the COLORFUL Tintic Mining
District
Juab & Utah
Counties, UTAH
by
Gary B. Speck
The Tintic Mining
District, northwest
of Nephi, Utah had eluded me for many years.
Every time I'd previously been in the area, the region was subjected to
nasty thunderstorms, and as a result I never got a chance to visit the area –
until late June 1995. I revisited the Tintic in
early July 2008, as part of a road
trip along US Highway 6 between Bishop, CA and
Price, UT. This is a fascinating place - a compact
region filled with red, white and beige hills covered with
stands of juniper, sagebrush and other greenery. The slopes of the Tintic
Hills are pockmarked with caved-in mines, peppered with eroded tailing piles,
all mixed up with rusty tin shacks, colorful rock foundations and other
detritus of the silver-mining era.
Narrow ribbons of dirt meander off, ducking around wildflower-strewn
grassy knolls hiding the remains of dead mining camps and massive
milling complexes It was from these colorful, rumpled
hills that some half-billion dollars in silver and gold was unearthed, from a
half a thousand mines,
in a tad over one hundred years of mining.
The original discovery of silver here was
made by a Mormon shepherd in 1865. As
the Mormons were discouraged from prospecting, his find was forgotten until
1869, when a non-Mormon cowboy herding cattle rediscovered the rich ledge. He and his partners took samples and showed
it off. The rush was on. Mines were
staked and mining camps popped up all over the district, which was named after
the Ute Indian, Chief Tintic. Because of the richness and durability of
the mines, the Tintic’s
main towns still counted over 8000 people in 1910, 40 years after the boom
started. This was a stable and
productive mining district where Tintic mining
company stock continued traded briskly at the Salt Lake City stock
exchange.
However, things have changed drastically
since then. The Tintic’s mines are much quieter now,
but with the massive run-up in silver and gold prices, there is new interest
and activity in some of the area’s mines, some which once produced ore assaying
$2500 per ton. The legacy of the Tintic remains in its mines, so, as a caveat - IF you
wander off the roads to explore - please be cognizant of the fact this was and
STILL IS mining country. Please show
respect for the rights of the property owners and abide by all posted signs.
There
are three main ways to reach the Tintic.
1. From the south on US
Highway 6.
2. From the north off Interstate 80, thence south on State Highway 36.
3.
Or west US 6 from I-15 at EXIT 248, through the sleepy
agricultural community of Santaquin.
Our
visit to the Tintic
will begin at EUREKA, the
"metropolis" of the Tintic with a 2000 population of 766. This is up from 562 folks in 1990, but still
way down from its peak. We’ll see what
happens with the 2010 census. Other than
MAMMOTH, EUREKA is the only still-living town in the Tintic, its downtown a long
main street
lined with a wonderful collection of one and two-story stone and masonry buildings,
mostly unoccupied. There are several still-in-use churches and the city hall, built in the 1890s.
Most of the businesses string out along Ruby Gulch, now the route
of US 6. Houses meander up the sides of the hills on
either side of the highway, a mixture of various vintage mobile homes and
century old cabins. This sleepy old
mining town still dreams of the days when it was Utah’s ninth largest
city.
The mines that
birthed EUREKA were part of the
original discovery in December 1869, when a
cowboy named George Rust found a chunk of silver ore. He showed it around, which created interest
in the mountains to the east of the grazing land where he worked, especially
once word got out that it assayed at $1500 per ton! The Tintic Mining District was born and named after a local
Indian chief. The next year several settlers
found rich ore a little further north in a little valley. They sold to a Captain E.B. Ward, who named
his mine the Eureka Hill Mine. By 1871,
over 500 mining claims had been filed, and a ramshackle mining camp sprawled
across Ruby Hollow. It called itself EUREKA, and like most mining towns, the
main street followed the bottom of the gulch, the houses and mines sprouting up
wherever a spot of level land made itself available. Churches, schools, and commercial buildings
quickly popped up along the streets, and by the early 1890s, EUREKA was a small city. A flash flood wiped out the main street in
1890, while a fire in 1893 tried to knock it out again. When it was rebuilt, the town was built of
rock, and bricks, bigger and better than ever, most buildings still remaining.
By the turn of the
century, EUREKA was a real
city. It had several thousand people and
a long main street lined with one and two story brick buildings. The 1910 census counted 3400 people in EUREKA, and the booming mining town had
the second J.C. Penny's store in the country.
It also had a 12,000-book library, a band, an Elks Lodge, and two
newspapers among its amenities. EUREKA had a well-deserved reputation
for being a quiet town, not one of the stereotypical, rip-snorting,
hell-for-leather rowdy towns that dominated the West at the time. In 1930, it was still going strong, counting
a population of 3041. The mines were
worked through the 1930s, but in 1942 were closed down by government
order. This sounded the death knell for EUREKA and the other towns in the Tintic. After the war ended, several mines did
reopen, but the spark was gone. The last
mine shuttered its portal in 1957. With
higher mineral values today, there is some activity. Whether much ore is being mined, or if it’s
just exploratory work, I don’t know.
An entire day could be spent poking around this wonderful
old town. Unlike many mining towns that
have gussied up and commercialized their history, or put on fancy airs to
attract tourists, EUREKA missed that
boat, which is a real advantage to those of us in search of authenticity when
we seek the historic past. Most of the
buildings are of buff-colored brick construction: some
with red brick fronts, some painted, some plastered. Most date to the late
1890s, and most are now unoccupied.
A walk along the cracked and heaving concrete sidewalk leads past dead store fronts faced with peeling
paint, missing roofs, crumbling mortar joints
and tattered canopies. Inside some of
the windows dusty merchandise waits patiently for
non-existent customers. Faded advertisements compete for wall
space with structurally unsound stairs; broken windows; ornately decorated facades filled with gewgaws, knobs and
other pretties; while rusty balconies hang by nearly rotted-through bolts. A 1950s vintage air raid siren perches atop
the 1899 city hall and modern streetlights look out of place next to century
old brick buildings like the Shea Building with cantilevered brick
corbels along the top of the front wall.
The white fronted "BPOE Block" with its elk head
sticking out of the upper facade and modern glass storefront windows almost
mocks the fading advertisement for overalls, hay, grain and coal, painted on
the east side of the old building. EUREKA has experienced its share of boom
and bust cycles, and its current non-booming state dominates its
architecture.
Southwest of EUREKA US 6 descends a long hill. At the bottom is the upper part of a
"Y" junction with SH 36 (MP 138).
Down along the railroad about three miles from EUREKA is what remains of TINTIC
STATION, a onetime bustling railroad station and shipping center for the
district that is seldom shown on maps. It is an outgrowth of an earlier railroad
town called IRONTON, whose long-fogotten and abandoned site sits about a mile west of the
current route of the Union Pacific tracks.
IRONTON was established in 1878 when the Salt Lake and Western
Railroad pushed its tracks through the Tintic
Valley. By the 1880s, the railroad
relocated its tracks to the east, shifted the terminus to the south. It then opened a new depot several miles to
the north at what was called TINTIC STATION. Ironton was now a homeless, railroadless
orphan left to wither and die, its stores, saloons and
lodging houses either torn down or relocated. Today, TINTIC
STATION has a small section
house, water tower and several outlying buildings along the road at what is
called TINTIC JUNCTION.
Off to the east,
along the midway point between the two tops of the “Y” junction, at MP 137, a
paved road leads east up an alluvial fan covered with typical Utah
greenery. Two miles from US 6 scattered
cabins and mines announce the faded mining town of MAMMOTH. About the only
building of any consequence remaining is the large, buff-colored fire
station, which appears to be of 1950s or
1960s vintage. The only other buildings
left are cabins, most of which appear occupied. A
few aren't. There is also a large stone
monument to the old Tintic
Hospital, whose location is a barren site.
As the rush to EUREKA ensued in 1870, the Mammoth Mine was
discovered just over the hill to the south of EUREKA. In 1873 the
discoverers sold out to the McIntyre brothers, who basically swapped the mine
for the herd of cattle they were driving towards Salt Lake City. Not too long after the McIntyres
started mining, they hit an ore body that created another boomtown. Other mines quickly developed, and the town of Mammoth grew up on the upper end of
the alluvial fan that leans against the head of the valley. Mills were built, including one at the mouth
of the valley, a mile below the main camp of Mammoth. The small town that grew up around that mill
was called Lowertown,
or Robinson, after the mill's
foreman.
The Mammoth Mine pumped out bismuth,
copper, gold, lead, and silver, while the town of Mammoth grew. Upper Mammoth, at the head of
the valley grew into the residential district, while Robinson developed into the commercial district which also included
a dozen or so saloons. Both had their
own post office, until 1910, when Mammoth incorporated, and
a single post office was established at Middletown
(midway between the two ends of town).
In 1910, Mammoth had 350 plus
homes along with enough commercial establishments to serve a population up to
2500. The Mammoth mines produced
around $20 million in silver, and the town had one amenity that was lacking in
most boom mining towns - a hospital. Mammoth had its fires,
and its downturns, but unlike Eureka, Mammoth died. In 1930 its population still stood at 750,
but it disincorporated, and continued to fade. Today, only a few scattered cabins remain at
the upper part of town and a few mines are still being worked. The rest of MAMMOTH is rubble,
foundations and memories.
A few changes
occurred since my last visit in 1995. A large
brick building has disappeared
(OR I didn’t know where to look!) as has a large concrete
wall ruin. At the time of my visit in July
2008, the mine
at the top end of town appeared
active. Whether it was active mining, or
just exploratory work, I was unable to determine, as I couldn’t find anyone to
ask, and the property was posted against trespass. In 1995, the right side of the building had a
tall wooden structure covering the head frame machinery. That has since collapsed or been removed.
Just 0.2 miles
south of the southern leg of the US 6/SH 36 "Y" junction
is a dirt road heading east. It wanders past the massive concrete foundations
of the Knight
Mill complex and the
now-abandoned remains of a large tailing pile that was undergoing heap leaching
in 1995. This is the west end of SILVER CITY, which lies 0.7 miles up
the road. All that remains of this onetime
boomtown are a few holes where mines were, a number of colorful
tailing piles, foundations and rock
rubble.
Silver City was the original mining camp in the district, even
predating Eureka by a year. It was founded at the time of the rediscovery
of silver in 1869. Like Eureka and Mammoth, it was a
long-lasting town, still going strong in 1899, when it claimed a population of
800. However, water flooded the mine and
a major fire in 1902 damaged much of the community, killing the town’s spirit. Folks vacated, heading to more promising
locations. But the decline was
short-lived. In 1907, Jesse Knight
bought up most of the mines and built a huge
mill and 100 new
houses. Silver City boomed a second
time, and in a year had 1500 people. The
boom only lasted until the mill closed in 1915. A
decade later, Silver City was another
forgotten ghost town: its buildings gone, the massive mill reduced to concrete
foundations, the large
concrete-walled reservoir dry, and the store forgotten – with only basement walls and steps remaining. The SILVER CITY cemetery is
located about a half mile south of the town site and about 300 yards east of US
6, but I did not visit it, so cannot verify what remains or the condition.
The rest of the Tintic Mining District is mostly hidden from
view. Some of the other old camps were Diamond
City, Ironton, Tintic Mills, Harold, Dividend, Homansville,
Knightsville and so on. BURGIN is visible from US 6 and looks
to be home to a very active mine. BUT, the others? Nada. These places
now are nothing more than memories and a few faded pictures in the state
archives. I haven’t visited these
backcountry ghosts, so don’t really know what remains. However, it is said they are nothing but
barren sites or some with a little rubble.
That is except HAROLD. The old
company town of HAROLD itself is
mostly forgotten. BUT, the site is
highly visible. This company-owned
milling town was located below the magnificent ruin of the 1921-1925 era Tintic Standard Company mill which is highly visible from US 6 three miles east of Goshen. The mill processed the silver ore from the
company’s mine at DIVIDEND and the
mill workers lived in a little community at the base of the mill.
The silvery past
truly comes alive in the Tintic. When you come here in search of ghost towns, come with an
open mind, plenty of time and fresh camera batteries. The ghosts of Utah's rich Tintic Mining District will
welcome you! You WON’T
be disappointed.
The Tintic Mining District is one of the locations featured in
my newest book, GHOST TOWNS: Yesterday & TodayTM.
SITE NAME
|
ELEV.
|
LATITUDE
|
LONGITUDE
|
TOWNSHIP/RANGE
|
Burgin
|
5630’
|
39.9488400 / 39° 56’ 56”
|
-112.0482774 /
112° 02’ 54” W
|
SE¼ Sec 15,
T10S, R2W, SLM (Salt Lake Meridian & Base Line)
|
Diamond City
|
6253’
|
39.8816170 / 39°
52’ 54”
|
-112.0974446 / 112°
05’ 51” W
|
W-Ctr Sec 8, T11S, R2W, SLM
|
Dividend
|
5935’
|
39.9546731 / 39°
57’ 17”
|
-112.0613333 / 112°
03’ 41” W
|
NW¼ Sec 15, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
Eureka
|
6430’
|
39.9541166 / 39°
57’ 15”
|
-112.1202235 / 112°
07’ 13” W
|
W½ Sec 18, T10S, R2W / E½ Sec 13, T10S, R3W, SLM
|
Harold (all info
– Warm Springs)
|
4564’
|
39.9582870 / 39°
57’ 30”
|
-111.8557695 / 111°
51’ 21” W
|
SW¼ Sec 8, T10S, R1E, SLM
|
Homansville
|
6253’
|
39.9749505 / 39°
58’ 30”
|
-112.0841118 / 112°
05’ 03” W
|
NE¼ Sec 8, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
Ironton
|
Not listed in
GNIS
|
39.912501 (approximately)
|
-112.190665 (approximately)
|
Sec 33, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
Knight’s Mill @
Silver City
|
Approx 6050’
|
39.916924
|
-112.140938
|
NE¼ Sec 35, T10S, R3W, SLM
|
Knightsville
|
6742’
|
39.9538391 / 39°
57’ 14”
|
-112.1007786 / 112°
06’ 03” W
|
Midpoint of section line Sec 17 & 18, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
Mammoth
|
6391’
|
Lower 39.9263387 / 39°
55’ 35”
Upper 39.9282832
/ 39° 55’ 42”
|
Lower -112.1263346 / 112°
07’ 35” W
Lower -112.1224456 / 112°
07’ 21” W
|
NE¼ Sec 25, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
Silver City
|
6158’
|
39.9099498 / 39°
54’ 36”
|
-112.1299456 / 112°
07’ 48” W
|
Ctr Sec 36, T10S,
R3W, SLM
|
Silver City
Cemetery
|
6024’
|
39.9021719 / 39°
54’ 08”
|
-112.1343901 / 112°
08’ 04” W
|
NW¼ Sec 1, T11S, R3W, SLM
|
Tintic Mills
|
5482’
|
39.8316157 / 39°
49’ 54”
|
-112.0759112 / 112°
04’ 33” W
|
SE¼ Sec 28, T11S, R3W, SLM
|
Tintic Station
|
5853’
|
39.9241158 / 39°
55’ 27”
|
-112.1666132 / 112°
10’ 00” W
|
S-Ctr Sec 27, T10S, R2W, SLM
|
This was our GHOST TOWN OF THE MONTH for July
2000. In 2010 it was completely
rewritten and photos added, then reposted as our GHOST TOWN OF THE MONTH for May 2010.
***************
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FIRST POSTED: July 01, 2000
LAST UPDATED: August
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