Archives West Finding Aid

Roy Douglas Pritchett was born in Weber County, Utah, on June 26, 1877. He was the first of seven children of John Douglas Pritchett and Elizabeth Eames Pritchett, pioneer Utah settlers. When Roy was a small child the family moved to Comet, and then Amazon, Montana, both small mining towns in Jefferson County. During the 1890s the Pritchetts lived at Bear Gulch northeast of Twin Bridges, where John D. Pritchett bought and developed several mining properties. These included the Moonlight Mine which Pritchett later sold to Bielenburg and Higgins, and APA Mine where he built a five-stamp mill. As a child Roy Pritchett spent his summers in Bear Gulch and his winters in school in Twin Bridges. From the mid-1890s until the early 1920s he worked for Orrin Stone and independently as a miner in Bear Gulch, locating and developing numerous small properties. In 1900 Roy and his brothers George and John briefly had a livery stable in Jefferson township. In 1924 Pritchett moved to Lemhi County, Idaho, to work for a mining company owned by Dr. I.B. Keller and Calvin N. Friday. He also worked at Tintic and Park City, Utah. From 1929 until 1947 Pritchett was mine superintendent for the Embree Iron Company in Embreeville, Tennessee, except for a brief period in 1940-1941, when he was with the Greeenbrier Ore Company in Marlinton, West Virginia. While in Tennessee, Pritchett also organized the Southern Dynite Corporation, the Western Dynite Corporation, and Southern Explosives, Inc. to manufacture and sell explosives under patents held by him and his youngest brother, Glenn A. Pritchett. In 1944 Roy Pritchett returned to Utah, working as a janitor for the Ogden Arsenal. After three years Pritchett moved to Helena, Montana. From 1947 until the early 1950s he was involved in prospecting and mine promotion. His brother Glenn, located at Reno, Nevada, and later in Ogden, Utah, acted as his agent in trying to interest investors in Montana mining properties. Roy Pritchett had interests in several mines in the Rimini area and near Lincoln. He also hoped to develop smaller properties using a semi-portable ore processor called the PAC separator/converter, invented by Glenn Pritchett. None of these ventures proved successful and in the mid-1950s Roy returned to his boyhood home of Twin Bridges. While in Tennessee, Roy Pritchett met and married Margaret Johnson of Johnson City, Tennessee. They had no children. Roy Pritchett died at the Alder Rest Home, Alder, Montana, on May 1, 1957, at the age of 79.