Archives West Finding Aid

John H. Wourms, who specialized in mining law, was the head of the legal department of the Day interests, and as such was prominently known as one of the leading corporation lawyers in Idaho. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 21, 1871; his father was a native of Orleans, France; his mother, Mary Sohn, was a native of Prague, Bohemia. After attending public schools in Ohio, he moved with his family to Newton, Kansas, and, after a brief life as a musician, attended the University of Kansas law school from which he graduated in 1897. He came to the Coeur d'Alene area in 1899 and immediately became associated with the Day interests there. In 1900 he married Pauline Anna Rath and fathered 5 children, one son and four daughters. For many years Wourms' family resided in Portland while he lived in Wallace.

Tall, with a penetrating glance and lanced tongue, Wourms relished intrigue; he was in the thick of political machinations, business and personal investigations for the Days. In political circles he was widely known as a supporter of democratic principles and for ten years he served as the secretary of the Shoshone County Central Committee. He was said to have been shrewd, an avid reader, a scholar of Catholic canon law, fluent in Latin, well informed in jurisprudence, owner of a carefully selected library of English literature and history, an eccentric, a socialist, a "hatchet man" for the Days, and almost a legend in the Coeur d'Alenes in his own lifetime. Although he had once represented the Western Federation of Miners, for most of his career he was the trusted legal and political advisor to the Day brothers. Supposedly Wourms once was suspended from practice for two years for representing both sides in a mining case, yet he was generally regarded as ethical. Ironically, at the same time he was suspended from law practice he became eligible to appear before the United States Supreme Court on introduction of Senator William E. Borah.

Wourms decreased his workload after suffering a stroke in 1941. He suffered a broken hip in a fall just after Christmas of 1944 and was confined to hospital in Wallace until his death, at age 75, from a heart attack on May 26, 1945. He was survived by his wife, son, and three daughters, his second daughter, Pauline, having died in 1925.