Background
Frederick Worthen Bradley was born in Nevada County, California in 1863. His parents were Henry Sewell and Virginia (Shearer) Bradley. His father was a civil engineer.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Frederick Worthen Bradley
Edit ProfileEducation
Carrying on his studies at various schools, Frederick Worthen entered the University of California in 1882, taking the mining engineering course.
Career
Owing to the death of his father Frederick Bradley left after two years and became assayer at the Eagle Bird mine, Nevada County, and the next year took charge of the Spanish mine. Taking advantage of favorable circumstances he made the then astounding record of mining and milling gold ore for sixty-five cents a ton. After three years he was called to the Bunker Hill & Sullivan mine, Idaho, as assistant to Victor Clement, its manager, whom he succeeded in 1893.
In the course of the next few years he not only became president of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Company and greatly enlarged the scope of its operations but took charge of the company's gold-mining interests on Douglas Island, Alaska.
He also became a director of various banks and insurance companies, of the Pacific Wire & Steel Company, and the Ocean Shore Railroad Company. In later years of his life he served as a president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers since 1929, and for a time as a treasurer of the California Academy of Sciences.
He died at his summer home at Alta, California, after a period of failing health. He had barely escaped assassination in 1905.
Achievements
-
After becoming a president of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Company, Bradley greatly enlarged the scope of its operations and promoted the attempt to work large low-grade deposits on the mainland near Juneau, and after long and patient persistence he brought the enterprise to conspicuous success when all backing for it except his own had largely disappeared. This was his outstanding technical achievement, and for it he was awarded the Saunders gold medal of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1932, but he was also active in the development of gold dredging in California, in the development of the Nevada Consolidated copper mine, and in quicksilver and petroleum enterprises. He was president of the Tacoma Smelting Company from 1898-1905, president of the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company from 1900, president of the Treadwell, Mexican and Alaska United Gold Mining Companies on Douglas Island from 1911, and was a San Francisco bank director as well as director of the First National Bank of Juneau. In addition he found time to serve as trustee for both the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association, and the Old People's Home of San Francisco, to support opera there, and to attempt to improve the standards of local journalism. He was also president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1929, a member of several technical societies, and for a time treasurer of the California Academy of Sciences.
Views
For many years he had opposed the Western Federation of Miners, and in the course of the troubles in which Governor Steuenberg of Idaho was murdered, Bradley was injured when his house in San Francisco was bornbed.
Membership
Bradley was a member of the Young Men's Christian Association and of the Young Women's Christian Association.
Connections
Frederick Worthen Bradley was married to Mary Parks, at Jackson, California, on September 26, 1901. They had four sons: Frederick Worthen, James Parks, Henry Sewall, and John Davis.
References
-
Born
-
Died
July 6, 1933 (aged 70) -
Nationality
American -
Religion
Christian