%ersevering, shrewd per-
son that the minds eye pictures to fit
the word.
MY father was an engineer" she
said, land | was his favorite, his boy
he used to call me till by a second
marriage he had a real son. He was
a steamboat man on the Mississippi
and he sed to take me with him and
show me and talk to me about ma
chinery. / liked dolls well enough and
their pretty clothes, but l liked bes1
to play with cogs and pulleys or to
watch the shiny governor on an engine
whirl round and round in its dizzy
dance.
Il learned all about machinery, JUS
d as | learned to talk, without knowing
that l did. Instead Of fairy tales