Philip Deidesheimer (1832 in Darmstadt, Germany - 21 July 1916 in San Francisco, California) was a German mining engineer who invented a system of supports for mines, using heavy timber "cubes" now known as square set timbering, that enabled skilled miners to open three-dimensional cavities of any size underground. In large openings, the cbes could be filled with waste rock, creating a solid pillar of wood and rock from floor to roof ("back" in miners terminology). [1] Deidesheimer created the system for the Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada in 1860. [2]The system, which was inspired by the structure of honeycombs, enabled mining of the large silver orebodies of the Comstock Lode, which were in very weak rock -- in miner's terms, "heavy ground." Deidesheimer refused to patent the innovation, [3] which was easily the most important mining innovation of 1860. [1]
Deidesheimer studied at the mining academy of Freiberg, Germany (see Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg), and was mining in Georgetown, California prior to being hired by W. F. Babcock, a trustee of the Ophir Mine in April 1860. As was common with the Comstock mines, the rock in the Ophir mine was soft and easily collapsed into the working stopes (cavities where ore is extracted). In addition, the presence of clay that would swell greatly upon exposure to air caused great pressures that the mine timbering of that day could not hold back. The square set timbering method devised by Deideshimer slowed the swelling action long enough for ore extraction, though with time the timbering was crushed by the enormous pressures found in the Comstock mines. Deidesheimer was made Superintendent of the Ophir Mine by mine owner William Sharon in early 1875. He was bankrupted by speculation in mining stocks in 1878.[4]
After the decline of the Comstock mines in the late 1870s, Deideshimer continued his successful mining career at the Young America Mine in Sierra City, California, where he was one of the five mine owners made rich over the five years of good production at that mine.[5]
Deidesheimer designed and supervised construction of a smelter in Granite County, Montana. The town that formed around the smelter was named Philipsburg, in honor of Deidesheimer.[6]
Philip Deidesheimer was the subject of the NPR radio program The Engines of Our Ingenuity in Episode 1901[7] and was inducted into the (USA) National Mining Hall of Fame. [8]
The development of his square-set timbering method was fictionalized in "The Diedesheimer Story" in season one of Bonanza.[9]