John Dern

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This page was last updated on January 27, 2026.

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John Dern (1850-1922)

Johannes (John) Dern (24 October 1850 – 2 January 1922) (LH35-ZPC)

John Dern first came to Utah as president of the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling company in December 1890. He was a resident of Fremont, the county seat of Dodge County, where he was the County Treasurer. In June 1894, Dern and his Eastern associates purchased full control of the Mercur company, from its previous majority stockholder, at which time John Dern became president and general manager of the Mercur mine.

John Dern and Elizabeth Dern (1852-1920) had immigrated to the United States when they were children. According to the 1910 U.S. Census, John emigrated in 1865, and Elizabeth emigrated in 1869. John was shown as a naturalized citizen.

Both Elizabeth and John came from prominent families. They married in 1870, and by the 1880s John was operating a grain elevator and managing a lumber business in Fremont, Nebraska. He became a Nebraska state senator and served as Nebraska state treasurer. In 1890 he became involved in a business enterprise in an old abandoned silver mine in Lewiston, Utah. John and his business partners utilized a special cyanide solution to leach gold out of the ore at a gold ledge in the mine. After 1892, John became president of the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company, and moved his family to Salt Lake City, including the five children.

January 14, 1891
At its first annual meeting, John Dern was elected as president of the newly formed Mercur Gold Mining and Milling company. He was shown as a resident of Fremont, Nebraska. (Salt Lake Herald, January 15, 1891)

In addition to the Mercur company, John Dern's mining interests included investments on several Tintic mines, along with being president and general manager of the Uncle Sam mine, the May Day mine, and the Lower Mammoth mine.

1897
John Dern and his family moved into their home on Brigham Street (711 East South Temple street) in 1897. The Dern mansion became the Utah governor's home during the years 1925-1932 when George H. Dern was governor of Utah. George H. Dern served as FDR's Secretary of War.

In 1901, its was John Dern and his Eastern and Salt Lake City associates that bought the Uncle Sam mine and Humbug mine in the Tintic mining district, from Jesse Knight.

(Read more about the Uncle Sam and Humbug mines)

Then in 1907, the same group bought the adjoining May Day mine.

(Read more about the May Day mine)

George Dern (George Henry Dern; 8 September 1872 – 27 August 1936; LH3P-TQM) was John Dern's oldest son.

Fred Dern (Frederick Carl Dern; 1 October 1876 – 22 February 1929; K2JM-4Q6) was John Dern's second-oldest son, after George.

George H. Dern moved to Salt Lake City in 1894 and worked as a bookkeeper for Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company, and soon became the company treasurer.

In 1901 George H. Dern was promoted to general manager of the now Consolidated Mercur Gold Mines Company. Dern and Theodore P. Holt developed the Holt-Dern roaster, a mechanism by which silver could be recovered from low-grade ores. Mercur was the largest gold mine in Utah until the last of the gold was extracted in 1913.

Another person often mentioned as an associate of John Dern, was J. C. Dick, who had married Matilda, Dern's second oldest daughter in November 1903. She was 29 and he was 32 at the time of their marriage.

(In December 1922, the John Dern estate paid the Utah state inheritance tax of $39,575.02, based on the estate's value of $839,846.40. John Dern had been one of the wealthiest men in Utah, with almost all of his wealth coming from his mining interests that began in 1890 at Mercur.)

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