William Boyce Thompson (May 13, 1869 – June 27, 1930) was an American mining engineer, financier, prominent in the Republican party, philanthropist, and founder of Newmont Mining. Thompson was one of the significant early twentieth century mine operators that discovered and exploited vast copper deposits that revolutionized Western American mining, and reaped for themselves tremendous fortunes. He currently has a school named after him in Yonkers, New York, called the William Boyce Thompson school.
History
Born in Virginia City, Montana Territory and raised in Butte, he was schooled in the rough mining towns of southwest Montana - but also at Phillips Exeter Academy and the Columbia School of Mines. During the 1890s he joined his father, William, one-time mayor of Butte, in Montana mining and lumber ventures, before moving east to become a mine promoter and stockbroker. His first success, the Shannon Copper Company – where he opened mines, built a smelter, and a railroad between them – is now part of Arizona's vast Morenci open pit, largest in the United States. Joining the brokerage firm of Hayden, Stone & Co. during the early 1900s he expanded his promotions: to Ely, Nevada, where he helped organize the Nevada Consolidated, which eventually became a part of the multinational Kennecott Copper Company (Guggenheims), of which he was a director; Mason Valley where he opened old copper mines and built his smelter town which was named Thompson, Nevada after him (now a ghost town); and most fortuitously in the 1910s opened the Magma mine at Superior, Arizona, which became a major copper producer; and the promotion of the incredibly rich Inspiration Copper Company at Inspiration, Arizona, near Miami, Arizona, during the 1910s (absorbed by the "Anaconda crowd" in 1912, but with Thompson retaining a 15% share); all made him fabulously wealthy. He had built a considerable fortune developing low grade, large scale porphyry copper deposits at the same time he got lucky with his high-grade Magma mine, which proved a phenomenal bonanza. He retired from the New York stock exchange in 1915 and later created his own holding company, Newmont Mining Corporation, to which he transferred his many mining interests. By the time of his death, Newmont Mining was a major factor in world copper production. Today, Newmont is the largest gold producer in the United States but continues the legacy of Thompson to explore and bring into production new ore deposits.
Thompson's promotions and financial holdings were scattered from Canada to Peru. They included Indian Motorcycle Co. He financed lead, zinc and coal mines, street railways, and handled the sensational Midvale Steel financing during the War when the stock rose from 290 to 500. He promoted the great Nipissing silver deposit at Cobalt, Ontario, Canada for the Guggenheims and reaped a quick million dollars return. He refinanced American Woolen Co. and Tobacco Products Co., launched Cuba Cane Sugar Co., got control of Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Co., organized Submarine Boat Corp. and the Wright-Martin Aeroplane Co. He was a director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. By the 1920s he was a director of Sinclair Oil and promoter of Gulf Sulphur, but all these were diversions from his main interest in mining copper.
In 1925, when planning to scout mining properties in South Africa, he became ill and returned home halfway through the trip, his last, lingering illness. Rotund, good-natured, bald, a tireless worker, a devoted family man, Thompson chewed tobacco, underpaid his employees (though equivalent to pay given by his contemporaries) and, as one of the greatest gamblers of his time, discharged them for gambling.
He was prominent behind the scenes in the Republican party, a presidential elector, party chair, as well as served on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1914 to 1919 and was twice (1916 and 1920) a delegate to the Republican National Convention. In 1921, he declined nomination for a cabinet post under president Warren G. Harding. He was head of and principal supporter of the President Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association from 1919 until his death.
In 1912, he built the W. B. Thompson Mansion at Yonkers, New York. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
During the 1920s, near Superior, Arizona, he built his winter mansion, Picket Post House, overlooking the beautiful desertscape and gardens he created at what is now the magnificent Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park. The Mediterranean style home is occasionally open for tours through the arboretum.