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Show UTAH THRIVES ON TINTIC MINERAL DISCOVERIES Tcwn cf Dividend ano I7''"- Sicirrd Mo. 2 S'ra't ' By I. E. DIEHL CHIKF1 TINTIC, a renegade (iosiniLe InJiiin, was the' West's first billionaire, though he did not live to know it. He and his followers pitched their tepees on the slope of what is now Eureka gulch, 55 miles south of Salt Lake City, and claimed all the land lying between Utah lake and the desert to tiie west. Then, and for ten years after TinMc's death in 1859, the claim was undisputed. Finally white men discovered mineral on the land and a new form of title came into effect. Slowly the mineral showings were expanded. Demonstrations of rich silver-lead and gold mines occurred oc-curred periodically for sixty years, bringing Into existence villages, towns and cities in place of tepees, and peopling the district with progressive pro-gressive white mine-owners and workers in place of the nomadic Goshutes. A cowboy and a horse found the first mineral. The animal's hoofs dislodged a specimen of ore and the rider, George Rust, took the piece home to Payson. Although it was winLer, five of Rust's neighbors neigh-bors went scoutiny and located the first claim the Sunbeam simultaneously simul-taneously organizing a mining district, dis-trict, on December 13, 1SG9. The claimnnfs were S. B. Moore, William: Wil-liam: Harris, Joseph Hyde, S. T. Worsley, E. M. Beck. Moroni Bill-ingsley Bill-ingsley and L. T. Whitney. Other claims were slaked and during the spring of 1870 production produc-tion started. Shipping ore was expensive business. - TeamsterB charged $25 per ton for hauling to the Southern Pacific, the nearest railroad. Numerous attempts at local concentration were made, the first two being at Diamond and Ilomansville in 1871. More than 25 mills and furnaces were erected within the next few years, but complexity com-plexity of the ores, scarcity of water wa-ter ana crudeness of equipment hampered their operation. The failures were a foretaste of difficulties to be encountered li one form and another in subsequent subse-quent years sufficient to defeat all but the hardiest and most determined deter-mined of the metal-seekers. The winners stand out conspicuously in the history of the state. Samuel and William Mclntyre traded cattle for a major interest in a prospect called the Mammoth. The mine is credited with a production pro-duction of four million dollars and is even now paying dividends to their grandchildren. John Beck, after losing one fortune, acquired by perservering labor on the Bullion-Beck, made another, lost it, and died a poor man. Col. E. C. Loose, by sinking a 700-foot shaft and spending $125,000, opened the i Grand Central, from whicli $,175,- 271 was taken. John Q. Packard, John F. Woodman, Wood-man, William Hatfield and John McCrystal were among the early arrivals at the new camp whose ventures in unproven ground resulted re-sulted in the production of great wealth and the organization of important companies. The Cen-tennial-Eureka formed by Woodman Wood-man . and W. W. Chisholm, is credited with the shipment of one car of ore woih $200,000 and net earnings of more than $15,000,000. Nature, however, reserved some of her richest prize. for later comers. Several of the greatest mines of Tintlc were developed in the 'nineties and as late as 1915. Jesse Knight, elderly and in straitened circumstances, persisted in developing a location known as the "Humbug". After a heartbreaking heartbreak-ing struggle he drove his tunnel into a rich ore body. Provided with funds, Knight opened mine after mine in. East Tintic. His new fortune' was devoted to enterprises which employod hundreds of men and added to the industries of Utah. He built a town and smelter, smelt-er, developed coal mines, financed factories and started a great tunnel tun-nel and irrigation project at Tintic. Walter Fitch, coming from Michigan, solved a geological problem prob-lem brought a new area into production pro-duction and gave the Chief Con solidated a profit of nearly seven million, mcst of which has been reinvested in property and improvements. im-provements. E. J. Raddatz, going miles east of the recognizer mineral area of Tir.'ic, sank 000 feet and made the Tintic Standard one of the largest silver-lead shipp?rs and biggest employers of L't:th. More than SO minerals have been id en I i fie d at Tint ic. In U3 years,' to 115, $;m::,51-;,!i:7 was realized for the nunferrn;i:i metals. They included L'51,!j-!0,5S ounces of silver, 850.000 tons of lead, 2.S26.S58 ounces of gold. 110,000 tons of copper and 15,000 tons of zinc. Re- , turns for iron, bismuth, manganese, antimony, silica, limestone, lc, bring the grand ttal value to about $100,000,000. This money, on its travels, has fed and clothed miners and smelter-men, erected homes and skyscrapers, endowed libraries, hospitals and churches, Jin a need farming and m;inulac:turing industries, indus-tries, supported trade, p;1 id taxes, and it -s'.ill moves tirelessly on, repeating 1 he cycle. Tintic has worked out its near-surface near-surface ore. It must now depend on deposits lying 1000 to 2500 feet deep, the recovery of which involves in-volves the risk of larger capital, intelligent uso of scientific equipment equip-ment and large investments in exploration. |