An Appreciation of Russell Ritchie Bryan
Colorado School of Mines lost a valued alumnus when
Russel Ritchie Bryan, Met. E. 1908, died at Cananea on Feb. 12, 1970. Mexico lost one of its old foreign Residents who had spent much of his professional life in the country.
After graduating from public schools in Denver, Russ Bryan went on to professional studies at Golden. Born in Denver on March 27, 1886, he had still not strayed from his home state when granted a degree in Metallurgical Engineering by Colorado School of Mines in 1908. Thereafter he was seldom in it except for brief employment at the Tomboy, in Telluride, and a Bureau of Mines project at Colorado Springs during those years when he was amassing experience for later accomplishments. Interspersed with those early jobs were others at the Sunnyside in Eureka, at Anaconda Test Laboratory in Montana and work in California gold mines. He married Edith Ann Skinner in 1914.
In 1923 Russ and his wife moved away from the United States to settle at Pachuca, a four centuries old silver producing district in Mexico. He spent 13 years in experimetal work which lead up to design, centralization and reconstruction of the Loreto mill of the Compania de Real del Monte y Pachuca. The cyanide regeneratino process and plant which he developed and build, was an indispensable part of the operation, essential to economic survival.
In 1936 an offer to the Philippines proved too attractive at Tumbago Consolidated and at Surgao Consolidated and eventually formed a partnership with Edward Wisser and John Payne for general mining consulting headquartered in Manila.
Conditions during the pre-war period did not warrant continuance of the consulting firm. It was dissolved and Russ Bryan returned to Pachuca to continue with the organization he had left earlier. Never again did he leave the RDM Company until his retirement in 1965. Meanwhile, the United States Smelting Refining and Mining Company, which had acquired the RDM operation in 1960, sold its interest to a Mexican government corporation, in 1948. The government agency, La Comision de Fomento Minero assumed the responsibility for RDM management, first under don Enrique Ortiz, and after his death, under don Oswaldo Guria Urgell. Russ Bryan became an intimate friend and valued associate of both men who had infinite confidence in his ability and integrity. As a result, he spear-headed the tailings retreatment project, designed to recover silver from the huge accumulation of cyanide tailings. The Comiston de Fomento Minero made Bryan responsible for the entire job, from initial experimentation to design, construction and operation of the new mill, in addition to his regular duties in charge of metallurgical operations of RDM.
Aside from purely professional papers which he presented through technical journals, Russ Bryan wrote other articles. On, with Carrell B. Larsen, in the Colorado Mines Magazine, dealt with historical aspects of Pachuca. Another, and AIME publication with M. H. Kuryia, covered milling and cyanidation at Pachuca.
Russ, and his wife who survives him, had six children, three daughters and three sons. Engineering held considerable appeal to the family, as well as to him. Two of his boys became engineers, one daughter married a geologist and another a mining engineer.
Russ Bryan’s friends throughout the mining fraternity will remember him with affection. He had lived 84 years when he died, a long life during which he made friends throughout Mexico, the United States and the Philippines.
— Alan Probert.
1886 - 1970 (83 years)
. Winbourne Ruth BRYAN, b. 12 Jul 1915, Amador, California 
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