Born December 25, 1865 in Virginia City, Nevada, Mark Requa followed his father’s footsteps into mining and railroad activities. By 1897, Requa was employed by a struggling Eureka & Palisade Railroad,and his charge was to revitalize the line. Thinking “outside the box”, he reached out beyond the rail line to generate traffic, some of which was to come from the distant towns of Ely and Hamilton, Nevada.

Mark Requa studied a possible extension of that railroad to haul the copper ore from his mines in Ely, but a more direct route down the Steptoe Valley proved more favorable. On June 1, 1905, the Nevada Northern Railway was formally incorporated; grading began three months later at Cobre, working south towards Ely. On September 29 &30, 1906, Ely celebrated Railroad Days, and Mark Requa drove the ceremonial final spike (made from copper from the Ruth mine) to complete the Nevada Northern Railway.

With the railroad now in operation, Mr. Requa shifted his focus elsewhere, resigning from the NNRy on December 1, 1906. He continued on with the E&P until 1910. Though separated from the railroads, Requa remained active in mining pursuits in Nevada, Idaho, and Alaska. He later partnered with Herbert Hoover, who he had first met in 1905, in some of his ventures. For a period of time, Mr. Requa also served as a consulting engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Mines and was active in the growing petroleum industry.

Perhaps most important,however, is that he was known as a fine person, upright and attentive to details, and very careful with money. He passed away on March 6, 1937.