The Ocha Potter Papers consist of Ocha Potter's autobiography, titled "Sixty Years," illustrated with photographs. Potter was born and raised in central Wisconsin. He volunteered for military service during the Spanish-American War, but fell ill and was discharged without seeing action. After the war, he worked at various jobs (teaching, logging, mining) in Wisconsin, Michigan, West Africa, and the western United States before deciding to study mining engineering at the Michigan College of Mines at Houghton. While still a student there, Potter was hired to prospect for copper in the Copper River region of Alaska (1905-1908). The "Alaska" portion of the text is illustrated with ca. 30 photographs taken in the region between Valdez, Tonsina, and the Chitistone River, including photographs of local Athapascan Indians. In 1909, a few credits short of a Bachelor of Science degree, Potter embarked on his career as mining engineer at the copper mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The main part of his memoir, written over the winter of 1938-39, ends with a description of the effects of the Great Depression upon the mining industry and inhabitants of the Upper Peninsula. An epilogue, written in 1950, reflects upon events in the intervening years.
