Barcus, J. Clyde (James Clyde), 1889-1966

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. He married Edith Giles in 1929. 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. Clyde Barcus lived in Las Vegas with his wife until his death in 1966.