Alexander Toponce

Alexander Toponce (November 10, 1839 – May 13, 1923) was an American pioneer in the Intermountain West region of the United States. His family emigrated to the United States when he was seven and Alexander left home about three years later. He worked as a laborer for several years, mostly in the logging and lumber business, before becoming a teamster, stagecoach driver and freight handler. Toponce headed west when he was about fifteen years old, first to Missouri and then to the northern Intermountain West. There, he ran freight and stagecoach outfits, owned livestock herds, sometimes tried his hand at mining, and invested in all manner of development projects. He is credited with opening or improving many early freight and stage routes throughout the region. Later in life, he mostly invested in mining properties while holding interests in land development companies. Over his lifetime, Toponce made and lost several fortunes, the result of bad weather, Indian raids, unpredictable prices and dishonest partners.

Toponce knew, and was known to, a remarkable number and range of pioneers in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. In his heyday, he could obtain thousands of dollars in credit on little more than a word and a handshake. At the urging of friends, around 1919 he dictated his Reminiscences, which his wife published after his death. He kept no diary, so he spoke a great deal from memory, with some checking of other sources. A few of his dates are shaky, but Toponce did play a major role in the development of the upper Intermountain West. Moreover, he remained active until just a few months before his death, planning an irrigation and hydroelectric power project.

Alexander Toponce was born in Belfort, France, a town located about ten miles from the border with Switzerland. In 1846, his father, Peter, moved the family to the United States. One of Alex’s earliest memories concerned the large French stagecoach, known as a diligence, that took them through Paris to the port of Le Havre. Toponce said that, west of Paris, the diligence was unhitched from the team and lifted aboard a railway flatcar. The passengers got back in and the train carried them to the end of the rail line. According to the history of rail transport in France, in 1846 the tracks would have run as far as Rouen. There, the diligence was unloaded and hitched to a new team for the run into Le Havre.

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