James A. Cunningham

When J. Cunningham, later to go broke ranching in Mexico, built the New East Tintic Railway, a standard gauge of three miles of sharp curves and steep grades, he named the small shay-type engine, necessary because of the very sharp curves, Little Alice after his small daughter. It was in the days of link and pin couplings and hand-operated brakes. Cunningham’s son, Casey, was made conductor. He, with an engineer driver, fireman, and two brakemen, made up the crew. The railroad contracted to draw the ore from the bins at the mines into its cars and then haul the cars to the Mammoth or Sioux mills and to the junction point with the joint trackage of the D. & R. G. and L. A. & S. L. R. R. at Robinson. This little railroad was a scene of great activity and its roundhouse was located at its terminal near the Mammoth mine.

Mr. Cunningham was born at Quincy, Illinois, on June 14, 1842. His father was a well-to-do farmer, his mother was Lucinda Rawlins, of Bedford, Indiana. The Cunningham family lived in Illinois until James was five years old, then they removed to the State of Iowa. The elder Cunningham took a large tract of farming territory located about twenty miles above Council Bluffs, where the family lived until the spring of 1848, when all traveled to the West on a long and tedious wagon journey to Utah. The party passed across the plains and mountains without untoward incident. Only once did the Indians interfere with progress, and a liberal distribution among them of tobacco and foodstuffs quickly secured safe passage through their lines.

Mr. Cunningham during his first few years in the new territory followed farming, and afterwards became a freighter in and out of Montana. In 1874 he turned his attention to mining, buying a prominent interest in the Mammoth Mine in the Tintic District of Utah. He served as president for several years, and was vice-president and a director for twelve years, and still is connected with this famous property. Up to the past ten years, he had much to do with the active management of the organization. To date the Mammoth company has paid in dividends the sum of $2,220,000.

Mr. Cunningham for three years was president and manager of the Bullion Beck Mining Company, another liberal dividend-payer of the Tintic district. In a less prominent way, Mr. Cunningham has been identified with numerous successful mining companies of the West, and for many years he was noted as one of the big sheep men of the Western plains. At one time he was the owner of 32,000 head of sheep, but when wool was placed on the free list he began gradually to free himself from what was proving to be a losing venture. Associated with his sons, Mr. Cunningham is the owner of a 40,000-acre sugar plantation in Mexico, where he spends half of his time each year.

James Alma Cunningham, who yesterday, after battling with disease for two months, yielded to death. He was a member of the famed ox-cart band which traversed the plains in 1848.

James Alma Cunningham, one of the few survivors of the ox-cart pilgrimage to Utah of 1848 and veteran mining man of the west, died yesterday at his home here, after an illness of two months. Mr. Cunningham was 76 years of age.

Born in Quincy, Ill., June 14, 1842, Mr. Cunningham made that arduous trip across the plains as a boy. He received his education in the public schools of Salt Lake. As a young man he became identified with some of the earliest mining projects of the state. He was largely instrumental in the development of the Mammoth property in the Tintic district.

Of late years Mr. Cunningham had been chiefly interested in the development of his considerable ranching interests in Mexico. Political disturbances had interrupted work there during the past four or five years. Mr. Cunningham visited his southern properties less than a year ago. His other interests were in Utah mines and agricultural properties. He was one of the first members of the Alta club.

He was married in 1870 to Jeannette Forsyth. Five children survive. They are James A. Cunningham, Jr., of San Luis Potosi, Mexico; Mrs. F. B. Cook, Mrs. Mildred Downey, Roy Cunningham and Mrs. W. L. Tozer, all of Salt Lake. Two brothers, Hyrum C. Cunningham, of Ashton, Idaho, and Joseph R. Cunningham, of Lewiston, Utah, as well as two sisters, Mrs. John Weiser, of Lewiston, Utah, and Mrs. James W. Ure, of Salt Lake, also survive.