Mining business
In 1878 De Lamar came to New York, and when mining fever struck Leadville, Colorado, he went west and bought several claims. That same year he took a private course in chemistry and metallurgy from a professor from the Chicago University. In November 1879 he purchased the Terrible Lead Mine in Custer County, Colorado for $5500. It was bought from the discoverers of the deposit, John Bunyan Rains and John Spaulding. He operated it until 1885, at which time he sold to the Omaha & Grant Smelting and Refining Company for $130,0000, a handsome profit. He then obtained control of a mountain six miles west of Silver City, Idaho. Many large veins of gold and silver were discovered on the property, and he sold a half interest, after he had taken $1,500,000 from the mine, to the De Lamar Mining Company of England for $2,000,000.
From Idaho, he turned his attention to the booming Cripple Creek district of Colorado. In 1893, De Lamar, together with Edward Holden, Charles M. MacNeill and George W. Peirce of the Golden Fleece Mine, had organized a company for starting the first barrel-chlorination plant in Colorado, and were about to rehabilitate an old stamp-mill a short distance below Victor, known as the Lawrence plant. The conventional stamp mill in which the ore was crushed and the gold amalgamated with mercury was almost useless in refining Cripple Creek ore. At first, the process didn't work well, but it was improved by John Rothwell, a consultant who was the foremost expert on chlorination at the time. A young Daniel C. Jackling was hired as assayer through Charles MacNeill, the start of his noted career. In December 1895, the chlorination mill at Lawrence burned to the ground. De Lamar by then had transferred his focus to Mercur, Utah.
During 1896–97, De Lamar acquired claims within the gold district of Mercur and had built a 500-ton cyanide process mill, later expanded to 1,000 ton, which was said to be the largest of the time, to work the mines. Jackling followed De Lamar to Utah as mill superintendent. During his Cripple Creek and Mercur operations years, he also invested in gold mines in Lincoln County, Nevada, that from 1896 to 1902 paid him $8,000,000 in profits. At the Delamar Mine, Nevada, the barrel-chlorinating process was installed in 1895 and soon later discarded in favour of fine grinding and cyaniding.
In 1902, De Lamar sold his Mercur and De Lamar, Nevada mines, for one million dollars each. To his discredit, the operation in the mill at De Lamar created such a fine particulate during the milling process that many workers were killed by inhaling the dust, the focus of medical study and accusation of De Lamar's inconsideration of his laborer's safety.
In the late 1890s, De Lamar had turned his attention to copper. While at Mercur, De Lamar became interested in the Bingham Canyon copper mines and sent Jackling and others to inspect the deposit. De Lamar would eventually acquire a portion of the canyon, but sold out to his former Cripple Creek partners, MacNeill and Spencer Penrose who would reap a fortune in copper at Bingham Canyon, Utah, with Jackling as their manager. In July 1899 De Lamar also purchased the Bully Hill mines, in the Shasta copper district of California, and financed the big copper smelter which was operating near there. A railroad project was installed to connect level 3 of the mine with the smelter, and the project became informally known as the De Lamar Railroad, which became part of the Sacramento Valley and Eastern Railway. Like his earlier operations, De Lamar unloaded the California property for a quick profit. Also, in 1901 he invested in mines near Yerington, Nevada and formed the Bluestone Mining & Smelting Company, one of his smaller yet still profitable operations sold after his death.
He next turned to Canada, taking over the great copper nickel lodes of Sudbury, Ontario and organized the International Nickel Company (Inco), a multinational mining corporation. In 1905 he and his International Nickel partners bought into the Nipissing Mine, located in Cobalt, Ontario, 300 miles north of Toronto. In May 1906, they hit the famed "Silver Sidewalk," a vein of nearly pure silver. De Lamar and his partners reportedly unloaded the property for $10 to $20 million. His next move was into the rich Porcupine district of Canada, where he became president of Dome Mines, a long-term gold producer. As Inco, Dome and his other operations reached peak production during the high mineral market prices of World War I, he was one of the wealthiest men in America at the time of his death in 1918.
Three former mining cities, which are today ghost towns, Delamar, Nevada, De Lamar, Idaho, and Delamar, California, were renamed after him; the last is now under water of Shasta Lake. The Delamar Mountains, a mountain range in Lincoln County, Nevada, as well a mountain summit in San Bernardino County, California, were also named after him. Delamar Mountain in California climbs to 8,376 feet (2,553 meters) above sea level.
