Background
Isaac Lawrence Requa (1828-1905) was a mining engineer and businessman. Requa was born in
Tarrytown, New York and came around Cape Horn to California in 1850. He engaged in mining in
California until 1860, when he moved to Virginia City, Nevada; he became superintendent of
the Chollar-Potosi Mining Company, the Hale and Norcross Mines, and the Union Mill and
Mining Company, which controlled most of the mills on the Comstock Lode. Requa married Sarah
Jane Mower (1831-1922) and they had two children, Mark Lawrence Requa and Amy Requa Long
Mitten. In 1880, Requa established his home in Oakland, California, and became active in
Republican politics, serving as Republican State Central Committee Chairman for twenty
years, but declined the nomination for governor of California. He was president of the
Oakland Bank of Savings and in 1894 was made president of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Requa died in Oakland in 1905. Mark Lawrence Requa (1865-1937) was born in Virginia City,
Nevada; he engaged in mining in California and Nevada, built the Nevada Northern Railroad,
served as head of the oil division of the U.S. Fuel Administration from 1918 to 1919 and
helped manage the presidential campaigns of Herbert Hoover in 1928 and 1932.
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