The name that heads this sketch is one well known throughout the west. He who bears it is now over three score years of age, but he appears much younger, and is possessed of a greater degree of vim and energy than is ordinarily displayed by men of younger years. His career has, indeed, been an interesting one, and to enumerate even the more prominent events of his life and to do justice to his energy and enterprise in one brief sketch would be impossible, as it would occupy more space than we can spare in our little volume. Mr. Downie was born in Scotland in 1835, and came to New York at the age of 17. He shortly after went to California and for the next sixteen years was engaged in mining in Nevada, Eldorado and Sierra Counties, owning the Key Stone diggings, from which he and his partners took out $92,000.00 in eleven months. Selling out his interest in the ground left for $800.00, in six months sixty thousand more was taken out. He acted then as the manager for the Nebraska mime in Nevada County for two years, and then again became possessor of some rich placers which he worked with success for a number of years. Finally, feeling the effects of underground or deep placer work, he came to Oregon in 1870, staying a short time only in Baker City, and then moving to Sumpter, he began mining again at Tamarack glitch. “Archie” Downie, as he is familiarly knows to all, is a typical miner, shrewd in business but with a heart as large as an ox. His claim owned in connection with Dr. J. F. Dickson, the well known oculist, is looked upon as one of the richest placers in the state. In 1881, Mr. Downie married Mrs. Adonis, of Sumersetshire, England, and nothing gives him or his wife greater pleasure than the entertainment of their hosts of friends.
