Bio of WARREN, Oscar Byrd (b.1870), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical


Vol II, pg 382-386
OSCAR BYRD WARREN
With the development of the mining interests which brought world-wide fame to
the Mesaba range, Oscar Byrd Warren was closely associated and he became
recognized as one of the foremost authorities on iron ore deposits in this
section of the country. There were no spectacular phases to his business career
in its initiatory period, nothing to indicate the substantial advance which he
was to make nor the important part which he was to play in connection with the
utilization of the great natural resources of the northwest and the upper
Mississippi valley. Born in Evanston, Illinois, on the 4th of August, 1870, his
attention was early directed to mining interests from the fact that his father,
Dewitt Marsh Warren, was interested and for some time operated a silver mine at
Georgetown, Colorado. Later, however, he disposed of his properties of that
character and turned his attention to horticultural pursuits at St. Joseph,
Michigan, where the family resided for many years.
At the usual age Oscar B. Warren entered the schools of his home neighborhood
and there prepared for advance work in the Fort Wayne Academy. In 1890 he became
a student in Albion College of Michigan and in connection with his regular
literary course did some commercial work. While at Albion he also became a
member of Epsilon chapter of the Delta Tau Delta and his interest in this Greek
letter fraternity never waned and was manifest in a most tangible way shortly
prior to his death, when he assisted liberally in building a new chapter house
at the college.
From the beginning of his business career Mr. Warren was interested in mining,
accepting a position in August, 1892, in the laboratory of the Volunteer Mine at
Palmer, Michigan, where he worked under Lynn Sutton, who afterward became a
conspicuous figure in connection with mining operations in South Africa. When
the Volunteer Mine was closed in the fall of 1892, Mr. Warren accepted a
position as teacher in the Palmer school, where he remained through the winter.
Early in the spring of 1893 he became bookkeeper at the Platt Mine at Palmer,
then operated under the superintendency of Ed Ball, who became greatly
interested in the young man and gave him every opportunity to acquaint himself
with the geol9gy of the Palmer district and to learn everything possible about
mining in general. At Albion College Mr. Warren had been an interested student
in biology and botany and he de­voted his leisure time at Palmer to tramping the
hills in his study of plant and bird life of that locality, collecting more than
two hundred different birds and publishing a list of those he found in the
district. He also wrote several articles on different birds, which were
published in magazines and thus he became recognized throughout the state as an
authority on ornithology.
A receptive and retentive mind was one of the marked features in the life of Mr.
Warren and constituted a most potent element in his success. While employed as
bookkeeper he became familiar with the development work in the mine
andmanifested the keenest interest in the study of geology, which he pursued as
he rode over the hills about Palmer and the knowledge thereby gained constituted
an element in his discovery of the Isabella Mine in that locality, which he
opened at a later date When in March, 1896, the Platt Mining Company purchased
the fee of the Penobscott Mine at Hibbing, Minnesota, Mr. Warren was transferred
to the latter place to act as bookkeeper under the superintendency of John A.
Redfern, but in the fall of the same year he left that position to become
bookkeeper for the Mahoning Ore & Steel Company, operating at both Mahoning and
Hibbing. In addition to keeping the books for the company he also assisted in
the survey work and in ore grading and thus he gained wide experience, which
proved of much value to him in later life.
Mr. Warren transferred his allegiance to the Dorothy Coal & Coke Company at
Baggaley, Pennsylvania, when he accepted the position of general superintendent
in the fall of 1899 but illness through the succeeding winter caused him to
resign in the spring of 1900, after which he returned to the Mahoning Mine as
chief engineer and exploration superintendent. His work in the latter connection
gave him splendid opportunity to become familiar with the Vermillion range, as
nearly all of the exploration work of the company which he supervised was done
on that range. He continued his connection with the Mahoning Mine until the fall
of 1901 and again he broadened the scope of his knowledge and activity by taking
up photography, in which, as in other fields in which he has labored, he
developed expert skill. His interest in ornithology never abated and when with
the Mahoning Company he wrote an article which was published in the Auk Magazine
in January, 1899, entitled, "A Chapter in the Life of the Canada Jay" and this
he illustrated by most unusual and interesting photographs which he had taken.
The fall of 1901 saw Mr. Warren in active connection with the Donora Mining
Company's Volunteer Mine at Palmer, Michigan, in the position of superintendent
and when that company purchased the Penobscott Mine at Hibbing, Minnesota, he
was transferred to the superintendency of the latter under Oscar Rohn. When in
the fall of 1902 the Donora Steel Company disposed of its interests in the
Mesaba range to the United States Steel Corporation, Mr. Warren accepted a
position with the Bennett-Longyear-Pillsbury interests to look after their fee
properties on the Mesaba range and it was in this connection that he became most
widely known. At the time he entered upon his duties the fee owners of iron ore
deposits on the Mesaba range had very little to say or do about the way their
properties were opened up or how they were operated. Mr. Warren recognized the
extreme wastefulness of the mining methods then in vogue but had a hard task in
convincing the operators to see the benefits that might be derived from
conserving their ores. However, he persevered until little by little better
underground mining methods were adopted and more careful engineering practices
were brought into play. It is said that no man on the Mesaba range did more to
improve underground mining conditions than he. When in 1905 the fee owners began
the operation of the Pearce Mine near Chisholm, Minnesota, upon his
recommendation that this course was being pursued, he supervised the mining of
all the ore in this deposit, carrying on the work most satisfactorily to those
interested and completing operations there in 1912. In that year Mr. Warren
became general manager of the Keewatin Mining Company, which was formed to
operate the Bennett Mine near Keewatin, Minnesota. Taking up the work of opening
up this large property, with his customary thoroughness he redrilled, starting
in September and in October began sinking the shaft, at the same time
undertaking the stripping operations. By September, 1913, he had removed a large
amount of overburden and was making substantial open pit shipments and at the
same time mining ore underground. These activities, however, constituted certain
phases of his work and as he closely studied mining conditions he planned and
erected a large number of dwellings, an office building, a power house and
shops, giving personal attention to the construction of each of the buildings,
which were made models of their kind and many of these have since been
duplicated by other operators.
In 1912 Mr. Warren again returned to Palmer, Michigan, where he had first become
associated with mining interests, there accepting the position of general
manager of the Cascade Mining Company, which was formed to develop and operate
the Isabella Mine. In his earlier years he had thoroughly familiarized himself
with the geology of the district and in 1908 had initiated a campaign of diamond
drilling which completely verified his geological conclusions. In the drilling
iron ore in sufficient quantity was encountered to warrant the opening of the
mine, which has been a very paying one and is indication of Mr. Warren's ability
and his compre­hensive understanding of conditions in that vicinity. In 1915 he
became general manager of the Mace Iron Mining Company, which was organized to
operate the Mace No. 1 Mine, an underground property near Stevenson, Minnesota,
and the Mace No. 2 Mine, an open pit property near Nashwauk, Minnesota. In the
operation of the former Mr. Warren secured the lowest underground operating
costs ever recorded over a period of one year or more on the Mesaba range. He
also made an excellent record at the Mace No. 2 Mine, where stripping was
started in Sep­tember, 1915, and a shipment of three hundred thousand tons of
ore made in 1916 at a remarkably low cost. His work brought him in close touch
with nearly all classes of mining operations on the Mesaba range, from
underground mining to washing sandy ores on the west end of the range and his
wonderful faculty for observation combined with a keen mind and years of
experience in all phases of iron mining, made him an authority on iron ore
deposits of that great range.
In 1893 Mr. Warren was united in marriage to Miss Anne Kirkpatrick, a daughter
of William Kirkpatrick, a representative of a family prominent in connec­tion
with the history of upper Michigan. Mr. and Mrs. Warren became parents of two
sons and two daughters: Harry Oscar, now of Hibbing, Minnesota; Isabelle Martin
and Mary Agnew, both living at home; and Joseph Kirkpatrick, residing in Los
Angeles. The elder son was in the Royal Flying Corps as a first lieutenant in
the Canadian army, enlisting in 1916 as an instructor. The younger son was a
sergeant of a truck company with the . American forces and served for eighteen
months in France, participating in the sanguinary battle in the Argonne forest,
where he was gassed. He participated in a number of the engagements on the
western front and he was not yet seventeen years of age at the time of his
enlist­ment. Mr. Warren passed away at his home in Minneapolis, September 15,
1921, survived by his wife and four children. Because of his great love of
nature and the outdoor life he had built a summer home at Half Moon Lake about
seven miles south of Eveleth, Minnesota, which he called Homaji Farm. He devoted
a part of his spare time to gardening and poultry raising there and along both
lines became an expert, winning many prizes. He spent a portion of the winter of
1919 in California and there purchased a residence, with the intention of
spending more of his time in that sunny clime as he grew older, desiring there
to continue his study of ornithology and botany. He always manifested a keen
interest in matters of public concern, too, and in 1912 was appointed a member
of the Hibbing Park board, to which he gave most beneficial service through a
period of six years, aiding greatly in converting rough land into what is today
beautiful Bennett Park. He belonged to the Algonquin Club at Hibbing, also had
membership in the Min­neapolis Club, in the Masonic fraternity, the Minneapolis
Golf Club and Lafayette Club and in several scientific societies, including the
Lake Superior Mining Institute, the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America
and the American Institute of Mining Engineers. He likewise held membership in
the Art Institute. He was ever a close student of those great volumes which
nature has piled up for man's perusal -the work of the centuries before human
foot trod the earth, the various forms of bird and plant life, all claimed his
deepest attention nor did he forget that "the greatest study of mankind is man."
He was always interested in assisting any one who needed aid and gave freely,
but in a most unostentatious manner. His ideals were high, his character
strongly and beautifully developed and he stood as a splendid type of that
individual, who "holds the universe within his own breath and lives at one with
nature."