Philip Deidesheimer
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Philip Deideshiemer
Philip Deidesheimer was born in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany in 1832.
He was educated at the Freiberg School of Mining before coming to America.
Along the way
At the age of 19, Philip Deidesheimer worked in the California Gold Fields in Georgetown.
Virginia City, Nevada
In 1860, Deidesheimer was hired to create a safe structure system at the Ophir Mine at the Comstock Lode in Virginia City.
He invented a system of supports for the mines, using heavy square timbers known as square set timbering.
Deidesheimer did not patent his innovation, and it became standard throughout the Comstock and other Western mines.
He was made Superintendent of the Ophir Mine by in 1875.
Timber Structure of the Comstock
Philip Deideshiemer continued his mining career at the Young America Mine in Sierra City, California, where he became rich — a fortune he eventually lost.
Deidesheimer also designed and supervised construction of a smelter in Granite County, Montana. The town was named Philipsburg in his honor.
His Comstock story was a subject of an episode of Bonanza in Season One.
Philip Deidesheimer died in 1916, in San Francisco.
Bonanza, the Deideshiemer story
Source
- Norton B. Stern, “Adolph Sutro,” Western States Jewish History 41/2.
- Phillip Deidesheimer, Online Nevada Encyclopedia, onlinenevada.org/articles/philipp-deidesheimer
