Nevada Genealogy Trails Humboldt County James T. Dunn Biography

JAMES T. DUNN, who is now serving his third term as clerk of Humboldt county and ex-officio clerk of the district court, is one of the comparatively few men who can claim Nevada as their native state. His father, L. F. Dunn, is a prominent pioneer mining man of the state, and was likewise for several years an official of Humboldt county. He was born in Fayette county, Wisconsin, June 3, 1843. In 1864 he crossed the plains to California, and as the Sioux Indians were then on the warpath emigrants were compelled to collect themselves in lands of one hundred or more in order to defend themselves. During the first year in California he hunted deer and bear for the San Francisco market, but in the fall of 1865 came to Humboldt county, Nevada, and engaged in mining, which has been his principal occupation ever since. For eight years he served in the same official capacity in which his son is now serving, and he has gained a wide acquaintance with the greater number of the inhabitants of the county. He mined in the Spring Valley placer, which valley is eleven miles long, and it was rocker diggings, from which some coarse nuggets worth forty or fifty dollars were found. He located claims throughout this canyon and in Dry Gulch, and got out, in all, about sixty-three thousand dollars worth of gold. He is now the owner of the Chicago mine, a quartz claim in the central district, whose assays run from six dollars to six thousand dollars a ton. and the development work which has been done on this property indicates that it will be very profitable to its owner. Mr. L. F. Dunn was married September 1, 1873. to Miss Philapena Pfluger, and they had four children, of whom three are still living. Robert P., a miner, Kathryn E., and James T. The mother of these children died in 1891.

James T. Dunn was born in Nevada, November 21, 1876, and was educated in Oakland, California. In 1893, at the age of sixteen, he came to Winnemucca, and has been connected in some capacity with the county clerk's office ever since that time. As his father's deputy he became thoroughly conversant with all the details of the business, and also won his way into the confidence of the people to the extent that he was elected to the office of county clerk and clerk of the district court in 1898. He was twenty-two years old at the time of his first election, and has been twice re-elected, so that his record as a county officer has received the stamp of public approval and is satisfactory to all concerned. Besides his official duties he is interested with his father in mining. Like his father, he is an adherent of the Democratic party, and fraternally is connected with the Knights of Pythias and the Eagles.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904
Contributed by Barbara Z.