James Hartgering Biography

	This biography appears on pages 1024-1025 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	JAMES HARTGERING, of Rapid City, a mining and mechanical engineer, with 
offices also at Deadwood, was born on September 22, 1853, in Ottawa 
county, Michigan, and is the son of Alexander and Josephine Hartgering, 
natives of Ohio. The father was a man of intellectual pursuits and 
engaged in teaching school during the greater part of his mature life. 
When a young man he served in the Mexican war, and after the close of 
that memorable contest followed farming for a time in Michigan, where he 
died. The son, James, was reared and educated in his native county, and 
in the spring of 1877 came to the Black Hills, arriving in this new 
Eldorado on the first day of April, and at once went to prospecting and 
mining, following these alluring but often disappointing occupations for 
a number of years in various places throughout the Hills country. He 
also learned his trade as a millwright and worked at that considerably. 
In 1885 he pursued a special course of study in the State School of 
Mines at Rapid City, the school having then been recently organized. 
After the completion of his course there he entered on the practice of 
his profession as a mining and mechanical engineer, and to this he has 
steadfastly adhered ever since. His home has been at Rapid City from 
1891, with offices at Deadwood also. His professional work has had a 
wide scope and is of considerable magnitude, he being generally 
recognized as one of its leading practitioners in this part of the 
country. He has been prominent in designing and building mills and 
cyanide plants on contract. The growth and development of the section 
has enlisted his warmest and most intelligent interest, and to this he 
has devoted the greater part of his time and energy. In addition he has 
taken an active part in public affairs, although not an earnest partisan 
in political work. From 1866 he served as United States deputy surveyor 
and as United States deputy mineral surveyor, and was county surveyor of 
Custer county for one term. In fraternal relations he is connected with 
the Masonic order, and has climbed the mystic stairway to the thirty-
second degree of the Scottish Rite, being also a noble of the Mystic 
Shrine, belonging to the blue lodge at Rapid City and the other bodies 
of the order at Deadwood. He also belongs to the camp of the Modern 
Woodmen of America at Rapid City, and is a valued member of the Society 
for the Advancement of Science, whose headquarters are at Washington, D. 
C. 

	On March 21, 1883, at Chicago, Illinois, the subject was married 
to Miss Jennie M. McRae, a native of Ontario. They have five children, 
Constance M., James F., Genevieve, John M. and Francis B.