A brilliant mining engineer, Walter C. Lawson was an authority on open pit mining. As Chief Engineer, starting in 1937, he was largely responsible for the successful, detailed development of the great Morenci copper orebody in southeastern Arizona by Phelps Dodge Corporation, a project still considered a marvel of the mining industry. It also was his planning that made possible the 80% expansion of the Morenci property during World War II, a remarkable achievement in an amazingly short time.
His talented engineering skills were also reflected in the development of the great copper mines of the Lavender Pit in Bisbee, Arizona, the Tyrone Mine near Silver City, New Mexico, and the Southern Peru Copper Company's mine at Toquepala, Peru.
Famous for being both a man of few words and an outstanding administrator, Lawson was responsible for all of the Phelps Dodge Mining operations from 1951 to his retirement in 1969, as Vice President and General Manager of the Phelps Dodge Western Operations.
Born in Whittaker, Michigan, Lawson graduated from the Michigan School of Mines in 1923, and for two years was an instructor in the Engineering College at the University of Minnesota.
He began his lifelong mining career in Arizona when he joined the staff of the New Cornelia Copper Company in Ajo as a mining engineer. The company was subsequently absorbed by its parent company, the Calumet and Arizona Mining Company. Lawson began his career with Phelps Dodge Corporation when the Calumet and Arizona merged with it during the depression in 1931.
In 1961, Michigan Tech awarded him the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering, and in 1964 he was recipient of the AIME’s William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal Award. The inscription on that award read, “For his discerning perception of orebody geometry in planning open pit development of previously sub-marginal mineral deposits and his outstanding administrative skills and highly efficient management of several large copper mines.”
