"Ocha Potter: Time Line of Events in His Life" by Julia Fairchild, 2008

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1907, September. Arrived in Houghton. Sent for wife Julia and son George and entered
Michigan College of Mines once again.
1908, January. Left for Alaska with wife and son. It took them 90 days to get from
Valdez to McCarthy Creek. They returned to the coast using a handmade boat via the
Nizina, Chitina, and Copper Rivers.
1908, September. Re-enrolled in Michigan College of Mines. By mid-winter (January?)
he states in his memoirs, "I had almost but not quite enough credits for a Bachelor of
Science degree. A few years later, the college authorities gave me the degree in
recognition of work done in the copper mines. Later I was given the degree of Engineer
of Mines and served as a member of the College Board of ControL
1909, February. Because his bank balance was rapidly dwindling, he went to work as a
miner for Calumet and Hecla Copper Co. He did a time study, recording and graphing the
many operations involved in mining.
1909, October 10. Became superintendent of Superior Copper Company, a small mine
near Houghton. Developed a new, safer and more efficient method of stopping (a major
operation in mining). Also began to consider using a light "one-man" drill that he'd had
experience with four years earlier in Utah at the Highland Boy mine.
1912, February 4. First daughter was born to Ocha and Julia, Dorothy Louise in
Houghton, MI.
1912, late. "Nearly all ourmines were now equipped with new, lighter one-man drills."
1913. Strike by Western Federation of Miners.
1913, June. Was asked to go back to Alaska to have his claims examined by an
"independent mining expert" to report on copper properties he (Ocha) had secured. This
time, he traveled by boat from Seattle to Cordova, by train to the mouth of the Chitina
River, by steam boat to a landing 20 miles from the Kennecott mine. (" In 1936," Ocha
writes, "a letter from a friend at Kennecott told me that visitors had left the coast by
airplane after breakfast, landed at Kennecott, transacted business and returned to the coast
for lunch.")
1915, August 4. Second daughter was born to Ocha and Julia, Babette in Houghton, MI.
1916, December 12. Third daughter was born to Ocha and Julia, Billie Marguerite in
Houghton, MI.
1917, end of January. Rescued three miners trapped in a stope when the Isle Royale's No.
l shaft flooded. A.H. W olhrab, the mine superintendent, and Ocha Potter found the
miners by pushing a timber ahead of them on which they had placed lighted candles.
They waded through icy water up to their shoulders for a half mile, all the time searching