A Goldfield High School Student Makes Good! – By John Rudderow And Deana Glatz
Archie MacDonald
(The Joshua Palm, 1908)
Archibald Angus Macdonald. Goldfield – 1908, Archie attended the tenth grade at Goldfield High where he was on the staff of the first edition of “The Joshua Palm”, Goldfield High’s official publication. And, in the High School Players play, “The Revolving Wedge”, performed at the Hippodrome as part of the Thanksgiving Program on November 25, 1908, he played
Archie in Goldfield
(Truman/Rudderow family photo, Goldfield, est. 1907-1910)
Captain Michael Dolan of the Goldfield police force.
Archie’s father, Angus John McDonald, born in 1852 in Ontario, Canada, was of Scottish decent. His mother, Mary Frances
McHugh, was born about 1862 in Saint Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Angus and ‘Fannie’ were married in Polk County, Wisconsin on May 26 1887 and became the parents of three boys, all born in Minneapolis; Ernest John (1888-1955), James Vernon (1890-1987) and Archie, the youngest, born on February 28, 1893.
Sometime between 1892 and 1895, Angus MacDonald passed away. Fannie and the three boys are found in the 1895 Minnesota State census living together, still in Minneapolis. In 1900, in the Minneapolis City Directory, Fannie is living with her widowed father, Bernard McHugh (abt. 1834-1909) and in the census of that same year, the three boys are together at the Catholic Orphan Asylum in Minneapolis. By early 1901, Fannie and her three boys had relocated to Butte, Montana where the 1902 city directory found her as the proprietor of ‘The Dorothy’, a private hotel.
Fannie married her second husband, William Francis Byrne, on November 9, 1904 in Butte, Montana and their son, William Francis Byrne, Jr. was born there in April, 1906. W. F. Byrne was the fiscal agent of the Montana Nevada Gold Mining Company, Butte, Montana, with an operation at Lida, a short distance from Goldfield, Nevada. By 1907, the family had relocated to Goldfield.
Mrs. F. Byrne is listed in the 1907 January and August Goldfield telephone directories; phone number 113, Archie is attending school, his step-father is working as a superintendent in mines and the family is living at 210 S Euclid. Sometime around 1910 the family moved to Kern County, California where Mr. Byrne worked Superintendent for Associated Oil Co.
Archie moves on…. and upward…
According to his World War I Draft Registration on June 5, 1917, Archie was 24, married with one child, living in Los Angeles and working in oil well supplies for Associated Supply Co. He was of medium height and build with blue eyes and brown hair.
No later than August 1913, Archie was living in Fellows, California, where he married Ellen ‘Ella’ Marie Crosbie, aged 19, a native of California, resident of Maricopa. Their first son, John A., was born in Coalinga, California in April 1914. By 1915, the couple relocated to Los Angeles where Archie was employed by Associated Supply Co. By 1918, Archie was working for Lucey Manufacturing Corporation, one of the largest manufactures of oil well supplies in the United States.
October 1924, Archie posing with Hughes Tool
Company executives. 8th & 9th from left;
Howard Hughes & A. A. MacDonald. (Ancestry)
In 1920, Archie became the Southern California representative of the Hughes Tool Company owned by Howard Hughes, Sr. which manufactured roller cutter bits that dramatically improved the rotary drilling process for oil drilling rigs. When Hughes Sr. died in January 1924, his son, Howard Hughes inherited the company and A. (Archie) A. MacDonald was manager of the California branch office and the plant located at 2445 Enterprise Street in Los Angeles.
Home in Hancock Park, 133 North Las Palmas
Avenue, Los Angeles. (Ancestry)
Three more sons were born to Archie and Ellen, Robert Crosbie in 1921, James Bernard in 1923 and Raymond J. in 1925. Also in 1925, Archie built their family home in Hancock Park, a 10 room, stucco dwelling at 133 North Las Palmas Avenue, Los Angeles, which still stands (2023).
While working for Hughes Tool Company, Archie filed at least two patents for his inventions; Patents #1,666,711 and #1,896,243, both related to well drilling operations, assignor to Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas. (see below)
In 1930, the Los Angeles census found Archie, Ellen and their four sons living in their new home; Archie’s occupation is manager in the tools & equipment industry.
In July of 1930, Howard Hughes purchased a controlling interest in Multicolor Films, Inc. and started the construction of a new, state-of-the-art color film manufacturing plant, operating under the new trade name of Multicolor, Ltd. Archie was transferred from Hughes Tool Company to Multicolor, Ltd. where he served as president until the company went out of business in 1932. Note: (The building, which was also Howard Hughes Headquarters Building, is still standing, located at 7000 Romaine Street in Hollywood, and was declared an Historic Cultural Monument on September 29, 2021.)
By no later than 1938, Archie was in oil production as MacDonald & Burns Oil Producers and later as MacDonald, Burns & Norris and Archie and Ellen traveled and kept busy socially.
Archie Angus MacDonald passed away in Newport Beach on August 4, 1977, beloved husband of Ellen, father of Raymond J. and James B., predeceased by sons John A. (1932) and Robert Crosbie (1947), brother of James V. MacDonald and William F. Byrne, survived by 9 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. Ellen Marie (Crosbie) MacDonald passed away in Santa Barbara on February 5, 1979.
Archie’s Patents
