John H. Wourms, who specialized in mining law, was the head of the legal department of the Day interests, and as such was prominently known as one of the leading corporation lawyers in Idaho. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 21, 1871; his father was a native of Orleans, France; his mother, Mary Sohn, was a native of Prague, Bohemia. After attending public schools in Ohio, he moved with his family to Newton, Kansas, and, after a brief life as a musician, attended the University of Kansas law school from which he graduated in 1897. He came to the Coeur d'Alene area in 1899 and immediately became associated with the Day interests there. In 1900 he married Pauline Anna Rath and fathered 5 children, one son and four daughters. For many years Wourms' family resided in Portland while he lived in Wallace.
Tall, with a penetrating glance and lanced tongue, Wourms relished intrigue; he was in the thick of political machinations, business and personal investigations for the Days. In political circles he was widely known as a supporter of democratic principles and for ten years he served as the secretary of the Shoshone County Central Committee. He was said to have been shrewd, an avid reader, a scholar of Catholic canon law, fluent in Latin, well informed in jurisprudence, owner of a carefully selected library of English literature and history, an eccentric, a socialist, a "hatchet man" for the Days, and almost a legend in the Coeur d'Alenes in his own lifetime. Although he had once represented the Western Federation of Miners, for most of his career he was the trusted legal and political advisor to the Day brothers. Supposedly Wourms once was suspended from practice for two years for representing both sides in a mining case, yet he was generally regarded as ethical. Ironically, at the same time he was suspended from law practice he became eligible to appear before the United States Supreme Court on introduction of Senator William E. Borah.
Wourms decreased his workload after suffering a stroke in 1941. He suffered a broken hip in a fall just after Christmas of 1944 and was confined to hospital in Wallace until his death, at age 75, from a heart attack on May 26, 1945. He was survived by his wife, son, and three daughters, his second daughter, Pauline, having died in 1925.
The papers of John H. Wourms span the years 1891 to 1963, with the bulk of the material covering the years 1910 to 1940. Included are papers concerning legal matters such as patent papers, articles of incorporation and by-laws for various mining companies, court transcripts for several cases including that of B.F. O'Neil of the Wallace Bank of Commerce, last wills and testaments, leases, correspondence, and other papers dealing with his legal work, the majority of which deals with the Day family interests. The papers are in one series which is arranged alphabetically by company name.
Some of Wourms' file folders were found with the records of the individual companies; where recognized as such they were removed and reintegrated into the legal files. It is likely, however, that not all of these files were returned to the Wourms' papers. Following Wourm's death in 1945, the legal department was under the direction of Bellingham, Washington, native Paul B. Jessup, an accountant and lawyer, who had been hired by the Hercules Mining Company in 1936. His papers account for the post 1945 material in this record group.
The records of John H. Wourms are part of the records of Day Mines, Inc., donated to the University of Idaho by Henry Day in 1984 and 1985.
Initial processing of this Manuscript Group was done by Lena Johnson in October 1987.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.