John C. Alexander Wood Sample

Collection — sc_box: MTU 2, Folder: 9-10

Identifier: MTU-136

Staff Only

Collection Scope and Content Summary

Wood sample, circa 1936, of John C. Alexander, a 1927 graduate of the Michigan College of Mines (now Michigan Technological University) in Houghton, Michigan. Sample of guijo wood, cut from a wall plate of the Longos mine shaft in the Philippines, dewatered by the United Paracale Mining Company. Includes inscription on wood "Piece of Guijo Wood was cut from a wall plate of Bongos [probably Longos] shaft, an English Mining Co. sunk this shaft 47 years ago, but were driven out by the Insurrectos [sic]. The shaft was flooded and remained so for 46 years. The United Paracale Mining dewatered this shaft and found its timber in perfect state of preservation. In March, 1936 I made an important Gold discovery on this property. JCA.”

Dates

Circa 1936

Access

Available for use in the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

Biography

John C. Alexander, born in 1900 in Crystal Falls, Michigan enrolled in the Michigan College of Mines (now Michigan Technological University) in Houghton, Michigan, in 1924. Graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1927 he was employed in Superior, Arizona as a shift boss by 1931. By 1936 he had joined the United Paracale Mining Company in the Philippine Islands, where he was apparently interned in Manilla during World War II. By his own account he made an important discovery of gold on the company's property. In 1948 he left the United Paracale Mining Company to accept a position as mine manager for the Societe la Tiebaghi in New Caledonia, where he was killed in a mining accident at the Tiebaghi mine in 1951.