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Show lone Ranger' Fictional, But Silver Bullets Vere Real in So. Utah ' and butter" policy even In those days, and the lead bul-i bul-i lion not used as ammunition I became a medium of exchange ex-change during the first ten ! years of life in Minersville. j In the early days of the mine, ore was hauled in wa-jgons wa-jgons to the smeltors in Salt I Lake City, except for a small I amount smelted for local use in a crude stone furnace on the Beaver River near Minersville. Miners-ville. The Lincoln mine gained in importance in 1880 when the Utah Central Railway ran its tracks into the area and began be-gan hauling greater quantities quanti-ties of ore to the Salt Lake smelters. The mine continued operation opera-tion until 1896 when the ore at greater depths turned to sulphines, and carried little value. An attempt by a Denver group to revive the mine in 1947 was abandoned. MINERSVILLE, Utah As Western fans have long known, the "silver bullet" is I the trademark of the Lone Ranger. But while the masked mask-ed rider may have been fictional, fic-tional, not so his famed ammunition. am-munition. Long before the imaginary Lone Ranger left his mark on the young radio audience of the land, the silver bullet had become a legend attached to early settlers of southern Utah. Today a huge stone monument monu-ment stands near the site of the Lincoln Mine, Utah's first lead mine, which produced an ore with a high silver content. con-tent. The ore assayed as high as one-half ounce of gold to the ton; 19 to 30 ounces of silver and 38 lead. During the decades between 1858-1896, the Minersville set- l tiers were believed in the east to be fighting Indians with "silver bullets", molded from the enrichened lead taken from the mine. The community's historical records show that two young girls, including the daughter of a hotel owner who served simultaneously as Minersville postmaster and Mormon bishop, bish-op, spent long days helping the settlers to mold the bullets. bul-lets. During the early days of the mining settlement, five seperate bands of Indians, including Utes and Paiutes, occupied the general area. Previous Pre-vious tribal land alignments' were upset by the inflow of settlers, a situation which con-1 tinually kept the community's situation precarious. But the miners had a "guns |
