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Show Beaver County Uranium Mine Shipping Ore to Salt Lake PRODUCTION TO BE INCREASED AFTER EXPLORATION AND , DEVELOPMENT IS COMPLETED Beaver County's only producing uranium mine, located high up Indian Creek Canyon in the Newton mining district .of the Tushar Range, has tunneled through more than 550 feet of high-value ore and is still continuing to bore through the uranium-laden rock without doing any major production work, exploring to determine the extent of the deposit. And although they are still in the "exploration" stage of development, the mine is more than paying its own way. Two cars were shipped last week to the Atomic Energy Commission at the Vitro plant in Salt Lake City. Shipments are being made via Union Pacific, Pa-cific, loading at Milford, and to date 23 cars have been shipped with a net smelter return of about $2,000 per 50-ton car. It is expected to continue shipping about three cars each week while the development work continues, according to Wallace O'Keefe, president of O'Keefe Associates, operators of the mine. After exploration and preliminary development work are completed, Mr. O'Keefe said, production will be stepped up. The mine was located in the spring of 1949 by Louis Lessing, who was prospecting the canyon can-yon for gold. He checked some green crystals from a surface outcrop, and learned that it was uranium. With his father, Isa-dor Isa-dor Lessing, he located the "Mystery" claims, and later in partnership with Tommy and Roy Harris, they located the "Sniffer" claims. They did some minor development devel-opment and leased to the Continental Conti-nental Uranium Company. The Continental made some small shipments from surface devel--opment, and after missing the ore body in a core drilling proi-gram, proi-gram, gave up their lease. The original workings were on a vein lower on the hillside than the ones now being developed devel-oped by Wallace R. O'Keefe Asr sociates, and at the time Mr. O'Keefe leased the property about two years ago, four open cuts were being worked farther up the hillside. Mr. O'Keefe agreed to a plan Continued on Page Five ,''"'-; - -.;-" - .'.. 1 . .:, - ; . " v - '--v., . i j - i-y - v. , v ' .-.'--..! , 5 ' : . ' , ' v ' Surface plant and ore bins ai Ihe Mystery Uranium Mine high up in Indian Creek canyon. can-yon. : LaVar Hollingshead, foreman; Wallace O'Keefe and L. L. Lindner are checking th "couni" on a car of ore before dumping. (Photo by Steve Williams) r ' ' ! ' ' i ' - - " ' . c . . i , v At the "Y" in Mystery Uranium Mine, Beaver, where two tunnels branch to follow different ore bodies. Left to right, Wallace O'Keefe, L. L. Lindner, and Lavar Hollings-head. Hollings-head. (Photo by Steve Williams) ' " - 'i, . . i X . . . . i V - ' :'' I I I- 3 1 HERE'S MORE ABOUT URANIUM MINE Continued from Page One) of LaVar Hollingshead, foreman at the mine, to tunnel in and cut the ore body from a lower elevation, and after 350 feet of tunneling through "country rock" the ore body was encountered. en-countered. The tunnel is now more than 900 feet into the mountain, and all but the first 350 feet is in commercial grade uranium ore. They have also explored the ore , body with two winzes, 40 and 80 feet; two raises, about 40 feet each; and five or six cross-1 cuts from 18 to 40 feet long. , The ore is known to continue from the present operation to . the surface, about 350 feet, and at least 80 feet below the -tunnel. Full extent of the ore j body will not be determined until exploration and development develop-ment work has been completed, I "which might be several years,'' Mr. O'Keefe said, but shipment of ores will continue during the I exploration work. ' A new vein encountered re--cently, now being developed by crosscut and raise, appears to be the most valuable ore yet encountered, Mr. O'Keefe said, with assays running from .70 to 7V2 uranium. It was also pointed out that present work-1 ings are in the lower grade ores since there is evidence of considerable con-siderable leeching, and it is expected to encounter higher values as the ore body is mined at greater depths. "What we want to do first," Mr. O'Keefe said, "is determine if possible the extent of the deposit. de-posit. Then we will map plans for more extensive operations, and really go on a production basis. We believe we have a large deposit of major importance import-ance which, when we go into full production, will mean a great deal to the economy of Beaver County." The O'Keefe group, residents mainly of Portland, Oregon, and the Northwest have other pros-1 pects in Beaver County, including includ-ing the Bee Iron claims in Wah Wah' Valley west of Milford. Tunneling was recently begun at the Bee Iron, to prospect the ore body and develop the mine, Mr. O'Keefe said. A quantity of new equipment for the Mystery mine, recently arrived, is now being installed and will permit more efficient operation, JMr. O'Keefe 'said. Nine' miners and a trucker are employed at the Mystery, in addition to Mr. Hollingshead. The O'Keefe group recently purchased the interests of Mr. Lessing, and they are negotiating negotiat-ing with the Harris brothers for purchase of their interest in the Sniffer claims. Wallace O'Keefe, left, and L. L. Lindner check "count" on new face of "hot" uranium ore opened by recent blasting in Mystery mine near Beaver. (Photo by Steve Williams) |
