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Show STORY OF MINES AND MINING IN STATE OF UTAH A booklet containing a history of the mining industry in Utah has just been published by the Commercial club and Chamber of Commerce. Ma-v.y Ma-v.y interesting details dealing with 'he progress of mining in this state r.re set forth in 40 or more well illustrated il-lustrated pages. In addition (o the 'lustrations and the complication of statistics, the booklet contains a large map of the state showing the location of the 11G metal mining districts; the 14 coal mining districts and the location loca-tion of the six smelters now operating. operat-ing. In dealing with the history of the state a short sketch is given of the early explorers of Utah, including the two Spanish priests, Escalnnte and Domingues, who left Sandoval, New Mexico, at the head of a company to blaze a trail to Monterey, California. Col. James Bridger. trapper. John C. Fremont, Kit Carson and later the "Mormon" emigrants, who came 'here under the leadership of Priest Brig-ham Brig-ham Young. The compilers of the booklet in dealing with the mining h'story of the state have the following to say: j "In Utah as contrasted with many of the Cordilleran states, the rancher preceded the prospector. In fact, many agricnltural settlements were well established before mining became be-came of importance. Civil factors doubtless contributed to this condition. conditi-on. The leaders of the "Mormon" Church for several years discouraged prospecting. The rich and extensive placer deposits that were the first incentive in-centive of mining in many western camps were lacking and the lode deposits, de-posits, thouh many of them were very rich, required extensive machinery ma-chinery for profitable exploitation. That the settlers were well aware of the presence of metalliferous rock in the mountains, is shown by the fact that in the fifties some lead ore was crudely reduced to bullion for use as bullets. The first metal produced in the state is said to have been taken from the Rawlins or Lincoln mines in Beaver county. "Iron deposits near Iron mountain were discovered in 1851. Bishop Taylor Tay-lor tried to establish an iron smelt er in Iron City, but the available coal from the district east of Cedar City produced unsatisfactory coke for the smelting purposes and the result was that the project failed. It is also recorded re-corded that coal from Grass Creek in Weber canyon was supplied to Salt Lake and Ogden in the early fifties for domestic purposes. "The first silver mine in the state was discovered in Beaver county in 1S60 but the first location was on the Jordan claim, made September 17 18G2, in West mountains of Brigham district. General Patrick OcConnor, who in 1S62 took command of the troops at Ft. Douglas and who was greatly interested in the mining industry, in-dustry, encouraged ihs men, composed compos-ed largely of prospectors from California Cali-fornia to explore the mountains for mineral deposits. In December, 1SG3, mining laws were drawn up for the West Mountain Moun-tain district at a meeting of the miners min-ers at Gardner's mill on the Jordan river. This was the first mining district dis-trict organized in the state. Bishop Archibald Gardner was the recorder. In 1SG4 silver bearing lead ore was discovered at Wasatch, Little Cotton wood and also at Mountain Lake. In this year the first furnace for smelting smelt-ing lead, gold and silver was built at Stockton in the present Rush valley val-ley district, then part of West Moun-t Moun-t a In a short article on the metallurgical metallur-gical development of th estate it is pointed out that Utah at the present time is a very important metallurgical metallurgi-cal center and boasts of having the greatest smelting district in North America and according to present information in-formation in the world. , The ore treated in 1912 by the 4 valley smelters of the American Smelting Sm-elting & Refining company United States Smelting. Refining & Milling company and the International Smelt ing company was 4.430,000 tons, which was nearly one-half million tons greater than was treated at Douglas, Dou-glas, Arizona, which holds second place. The booklet concludes by giving a short report of the activities of the Commercial club. Deseret News |