Thomas Walsh

Thomas Francis Walsh (April 2, 1850 – April 8, 1910) was an Irish-American miner who, in 1896 in Colorado, discovered one of the largest gold mines in the United States of America.

Early life Walsh was born April 2, 1850, to Michael Walsh, a farmer, and Bridget Scully. He was most likely born on his father's farm, Baptistgrange, in Lisronagh, Tipperary, Ireland. He had two siblings, who both also emigrated to the United States and settled in the West. His sister Maria married Arthur Lafferty, a two-gun police sergeant in Leadville, Colorado. Their brother Michael died in 1904 in Denver, Colorado, of dropsy of the liver.

According to his daughter Evalyn Walsh Mclean's book, Father Struck It Rich, Walsh became an apprentice to a millwright at the age of twelve and grew into a fine carpenter.

In 1869, he and his sister Maria emigrated to the United States after the death of their father. For a time, Thomas settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, with his aunts, Catherine and Bridget Walsh Power, who helped "shake the greenhorn off him."

Career In the early 1870s Walsh heeded the call to "Go West, young man" and settled in Colorado, where he was paid well for his carpentry skills. Walsh was said to be attracted to the opportunities that came with the gold rush, including trading goods and services at inflated prices, as opposed to gold mining itself.

Gradually, he became more and more immersed in the gold industry. He was soon trading mining equipment to prospectors in exchange for their mining claims as payment. He also studied mining technology at night.

In 1877 he moved to Leadville, Colorado with a small fortune of between $75,000 and $100,000 . Along with his wife, he ran the Grand Central Hotel in Leadville.

Personal life Carrie Reed WalshOn July 11, 1879 in Leadville, Colorado, he married Carrie Bell Reed. The couple had two children:

Evalyn Walsh, August 1, 1886 – April 24, 1947 Vinson Walsh, April 9, 1888 – August 19, 1905, who died in a car accident On January 23, 1909, The Aero Club of Washington was founded, with Walsh as president, to promote the new technology of aviation. Due to his prior involvement with the Paris Exposition, Walsh became friends with Leopold II of Belgium, for whom he designated a suite in his home. The King never made it to the United States but when Albert, Leopold's nephew, and his wife Elisabeth traveled to the United States in 1919, Walsh's wife, by then widowed, was decorated by the King for her service during World War I.

Walsh died on April 8, 1910, at his home in Washington, D.C.

Extended family Thomas Walsh was a cousin twice removed of W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., the federal judge who issued the famous 1974 order that Boston schools desegregate by means of busing.