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Biography / History

Louis Boyer Bentley was born in St. Louis, Missouri on October 28, 1869. His father was secretary of St. Louis Lead and Oil Company. In 1874, the family moved to Hastings, Michigan, where the senior Bentley went into the lumber business with his brother. Bentley attended school until 1887, when his father died and his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Bentley secured a job with an electric construction company in Grand Rapids. In 1891, Bentley returned to Hastings and organized the Hastings Electric Light and Power Company. Bentley married two years later.

Disposing of his interest in the Electric Light Company in 1899, Bentley moved to Chicago where he worked for a year in a chemical laboratory. After quitting that, he returned briefly to Hustings and then headed to Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Disliking the Colorado climate, Bentley and a friend headed for Prescott, Arizona. On the way to Prescott, the pair met C.B. Rogers, Superintendent of the Torpedo and Modoc Mines in New Mexico's Organ Mountains.

Rogers offered both men jobs and Bentley became an assayer, bookkeeper, foreman and general handy man for the mines. Bentley eventually took over the commissary and boarding house, and served as Postmaster. When work shut down at the Modoc, Bentley started a general store in Organ, New Mexico. In 1909, he began his Custom Assay Office. Bentley also served as a Deputy Sheriff for the small mountain community. During the 1920s he helped create the Organ Ore Company, to mill low grade ore still plentiful in the Organ Mountains.

Louis B. Bentley died in 1955.

Scope and Content

The Louis B. Bentley papers reflect the various activities of the Organ merchant and mine agent. One series contains the records of Bentley's assay office, and another series includes blueprints and maps. Most of the blueprints are tracings for the Organ Ore Co. and a large portion of the maps are geological drawings of the New Jersey Zinc Exploration Company. Correspondence dates from 1906-1955, but is fragmentary, excepting three letterpress books covering the periods 1906-1916. A principal correspondent of Bentley's was Gen. Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody, President of the Aztec Mining Company. Bentley acted as a mine agent on Dunwoody’s behalf.

The General Store File series contains bills and receipts, checks, circulars, correspondence, daybooks, a records book entitled "Dead Beats," and store licenses. There are few legal documents in the collection, an item of interest is a copy of a court case in which Bentley sued the state of New Mexico for taking over land he had patented.

The series Organ Ore Co. and other mining reports, contains information on mining in the Organ Mountains. Most of the reports concern the potential profits that could be made from mining the area's natural resources. Besides such promotional literature, the reports also contain geological data and maps. Nearly all the items in the series are from the periods when the Organ Ore Co. was established to take advantage of low grade ore still unmined in the Organs.

Besides Bentley's personal involvement in Organ mining, he was interested in the general science of mines. The collection also contains mining catalogs, a copy of United States Mining Laws and other booklets that deal with mining. The Scrapbook series contains three large albums of articles collected by Bentley regarding mining.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Open. All materials in this collection are available for research under supervised conditions in the Research Room.

Copy Restrictions

Copyrights associated with materials in this collection have not been transferred to New Mexico State University.

Preferred Citation

Louis B. Bentley papers, New Mexico State University Library, Archives and Special Collections Department

Processing Information

Processed by Merleen Dibert and Veronica Soto, Junes 1980. Revised by Marah deMeule and Christine Moreland-Bruhnke, November 1999.

Related Material

Herman B Weisner papers. Ms 249. New Mexico State University Library, Archives and Special Collections Department.

Container List

Series I: 
Assay Records,   1907-1949

Contains records of metal ores assayed in Bentley's assay office in Organ. Also includes an inventory of mineral specimen. Arranged chronologically.

Series II: 
Correspondence,   1906-1955

Includes letters from General H. H. C. Dunwoody and three letterpress books. Arranged chronologically.

Series III: 
Family Papers,   1834-1899

Includes correspondence and legal records of Bentley, Boyer and Sweezy family members. Arranged alphabetically and chronologically thereunder.

Series IV: 
General Store Files,   1884-1943

Contains bills and receipts, bill file, checks, circulars, correspondence, daybook, "Dead Beats" book and copies of store licenses. Arranged alphabetically by subject.

Series V: 
Legal File Documents,   1906-1924

Arranged chronologically.

Series VI: 
Organ Ore Company and Other Mining Reports,   1907-1957

Includes reports from both federal and state Bureaus of Mines, Lead, Zinc, and Copper Deposits of the Organ District, NM, New Jersey Zinc Exploration Co. maps, Report of Investigation of Property and Plans of Organ Ore Company, Report of Investigation of Property and Plans of Organ Ore Company, Report on the Magnetic Survey of the Organ Mountain Mining District, Report on Organ Ore Company and the Torpedo Mine of Organ, NM, stock certificate books and Torpedo Copper Silver Mines' Report and Smelting Returns. Arranged alphabetically by title.

Series VII: 
Printed Materials,   1909-1922

Includes booklets and catalogs. Arranged alphabetically by title.