American miner and business leader Marcus Daly (1841-1900) founded the Anaconda Copper Mining Company and was a power in Montana politics.

Marcus Daly was born on Dec. 5, 1841, at Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan, Ireland. In 1856 he emigrated, settling first in New York City, where he found work as an errand boy and hostler. Five years later he moved to California and got a job as a mucker (clean-up man) in a gold mine. Despite his lack of education, Daly was intelligent and ambitious and soon had learned enough about good mining practice to become foreman of a mine on the Comstock Lode in Nevada. He remained in the Virginia City area from 1862 to 1868 and then moved to Utah, where he operated several silver mines for a firm of Salt Lake City bankers and mine owners.

Daly's big opportunity came when this firm sent him to Butte, Mont., to examine...