| William Cornell Greene | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 26, 1852 Duck Creek, Wisconsin |
| Died | August 5, 1911 (aged 58) Cananea, Sonora, Mexico |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Colonel W. C. Greene |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Cooper Mining Venture |
William Cornell Greene (August 26, 1852 - August 5, 1911) was an American businessman, who was famous for discovering rich copper reserves in Cananea, Mexico and founded the Greene Consolidated Copper Company in 1899. By 1905, William Greene was one of the wealthiest businessmen in the world.
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Greene was born in Duck Creek, Brown County, Wisconsin, on August 26, 1852. He was a son of Eleanor Cornell and Townsend Greene. He was educated at private schools and at the Chappaqua Mountain Institute in Chappaqua, New York.
Greene started off as a clerk for O. H. Angevin & Co. where he worked for three years before heading out to the western United States as a surveying party member of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He left the Railroad and then in 1870 staked out the site of Fargo, North Dakota before becoming involved with various businesses. He worked in both mining and cattle-raising industries across the southwest which included Montana, Colorado, Arizona, and Mexico.
Most notable is that William led an adventurous life while prospecting and ranching in the southwestern United States and Mexico. He was reported to have had numerous encounters with local native tribes and outlaws that roamed the areas where he prospected.
On September 15, 1899, William founded the Greene Consolidated Copper Company to develop copper rich resources he discovered near Cananea, Mexico.[1] Greene Consolidated became in a very short time one of the richest sources of copper ore in the world, with an average output over 70 million pounds per year. Accordingly, Greene himself soon became one of the wealthiest businessmen in the United States and based on his success soon created a number of other ventures; the Pacific Coast Coal Company, Greene Consolidated Gold Company, and the Cananea Railroad Company, Sierra Madre Land and Lumber Company, as well as many others. None of his other ventures ever produced the wealth found in the copper mines of Cananea.
The Lawson Panic of 1904 and mining strikes two years later were the beginning of the end for Greene Consolidated. The panic, started by Thomas Lawson, a popular investor and writer of his day, created a selling frenzy on Wall Street that sent the price of shares spiraling down. There was some recovery to the share price but the situation worsened in May 1906 when the company was under siege by hostile miners unhappy about unequal pay.[2] There was a call for help, and Greene Consolidated was quickly supported by the local Sonoran rurales as well as by the Arizona Rangers who entered Sonora against orders.[3]
In addition to the troubles with miners, many of Greene's backers in New York began to turn on him. They began to sell their shares which sent his stock price lower. Still, it was not until his own overspending in related businesses, combined with the aggressive business tactics of rival business men and competitors, forced Greene to succumb. In 1906 with dwindling finances and nowhere else to turn, he sold Greene Consolidated to Thomas F. Cole, John D. Ryan, and Amalgamated Copper.[1]
After selling Greene Consolidated, Greene was forced out of daily operations of the mine. He disappeared from society for the most part and lived a quiet life in Cananea until his death on August 5, 1911.[4] Frequent replacement of the smear campaigns and after becoming an inveterate traveler, either Mexico City or to the Far East. Greene is facing an insurrection in 1906 of its workers We see in May 1911 as advised by the Porfiristas actually change their residence to Los Angeles, sending his family ahead and staying alone in the house which seemed large military base, so well protected against the rebels of the revolution . So, come Monday morning, July 31, 1911 and as his custom, Colonel discusses his buggy drawn by two spirited horses coffee which one was the first time I hooked and heads Hotel Alexandria to shave with the barber who had his shop there. On the outward journey, the first-time horse behaves strange but that does not seem to care about the Colonel, but rears back and the driver starts to lose control, and suddenly a phone cord does fall off and hit with his humanity against a wooden fence of a house located across from the Catholic Church A carriage way, Greene collects and transfers it to his residence, where the doctor finds that the base has fractured skull, dislocated shoulder and several broken ribs. Days later complicated by pneumonia and from El Paso, Texas is left to come around a hospital train with a modern "artificial lung" but arrived minutes later, the patient expiring five in the morning of August 5. On his funeral, even seven decades past remain as the most impressive of all time, and after the religious honors in his home, the coffin is uploaded to your private car train - Green - and is brought to Los Angeles, California. Hundreds of black cowboys on horses and thousands of persons coming from all places make fence and give him the highest honors. Over the years, Charlie Wiswall, general business manager of the Colonel, and regarded as a man of "great heart," in 1918 married the widow Mary and the marriage was performed with a prenuptial agreement that Wiswall not have access to the assets of the estate and that he would be considered a permanent employee of Greene Emporium. Wiswall died in 1953 and Mary in 1955; Greene's son William was determined to bring his remains to Cananea, where he was buried in the heart of the city's cemetery in 1956.[5]