Remembering 1 of America's True Rags-to-Riches Stories

While John William Mackay's rags-to-riches story is largely forgotten, it once gripped the nation, and with good reason. Born in Dublin in 1831, he immigrated with his family in 1840 to New York City, where he grew up in the notorious Five Points slum and, after his father died, hawked newspapers to support his mother and sister. In 1851 he sailed to California and worked for eight years with only moderate success as a placer miner in the Sierra foothills around Downieville before migrating to the Comstock Lode in what would become Nevada. It was there—at ground central of the nation's richest silver deposits—he found unimaginable riches and became one of the four Bonanza Kings without ever losing his legendary capacity for hard work or willingness to take the same risks underground as the average pick-and-ax miner. Mackay's net worth in 1880 was reportedly $50 million, making him the fifth richest person in the country behind W.H. Vanderbilt, W.W. Astor, Russell Sage and Jay Gould. But Mackay was no robber baron. “In the eyes of his times,” writes author Gregory Crouch, “his road to riches had made no man poorer, and few begrudged him his success.”