John Dennis Ryan (October 10, 1864 – February 11, 1933) was an American industrialist and copper mining magnate. He served as President of the
Anaconda Copper Mining Company
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mi ...
and was a founder of the
Montana Power Company.
Biography
Ryan was born on October 10, 1864, in Hancock, Michigan
Hancock is a city in Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, Michigan, Houghton on the Keweenaw Peninsula. The population was 4,634 at the 2010 United ...
, in Copper Country
The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including Keweenaw County, Michigan, Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties as well as part of Marquette County. The area is so named as copper mining was ...
. He began selling lubricating oil in the western American states from a base in Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Colorado. Relocating to Butte, Montana
Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...
, he later became close to Margaret Daly, the widow of banking and mining magnate Marcus Daly
Marcus Daly (December 5, 1841 – November 12, 1900) was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three " Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.
Early life
Daly emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland, to the United States ...
, who had died in 1900, and he acquired an interest in 1901 in the Daly Bank and Trust Co. in Anaconda
Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized.
Description
Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used ...
, becoming its president. As such, he was closely involved with the management of Mrs. Daly’s fortune.
Marcus Daly had been heavily involved in copper mining, and was involved with a syndicate led by Standard Oil
Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...
principals Henry H. Rogers
Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29, 1840 – May 19, 1909) was an American industrialist and financier. He made his fortune in the oil refining business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil. He also played a major role in numerous corporations a ...
and William Rockefeller
William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (May 31, 1841 – June 24, 1922) was an American businessman and financier. Rockefeller was a co-founder of Standard Oil along with his elder brother John Davison Rockefeller. He was also part owner of the Anaconda ...
which created a new company, Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, and acquired Daly's Anaconda Copper Co., with Daly retaining a financial interest.
Amalgamated was in competition with Copper Kings
The Copper Kings were the three industrialists Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze. They were known for the epic battles fought in Butte, Montana, and the surrounding region, during the Gilded Age, over control of the local copper ...
William A. Clark
William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads.
Biography
Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1 ...
and especially F. Augustus Heinze. Clark initially sided with Heinze, but later sold his holdings to Amalgamated. Heinze’s mines in Butte were consolidated in 1902 as the United Copper Company
The United Copper Company was a short-lived United States copper mining business in the early 20th century that played a pivotal role in the Panic of 1907.
United Copper was incorporated in 1902 by F. Augustus Heinze, a copper magnate who had tu ...
. Thus, no single organization was able to monopolize copper extraction in Montana. In addition, although Butte was then the most prolific copper-mining district in the world, Amalgamated could not control other copper-mining districts, such as those in Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, and countries outside the United States. Ryan is reputed to have had exceptional negotiating skills. He convinced Heinze to walk away with abundant compensation.
Rogers and Rockefeller were then able to gain complete control of Butte's copper as they merged them all with Amalgamated. Ryan became its president, and was rewarded with significant package of Amalgamated shares. The "right hand" of John Ryan was Cornelius Kelley, a young attorney who soon was given the position of vice-president. The reorganized company was again named Anaconda, as it had been under Daly.
left, John Ryan as head of the Aircraft Board with US generals _and_James_Harbord">Tasker_H._Bliss_and_James_Harbord_in_Tours.html" ;"title="James_Harbord.html" ;"title="Tasker H. Bliss and James Harbord">Tasker H. Bliss and James Harbord in Tours">James_Harbord.html" ;"title="Tasker H. Bliss and James Harbord">Tasker H. Bliss and James Harbord in Tours 1918
Henry Rogers died suddenly in 1909 of a stroke, but William Rockefeller brought in his son Percy Rockefeller to help with leadership. During World War I, Ryan took leave from Anaconda to work for the government and the American Red Cross. He was named Director General of the Red Cross' War Relief Program in 1917.
President Wilson appointed Ryan as new head of the Aircraft Production Board in April 1918, succeeding Howard Coffin. Shortly after the war had ended in late 1918, Ryan resigned and returned to private business.[Anne Cipriano Venzon, Jerold Brown in ''The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia'', Routledge, 1999, ,page 520]
Kelley served as President of Anaconda in the interim. After the War, Ryan assumed the position of Chairman, with Kelley continuing as company president.
Under Percy Rockefeller, Ryan and Kelley, Anaconda acquired additional mining businesses outside the United States and by the 1920s, was expanding into new areas of activity which included manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
, zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
, aluminum, uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
and silver. It became the fourth largest company in the world.
He died on February 11, 1933, in Manhattan, New York City
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...
.
Legacy
In 1928 Ryan and Percy Rockefeller aggressively speculated on Anaconda shares, causing them to go up at first (at which point they sold) and then to go down (at which point they bought them back). Known today as a "pump and dump
Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operat ...
", at the time it was not illegal, and was actually quite common. The prices, under the pressure of a "joint account" set up by Ryan and Rockefeller of nearly a million and a half shares of Anaconda Copper Company, fluctuated from $128 in December 1928 to $40 in March 1929.
Smaller investors were completely wiped out. The results are still considered one of the great fleecings in Wall Street history. The American Senate hearings concluded that those operations cost the public, at the very least, $150 million.
When the U.S. stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, Anaconda suffered serious financial setbacks. Moreover, at the same time, copper prices started going down dramatically. Things at Anaconda worsened as the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
set in.
Ryan's Anaconda shares, once worth $175 each, had dropped to $4 at the bottom of the Great Depression. Ryan died in 1933, and was buried in a copper coffin. His protege', Cornelius Kelley, was named Chairman of Anaconda in 1940. In 1977, the company was purchased by Atlantic Richfield Corporation
ARCO ( ) is a brand of gasoline stations currently owned by Marathon Petroleum after BP sold its rights. BP commercializes the brand in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States an ...
(Arco) and operations shut down permanently in 1982.
Ryan is credited with consolidation of several regional electrical generating companies into a single entity, Montana Power Company. This providing Anaconda with low-cost electricity for its mines and smelters. As president of Montana Power, he fostered electrification of the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway and electrical improvements in the mines.
A 1933 Senate banking committee called the stock manipulating operations of Anaconda in the late 1920s one of the greatest frauds in American banking history and a leading cause of the 1930s depression.
John D. Ryan was named ninth in a listing of the 100 most important people in Montana of the 20th century.[http://www.missoulian.com/specials/100montanans/list/009.html] He was inducted posthumously into the National Mining Hall of Fame
The National Mining Hall of Fame is a museum located in Leadville, Colorado, United States, dedicated to commemorating the work of miners and people who work with natural resources. The museum also participates in efforts to inform the public ab ...
at Leadville, Colorado
The City of Leadville is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorad ...
in 2005. Carrie Johnson, a historian, wrote a story about Ryan's rise to power which was published in ''Montana – The Magazine of Western History''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, John D.
1864 births
1933 deaths
American businesspeople in metals
People from Hancock, Michigan
People from Butte, Montana
Anaconda Copper
American mining businesspeople
Businesspeople from Michigan