James Brady (abt. 1840)

Died [date unknown] in California

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Biography

James Brady in 1870 founded what is now the ghost mining town of Swansea, on the eastern shore of Owens Lake in Owens Valley, southern California.

James was tall and dignified, brown-haired and heavy bearded. He had come to Inyo County in 1869 with his family, to superintend the Owens Lake Silver-Lead Company, an eastern concern attracted to the sliver strike at Cerro Gordo mines.

James operated a smelter for the ores coming out of Cerro Gordo mine, and gained control of the entire bullion shipment from Owens Valley.

James had a daughter,

1. Bessie, who christened her name to the "Bessie Brady" steamboat on Owens Lake on June 27, 1872. It was the second commercial lake steamer west of the Mississippi, and the first west of Salt Lake.^[1]

The Swansea town was named for Swansea, Wales. James Brady's adobe house, which has several later additions, remains on the property, along with several other abandoned structures. The smelter shut down in 1874 after a cloudburst buried much of Swansea, and filled the furnace with mud. The company was embroiled in a lawsuit with Mortimer Belshaw, and could not afford to rebuild.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Nadeau, Remi A., City-Makers: The Men who Transformed Los Angeles from Village to Metropolis During the First Great Boom, 1868-76. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY 1948. pg 90-94, 174
2. ↑ Philip Varney, Southern California's Best Ghost Towns: A Practical Guide, University of Oklahoma Press, Mar 1, 1994 pg 9-10