Mark L. Requa
Requa, 1905
Born
Mark Lawrence Requa

(1866-12-25)December 25, 1866
Virginia City, Nevada, U.S.
DiedMarch 6, 1937(1937-03-06) (aged 70)
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Resting placeSanta Barbara Cemetery
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Occupations
  • mining engineer
  • railroadman
  • government official
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
Florence Herrick
​
(m. 1895)​
Children3

Mark L. Requa (December 25, 1866 – March 6, 1937) was an American mining engineer and petroleum conservationist. He served as the director of the Oil Division of the U.S. Fuel Administration during World War I. He helped manage the presidential campaigns of Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932.

Early life

Mark Lawrence Requa[1] was born on December 25, 1866, to Sarah Jane (née Mower) and Isaac Lawrence Requa in Virginia City, Nevada.[2][3] Isaac Requa was a one time president of Oakland Bank of Savings and made a fortune in silver and gold mining in Virginia City.[4][5][6] He was also an engineer with Comstock Mining and served as president of the Central Pacific Railroad.[7][8] Requa was educated at the Requa School in Piedmont, California and at private schools.[2][4] He was admitted into Yale University but could not attend due to poor eyesight.[3]

Career

Requa was the manager of the Eureka-Palisades Railroad.[9] Requa organized the White Pine Copper Company in 1902. In 1904, Requa merged the White Pine Copper Company and the Boston and Nevada Copper Company into the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. He formed the Nevada Northern Railway to transport copper ore from the Robinson Mine near Ely, Nevada to Cobre, Nevada.[7][9]

Requa first met Herbert Hoover in 1905.[10][6] Hoover brought Requa with him when he joined the U.S. Food Administration in June 1917 and Requa served as his assistant.[3][5][10] By 1918, Requa was in charge of the commercial relations division of the Food Administration.[11] He also served as a consulting engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Mines.[2]

Requa, Harry Augustus Garfield and staff of the U.S. Fuel Administration

In January 1918, Requa became the director of the Oil Division of the U.S. Fuel Administration. He helped to coordinate the production and marketing policies to enable the oil industry to support the military needs of the United States during the war.[3] He served in that role through World War I until the Administration was dissolved on June 30, 1919, and also served as the Petroleum Waste Conservator.[1][3][5][12] He established "motorless weekends" while at the Fuel Administration. In 1921, at the World Engineering Congress in Tokyo, Requa warned nations about wasting petroleum.[1][10][13]

After the war, he moved back to California.[10] Requa would help manage Hoover's campaigns for the 1928 and 1932 presidential elections.[5][12] He served as a committeeman from California to the National Republican Committee from 1932 to 1936.[12][13]

In 1930, Requa served as chairman of the San Francisco Bay Bridge Commission, the commission set up to determine the site of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.[14] Requa partnered with Hoover in mining ventures after his presidency.[5]

Requa served as vice president of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers from 1917 to 1920 and served as a trustee from 1917 to 1919.[1][6][15] He also served as a member of the American Petroleum Institute.[10]

Requa wrote two books, Grubstake and The Relation of Government to Industry.[1]

Personal life

Requa married Florence Herrick of Oakland, California in 1895.[1][12] Together, they had two daughters and one son: Mrs. John Henry Russell, Mrs. William David Coy Filmer and Lawrence Kendall Requa.[10][2]

His sister Amy Requa married General Oscar F. Long.[16][8]

Later life and death

Requa lived in Santa Barbara, California in his later years. He died on March 6, 1937, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Santa Barbara following complications from an abdominal operation three weeks earlier.[10][12] He was buried at Santa Barbara Cemetery.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Mark Requa Dies". The New York Times. March 7, 1937. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Mark Requa, G.O.P. Leader, Dies". The Salinas Californian. March 6, 1937. Retrieved January 18, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. December 2, 2013. p. 496.
  4. 1 2 "Requa School". Oakland Tribune. August 23, 1951. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Guide to Mining and Petroleum Resources (PDF). University of Wyoming. 2013. p. 120. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 "Mark L. Requa, War Time Oil Dictator, Dies". The Fresno Bee. March 6, 1937 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  7. 1 2 "Robinson Mine". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Is Now The Bride Of A Soldier". San Francisco Examiner. October 8, 1896. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  9. 1 2 "Nevada Northern Railway Company - East Ely Depot Building". National Park Service. March 9, 1984. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Requa Eminent Conservationist". San Francisco Examiner. March 7, 1937. Retrieved January 18, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  11. ↑ "Coast Man Named To Deal With Oil". The Arizona Republican. January 26, 1918. p. 4. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 "Mrs. Mark L. Requa". The New York Times. February 24, 1955. p. 27. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  13. 1 2 Pickard, Edward W. (March 17, 1937). "News Review of Current Events the World Over". Roseville Tribune And Register. Roseville, California. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
  14. ↑ "Statement on the San Francisco Bay Bridge Commission". University of California, Santa Barbara. August 12, 1930. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Mark L. Requa". American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  16. ↑ McClure, Maggie; Dunlap, Boutwell (1923). "Some Facts concerning Leland Stanford and His Contemporaries in Placer County" (PDF). California Historical Society Quarterly. University of California Press. 2 (3): 206. doi:10.2307/25177711. JSTOR 25177711. Retrieved January 18, 2022 – via JSTOR.
  17. ↑ "Mark Requa Laid to Rest". Los Angeles Times. March 10, 1937. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.Open access icon
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