Oral Histories

Harry M. Conger III was the first mining engineer to head Homestake Mining Company. Conger was born in Seattle Washington, 1930 and spent his childhood in the heart of the Depression. He began his engineering studies in 1949 and attended the Colorado School of Mines. After graduating in 1955 he went on to work for ASARCO at Silverbell, Arizona where he started as a junior engineer and was eventually promoted to shift boss. In 1964 he went on to work for Kaiser Steel at their Eagle Mountain iron mine where he participated in experiments with new equipment, explosives, and management of operations in the mine. Conger moved to the Balmer Coal Mine, Fernine, B.C. in 1970 and worked on sales contracts to Japan, project design and construction. In 1975, Conger became involved with the Homestake Mining Company where he went from vice president to chairman and eventually retired from the company in 1995. In this interview Conger discusses his childhood during the depression, early education, marriage, mining school, working to pay for school, mine operation and mining methods for ASARCO, company housing, project design and construction, Consolidation Coal Company, Midwest division, becoming vice president and chairman of Homestake, Homestake corporate organization, board of directors, government relations, international gold market, stockholder relations, project financing, mining law, mining camp social life, his life after retirement, becoming director of PG&E, Caltech and his community fund raising activities.