Los Angeles County
Biographies
DAVID
WILLIAM SHANKS
SHANKS, DAVID WILLIAM, Mining, Los Angeles, California, was born at Amelia Courthouse, Virginia, February 2, 1866, the son of David William Shanks and Juliet (Irvine) Shanks. He married Fannie Sydnor Cartmell of Winchester, Va., at Los Angeles, July 11, 1894, and after eighteen years of ideal married life, Mrs. Shanks died in the summer of 1912.
Mr. Shanks is descended from one of the oldest and most notable families in Virginia, various members being distinguished in the history of the country. Among these was his great-grandfather, Colonel William Cabell of Virginia, one of the distinguished men of Revolutionary days. Another notable relative of Mr. Shanks was his great uncle, Governor Francis J. Thomas, one of the most famous statesmen produced by Maryland.
Mr. Shanks received his preliminary education in public and private schools of Virginia, going from the Fancy Hill Academy to the Washington and Lee University of Lexington, Virginia. Leaving college in 1885, he went to western Colorado and there engaged in the cattle business for himself.
The Ute Indian Reservation on the Grand River had just been thrown open by the Government and Mr. Shanks was one of the first white men to settle in that part of the country. He was at that time just about twenty-one years of age, one of the youngest cattle men in the country, but, despite his youth, acted as captain of the round-up each year. He had under his command all the independent cattle men of the region, which embraced a territory one hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, while the cattle handled and shipped each year numbered many thousands.
He remained in the cattle business for about four years, then sold out his interests, in 1889, and returned to his home in Virginia. For the next two years he was engaged in the real estate and land business in the Old Dominion, with headquarters at Glasgow, Virginia. He was a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Rockbridge Company, a corporation capitalized at $600,000, which was at that time engaged in building the town of Glasgow. General Fitzhugh Lee, the famous Virginia warrior, hero of two wars, was President of the company, and Mr. Shanks was one of the active factors in this development enterprise.
In 1892 Mr. Shanks again went West, locating this time in Arizona, as General Manager of the Citrus Canal Company. For the next three years he was in charge of the operations of that company, which was engaged in the development of lands on the Gila River in Arizona. This has since become one of the richest and most highly cultivated sections of the State. He resigned his position in 1895 and early in the following year took up the study of mining. He was thus engaged for two years and was also occupied part of the time in the examination of mining properties, but in 1898, when news of the discovery of gold in the Klondike region reached the States, he joined the historic rush to the Far Northern fields. He was one of the pioneers in that region, which later became the mecca of fortune-seekers from every walk of life and from all part (sic) of the globe; he underwent the hardships which befell the men who first ventured into the country, including isolation from the rest of the world for months at a time, subsisting on inferior food, living in temperature so cold as to tax the endurance of the most hardy men, and various other sufferings which only those who experienced them can appreciate.
Mr. Shanks was engaged in gold mining in Alaska for more than a year and returned in 1899 to the States. He was appointed General Manager of the Tecopa Mining & Smelting Company, which operated a lead smelter near Death Valley, California. He owned a considerable interest in the company and was in complete charge of its operations for about a year. He sold out at the end of that time, however, and became associated with the late Mr. W. G. Nevin, General Manager of the Santa Fe Railroad System, in the examination of mining properties in the United States and Mexico.
After working with Mr. Nevin for about a year Mr. Shanks, in 1901, became Assistant Manager in Mexico of the Mexican Petroleum Company, one of the largest oil concerns operating in that Republic. He was engaged in the oil business until 1903, and then returned to mining, this time as General Manager of the Almoloya Mining Company, which controlled large properties in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico.
In this position Mr. Shanks became one of the best known mining men in the Republic of Mexico and also one of the best-informed men on the mineral wealth of the country. He managed the company’s properties until 1906 and left his position to become General Manager of the Rio Plata Mining Company, also located in the rich State of Chihuahua.
In connection with this latter company, of which he is General Manager at the present time (1913), Mr. Shanks performed one of the most notable feats in his career. The property, a valuable silver mine, had been purchased from a wealthy Mexican under the agreement that the purchasing company, of which Mr. Shanks was a member, should erect a complete stamp mill and reduction plant in one hundred and forty-eight days. It was the belief of the seller that this could not be done, because the property was located one hundred and ten miles from a railroad and every piece of machinery had to be transported by mules over a wild, mountainous country.
However, Mr. Shanks undertook to do the work and hauled the necessary machinery, amounting to over one million pounds, across the mountains. By almost superhuman effort he built the plant and had it in complete shape, ready for work in 147 days, one day ahead of schedule and then, in the presence of several prominent government officials of Mexico, started the plant in actual operation. The original owner of the property, who thought the work impossible of accomplishment and had expectations of the plant and property reverting to him, wept when he saw that his plans were shattered.
The Rio Plata Mine, starting in this impressive manner, has been in steady operation since 1906, and has proved one of the most valuable silver holdings in the entire Republic of Mexico, its yield to the middle of the year, 1912, approximating one hundred and ten tons of pure silver, which has netted the owners a profit of $825,000.
An interesting phase of Mr. Shanks’ operation of the Rio Plata property was his acquaintance with General Pasquale Orozco, the noted Mexican revolutionist, who helped Francisco Madero overthrow the Diaz Government and later, becoming dissatisfied with Madero’s conduct of the country’s affairs, joined the revolution against the latter. Orozco was a contractor in the mining fields of Chihuahua and was employed by Mr. Shanks at various times to transport large quantities of silver bullion from the Rio Plata mine to the railroad, whence it was shipped to the United States.
In November, 1910, Orozco was engaged by Mr. Shanks to haul a large consignment of silver from the mine to the shipping point. He left the mine on November 10, of that year, delivered the silver to the express company on the 16th of the month, and four days later took the field at the head of a band of rebels whom he led to victory at Juarez. Orozco and his men ignored the fortune in silver which had been entrusted to their care, but did appropriate the rifles with which Mr. Shanks had supplied him and his helpers for the purpose of guarding the shipment. These rifles he used in his subsequent campaign, which resulted in his capture of Juarez, this being the deciding battle which caused the downfall of the Diaz government and the elevation of Madero to the Presidency.
In 1912, when Orozco rebelled against Madero, his former chief, and took the field against him, Mr. Shanks had occasion to visit Mexico in connection with his mining interests. The country was in a state of war and Chihuahua, where the principal mines of Mr. Shanks’ company are located, was the center of strife. It was a hazardous undertaking to travel through the country, but Mr. Shanks passed through safely, being accorded safe conduct by General Orozco, who continued to be the friend of the American mining man.
Besides the Rio Plata Mine, Mr. Shanks is interested in other development work in the West, including large placer operations in Trinity County, California. In this field he is General Manager of the Trinity Gold Mining & Reduction Company and of the Trinity Consolidated Hydraulic Mining Company, and is also Vice President of the Trinity Exploration Company.
These various companies are among the principal operators in that part of the country and have erected, under the supervision of Mr. Shanks, three of the country’s largest and most thoroughly equipped placer mining plants.
In 1909, Mr. Shanks erected for the Trinity Gold Mining & Reduction Company a 200-ton cyanide plant which has given its owners $9000 a month net profit since a period covering nearly four years. In 1911 he erected a plant for the Trinity Consolidated Hydraulic Mining Company, at a cost of $250,000, and this is operating with 3000 inches of water under a pressure of 450 feet.
The three companies with which Mr. Shanks is connected control practically all the placer mines in the famous Weaverville District of California, one of the most productive districts of the kind in the world. It was first opened in 1849 and has been worked at various times and by different methods since. One property under Mr. Shanks’ supervision has been producing since 1854, but up to 1911 had only yielded about a million and a half dollars. Under the modern methods employed by Mr. Shanks its owners expect the yield to greatly exceed that in the next few years.
Mr. Shanks is regarded as one of the most efficient and successful men who ever operated in the gold and silver fields of the United States and Mexico and stands among the foremost developers of their mineral resources.
In 1912, Mr. Shanks and several associates organized the E. B. Salsig Lumber Company, with headquarters in San Francisco, Cal. This company purchased twenty-four thousand acres of redwood timber lands in the northern part of California and the development of this property is now numbered among the important lumber projects of the Pacific Coast, Mr. Shanks being one of the active factors in the affairs of the company.
Mr. Shanks has never taken an active part in politics, but numbers among his friends some of the leading statesmen of the American Continent. He has devoted his entire life to development work and is enthusiastic in the work of upbuilding Southern California.
Mr. Shanks first established his residence in the city of Los Angeles in the year 1893 and has lived there ever since. He has a handsome home in the fashionable West Adams district of the city. He is an ardent motorist, and has driven his high-power machine over wide stretches of the United States and Mexico.
He is a member of the Sierra Madre Club and the Gamut Club, of Los Angeles; the Toltec Club, of El Paso, Texas, and of the Chihuahua Foreign Club, of the city of Chihuahua, Mexico.
Transcribed
12-3-10 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 559-560, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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