John Barry "Black Jack" Newman (1862 – 1928) 

"Nose for Ore"

2020 Inductee from Mining's Past

“Black Jack” Newman was born in Chorna, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He immigrated to the US around 1876 and worked at various jobs as he traveled west; pushing coal cars in Pennsylvania, working in the copper mines of Michigan, and working on the Texas & Pacific railroad in Texas. By 1883, he arrived in Globe, Arizona and hired on as a mucker at the Old Dominion Mine.

He had a ”nose for ore” and staked or acquired numerous claims in the area west of Globe. J. Parke Channing, who would become a major force in the development of the Miami Copper Company, liked some of Newman’s claims and optioned them. This required sinking a shaft to verify Channing’s belief in the presence of secondary copper enrichment.

Newman, superintendent for sinking the shaft, was so convinced there was ore that he disregarded orders telegraphed to stop work, hitting ore a day later. In less than four years from the initial discovery, Miami Copper Co was in production. It shares the honor with the Ray Mine as being Arizona's first large scale porphyry copper producer.

Newman had other claims in the area that became part of the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co.

Newman invested money from these successful mining ventures into building apartment houses, and the Dominion Hotel in Globe. When asked why he built a four-story brick hotel in a shabby area, he replied it was necessary to have a place to wine and dine potential investors.

By 1910 Newman moved to Santa Monica California to give his children a better education. Here, he invested in real estate and farming. He died in Santa Monica in 1928.

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