Philip Deidesheimer

In 1852, at nineteen, the young mining engineer traveled to the California gold fields to work for several years, including in Georgetown.

[2] Deidesheimer created the square set timbering system for the Comstock Lode's Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1860.

[3] The system, which was inspired by the structure of honeycombs, enabled mining of the large silver orebodies of the Comstock Lode, which were in very weak rock—in miner's terms, "heavy ground".

[3] The development of his square-set timbering method was fictionalized in "The Philip Deidesheimer Story", a 1959 first-season episode of the American television series Bonanza, in which John Beal portrayed the title character.

[8] Philip Deidesheimer was the subject of the NPR radio program The Engines of Our Ingenuity in episode 1901[9] and was inducted into the (USA) National Mining Hall of Fame.