Great Men In American Mining

FOREWORD-At the SME-AIME meeting in Las Vegas this year, the SME Publications Board and the MINING ENGINEERING Committee decided that a fitting way of celebrating the United States' bicentennial would be to publish an article in ME covering the great men in American mining. After some discussion as to the inclusion of financiers -men such as William Randolph Hearst, J. Pierpont Morgan, etc.-the group agreed that the feature should be restricted to the "nuts-and-bolt people," e.g., mining engineers, geologists, mineral processing engineers. Thus, from the AIME All Institute Honors roll and from the SME Awards list, the group chose these 11 historical figures: Herbert Hoover, Daniel C. Jackling, Henry Krumb, James Douglas, Rossiter W. Raymond, Hal W. Hardinge, Seeley W. Mudd, Erskine Ramsay, Howard N. Eavenson, Robert A. Richards, Arthur F. Taggart. What follows is an account of each of these great miners' achievements and the problems they faced, and an assessment by some of today's mining leaders of the challenges that lie ahead.