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Show Copper Mine in Bingham Is Tourist Attraction At Bingham Canyon, one of the scenic attractions in Utah, 27 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is one of the world's marvels, North America's largest open cut mine, owned by the Kennecott Copper Corp. The magnitude of the operation is almost beyond comprehension. The mine is a theater-like quarry quar-ry covering about 855 acres. Ore is mined by the use of 41 huge electric shovels with dippers of 9 tons capacity, operating on 45 levels lev-els over 138 miles of standard gauge track. The ore blasting at 3:30 p.m. daily and 3 p.m. Sundays is very spectacular and can be witnessed from a safe vantage point reached by riding, through Bingham, the most unusual town in the world one street wide and 3 miles long. The houses and buildings hug the sides of the canyon walls. Shirley Temple's press agent quipped that in Bingham the dogs have to wag their tails up and down. Utah emerged as an' important producer of copper shortly after the beginning of the 20th Century. While some copper was produced largely as a by-product prior to 190(), it was the development of the Utah Copper Division of Ken- necott Copper Corp. at Bingham Canyon in 1904 that gave Utah its leadership as a copper producing produc-ing state. Virtually since its beginning this open cut mine has been the world's leading copper producer, normally providing about 30 per cent of America's newly mined copper. In normal times the operation employs em-ploys 4,000 workmen 2,000 at the mine and 2,000 at the Magna and Arthur concentrators, which, combined, com-bined, have the largest capacity in the world. Such a mining operation naturally natur-ally has been a powerful force in the building of Utah's economy, and has brought much industry and new wealth into the state. |