Archives West Finding Aid

Reno Haber Sales was born September 10, 1876, at Storm Lake, Iowa. The Sales family moved to Montana in 1881, settling near Salesville, now Gallatin Gateway. Sales graduated from Montana State College in 1898, and Columbia University, where he was awarded an engineer of mines degree in 1900. He began his professional career in 1900 as an assistant engineer for the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company in Butte, Montana. In 1906 he became chief geologist for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, a position he held for more than four decades. Sales was also a principal officer of the Valley Ditch Company, an irrigation association incorporated in 1906 at Belgrade, Montana. Sales applied geology to mining operations and coordinated field and laboratory work directed toward better understanding and use of geological science in the search for ore. His honors in the fields of mining and geology included an honorary doctor of science degree from Montana State College in 1935 and selection as the first member of the Hall of Fame of the World Museum of Mining at Butte. He was also named a member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1967 for having been president of the N-Bar Ranch near Grassrange, Montana. Sales was prominent in several professional societies and the author of many articles and monographs, including a book-length history, Underground Warfare at Butte. He died on May 9, 1969, in Bozeman at the age of 92.