Friday, August 13, 2010
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Philip Deidesheimer (1832 in Darmstadt, Germany - 21 July 1916 in San Francisco, California) was a German mining engineer who invented a system of supports for mines, using heavy timber "cubes" now known as square set timbering, that enabled skilled miners to open three-dimensional cavities of any size underground. Deidesheimer created the system for the Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada in 1860. The system, which was inspired by the structure of honeycombs, enabled mining of the large silver orebodies of the Comstock Lode. Deidesheimer refused to patent the innovation.
The development of his square-set timbering method was fictionalized in "The Diedesheimer Story" in season one of Bonanza.