Edith Giles Barcus Family Papers (MS-00206)

Mining engineer Edwin Scofield Giles, father of Edith Giles Barcus, lived and worked around Goldfield, Nevada from his arrival in 1907 until his death at his home in Goldfield on March 9, 1950.

Edwin Giles was born in Eastchester, New York on August 27, 1871. After an adventurous youth that included many trips to South America, Giles came for the second time to Colorado Springs, Colorado in January 1893, where he married Edith Corliss. Giles worked as a mining engineer in Cripple Creek, Colorado and occasionally as a newspaper correspondent as well, reporting on events in Cripple Creek. Mrs. Giles gave birth to twins, Edith Corliss Giles and Richard Scofield Giles on July 19, 1895 at Bear Creek Canyon, Rosamont Park, Colorado Springs. Richard Scofield Giles died in Colorado Springs on July 2, 1896.

After working in Colorado for several years, Edwin Giles followed the mining boom to Nevada. Leaving from Los Angeles, he and his family endured two weeks in a covered wagon over desert trails as they moved to Goldfield where he and his wife and daughter arrived in 1907. There he worked as a mining engineer for a number of different enterprises. By 1909, he was actively developing the Pioneer Mining Camp which grew up around the mine of the same name.

Edwin and Edith Giles were involved in the Goldfield community. Ed Giles was eventually elected to the position of Town Surveyor and had financial and managerial interests in virtually every mining property in the area. Edith Corliss Giles, their daughter, was active in mining too. At age 12 or 13, she made claim to a mining property in the Mayflower District. After she was widowed in 1929, the younger Edith Giles (then Edith Cadogan) married Clyde Barcus. The elder Edith Corliss Giles died on September 7, 1946. Edwin "Dad" Giles remained a colorful character in and around Goldfield until his death in 1950. He was an inveterate poet and essayist, and had traveled to Argentina to help survey roads. He was involved in a variety of adventures, such as escaping from the great Goldfield fire in 1923 by sliding down a fire hose. He also reportedly shoveled through six miles of snow to reach an aged miner who had been isolated by a blizzard.

J. Clyde Barcus was born December 27, 1889 in Huntington, Cable County, West Virginia. He attended Pikesville Collegiate Institute in Kentucky, where he studied for a degree in mining engineering. His studies were temporarily suspended, however, when Clyde followed his father Clyde Sr., who operated a coal mine at the time, to Goldfield, Nevada after the gold rush of 1906. Their hoped-for mine never came to be, and Clyde Sr. returned to Kentucky to continue his mining operation, but the young Barcus found himself entranced by the West and by Nevada in particular. After a brief homecoming to Pikesville to complete his mining degree, Barcus returned to Goldfield, where he was active in mining and metallurgy. His work also took him around the globe at various times, from Australia and Canada to the Gold Coast of Africa in 1923, where he supervised the building of a mill for Crown Willamette Mining Co. After this, Clyde Barcus returned to Reno, Nevada, where he continued to work in mining until World War Two. During World War Two Barcus was employed by the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb. In the early 1950s Clyde and Edith Barcus lived in Goldfield, where they operated the "Odd Shop," a jewelry, glass, and souvenir shop. In 1952 the couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.