Day, Henry L. (Henry Lawrence), 1902-

Henry Lawrence Vincent Day, known as Lawrence in his youth, was born in Spokane, Washington, on October 4, 1902, to Helen Dwyer and Harry Loren Day of Wallace, Idaho. At the age of one month he moved to Burke with his parents where he remained until the summer of 1905 when the family moved to Wallace. He was educated in the public and parochial schools in Wallace.

He graduated from the University of California in Mining Engineering in 1923, where he wrote his senior thesis on the Tamarack and Custer Mine. He spent several of his college summers working underground in different capacities so that he might learn mining firsthand. By his own admission he did not enjoy a year of post graduate study in economic geology at Harvard University immediately following his California degree.

After completing his education, Henry went to work in the management of his family's mining business. At that time he began a program of consolidation which culminated twenty years later with the creation of Day Mines, Inc., in 1947. He was given much leeway within the company, as his father and uncle, Jerome Day, were extricating themselves from the day to day aspects of the business. The middle of the 1920s was a period of turmoil for the Day family due to the demise of the Hercules Mine, which, for the previous twenty-five years had provided a healthy cash flow for the family's endeavors.

Henry gradually streamlined the family operation, bringing it into the modern business community. For example, while consolidating the existing mining companies he branched out into gold mining in northern California in the thirties (a venture which did not pan out particularly well). But the Day companies did do well during World War II because of high metals prices. The work force was then reduced during the early years of Day Mines, Inc., following the war.

It is claimed that DMI was a concrete concept when Henry created the Monitor Mining Company in 1940, which combined all the mines and claims on what was known as the "north side" above Wardner. During the 1950 he continued to consolidate his mining companies by a centralization process that made his smaller operation more efficient. DMI thus grew smaller as metal prices lowered and technology improved.

In 1937 Henry married Lois Ecius Flohr, and they had a daughter, Barbara, in 1939; on June 6, 1940 Lois died at age twenty-nine of heart disease. Henry remained a widower for many years, employing a Mrs. Cady to look after his daughter, and did not remarry until April 27, 1972 when he married Anne Kearny, an old friend from New Jersey, whose late husband, Thomas, had been a newspaper editor. Henry had been best man at Ann and Thomas's wedding and Thomas was Barbara's godfather.

Henry played an active role in Idaho politics and business, and supported many projects at the University of Idaho. Prior to his retirement in 1972 he devoted most of his time to DMI, but with retirement he began to devote his time to the Republican Party and conservative politics at the state and national level while continuing to take an interest in the Silver Valley and the problems the area was facing with reduced income from the mines.

He took a leading part in civic affairs, being a leader in the construction of the Wallace Civic Memorial Auditorium in 1945-1947, the Neewahlu waterfront camp for the Camp Fire Girls on Lake Coeur d'Alene in 1954-1955, and the building of the East Shoshone Hospital in Silverton, Idaho, a project in which he was active from 1965 to 1972. It was in this hospital that he died on March 21, 1985.

From the guide to the Papers, 1870-1985, (University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives)