Background
Marcus Daly was born on December 5, 1841 in Cavan, Ireland. He was the son of Luke and Mary Daly.
Marcus Daly was born on December 5, 1841 in Cavan, Ireland. He was the son of Luke and Mary Daly.
As his family was very poor, Marcus grew up with little opportunity for education.
At the age of fifteen Daly came to America. He worked for a while around New York, then went to California where he became a miner. Employed as a pick and shovel man, he soon became an expert on mining.
After a time he entered the service of Fair and Mackay in Nevada where he displayed ability enough to attract the attention of Walker Brothers, and in 1876 they sent him to Butte, Montana. There he purchased the Alice Silver Mine in partnership with them, but soon sold his interest for $30, 000.
Geologists had declared the Butte mines to be of little value. Daly, however, believed that the unusual formation of the country concealed rich beds of ore.
He went to California to seek aid from some old friends there. He persuaded George Hearst and others to share his convictions and they bought the Anaconda Silver Mine. It was not long before the silver gave out, but beneath it was a rich vein of copper. Daly closed the mine and quietly bought up others in the neighborhood and then started the great coppermining operations that were to make Butte and the Anaconda Copper Mining Company famous.
He mined the coal for his furnaces and acquired huge tracts of timber where he cut the wood for his mines.
In twenty years he built up a fortune of many million dollars. His feud with William A. Clark dominated Montana society and politics from 1888 to 1900.
Daly and Clark had been friends, but their struggle for control of the copper mines of Butte had made them bitter enemies. Clark had control of the Butte reduction plants and Daly built Anaconda with its huge smelter a few miles away. Both men had business and political interest in Missoula, but when Clark gained an advantage, Daly built Hamilton, fifty miles up the Bitter Root, and projected a railroad from Butte and Anaconda, through this town, to the Pacific, with the idea of making it the commercial center of western Montana.
Both men were Democrats, and both built up machines of their employees and of business men who were dependent upon them.
Daly’s genial and generous disposition, combined with a reputation for courage and loyalty, gave him popular favor over the reserved and elegant Clark, who was accused of timidity and a willingness to throw over his friends when they were no longer useful. Daly would never seek office for himself, but he loved to exert influence in politics and for ten years he endeavored to thwart Clark’s ambition.
In 1888 his followers brought about Clark’s defeat as candidate for territorial delegate; in 1893 they prevented his election as senator; and when Clark finally secured his election as senator in 1899, Daly gave $25, 000 to carry the fight to the Senate Committee on Elections whose adverse report forced Clark’s resignation.
Daly gave lavishly for any cause he favored. He started the first state Democratic campaign with a donation of $40, 000, and followed this with more.
He apparently spent more than a half million dollars to make Anaconda the state capital. In 1896 he gave $50, 000 to the Bryan Campaign fund, out of a total of $350, 000 from all sources (statement of J. M. Dixon of a conversation with Senator J. K. Jones, Bryan’s campaign manager). He built a house in the upper Bitter Root Valley, where he developed one of the finest ranches in the West. He kept in close touch with the men with whom he had worked as a miner, and brought many of them to Butte and gave them a start to wealth. He was interested in his employees and gave higher wages than were current.
Daly built a railway from Butte to Anaconda. He established banks, built power plants and irrigation systems, and encouraged other enterprises. Daly also established the Anaconda Standard and made it the best paper in the state. His last achievement was the combination of a number of mining and lumber companies into the Amalgamated Copper Company with a capitalization of $75, 000, 000.
Daly was an honest man of big generousity. He never forgot those people with whom he started working as a miner and after he became rich he suggested them great job opportunities and highest salaries in the sphere.
Daly planted orchards and gave a start to fruit-growing in the valley.
His pet extravagance was fast horses. Some of these were among the fastest in the world and he showed great pride in their triumphs on the track.
One more his hobby was growing orchids and other flowers in his house garden.
In 1872 Daly was married Margaret Evans.
