DOWN THB SHAPT ••• OR UP!

SILVBR AND HBRITAGB IN THB TINTIC MINING DISTRICT

The old West of prospectors, hard rock districts and towns that go
boom and bust is in the midst of another wave of change. The surge in
precious metals prices at the end of the 1970s inflationary cycle saw new
demand and new technologies appear as the old districts poised in a present
extracting a price from the past. Generally higher metals prices have
joined heap leaching and ion exchange extraction processes to cause old
mines and waste dumps to suddenly assume "ore" status in the current
economics. As seismic crews, core drillers and bulldozers lace the old
claims in search of new data, the historic fabric of interrelated elements
comprising a landscape is undergoing change.
But change is ongoing at some rate in every landscape and in the
fabulous but little known Tintic Mining District more destructive forces
than the new crop of miners have been at work. The Multiple Resource
National Register Historic District created in 1978 listed some 24 individual
sites of major significance. By 1987 of 13 listed sites that had major
structures 6 had disappeared. Dozens more that contributed to the sense of
place and past also disappeared. Many of those were more significant than
sites that were listed. A number of questions are raised by this ongoing
process and in the time available we will address some of them. First, why
have major historic sites been recognized and then destroyed and what
difference if any does their passing make?
To get a feel for the visual changes and the flavor of place involved,
we may divide the landscape into Eureka proper, other townsites, and mine
surface plants or workings. Main Street Eureka in 1986 had a neglected
but beautiful example of a commercial Victorian false front on the north
side across from the BPOE bUilding. Since most of the rows of business
buildings on that side had been razed in the previous 10 years, it was
especially striking in its isolation. It had the classic 19th-century recessed
entry with display windows and tiled floor and a corrugated roof rusted to
a mellow contrast with the backdrop earthtone hills. It was replaced with
a 1940s caboose in fresh painted Union Pacifi,c yellow and red. Next door
went a slant-wall metal prefab for the fire department. Buildings leave a
message. Post railroad era permanence was expressed in fancy brickwork
and Victorian decoration. It is difficult to retain a sense of community or
pride when structures have an air of impermanence that indicates the type
of boom or bust we currently are in.
Over the mountain in Mammoth, a miners cottage stared vacant-eyed
across a valley once filled with the modest frame dwellings of the working
man. An artist's centerpiece in autumn, by 1985 it was gone joining most
of its kin. The miner's "dry" building at the Tintic Standard had served
for years as storage for core samples after the miner's changing room need
had passed. It burned to the ground in 1986, the nefarious deed of an
arsonist. The Chief No.2 headframe over its early concrete-lined shaft was
unique in its width and number of structural members. It was bulldozed in
the early 1980s and replaced with a steel headframe. The Yankee
headframe, perched on a northeast flank of Godiva Mountain, was bulldozed
by ARCO in 1979. While no reason was given, it was apparently easier to
screen the collar for safety that way.
Fundamental philosophical questions arise in view of these changes.
Many factors operate in the destruction of historic mining sites. Hard
economic times as well as good ones, taxes, liability costs, apathy and
insensitivity are among them. In 1987 Eureka suddenly found itself a
"gateway" to the Great Basin National Park. National Parks are notorious
for attracting tourists with dollars many of whom stop and leave some of
those in historic mining districts enroute or nearby. Virginia City, Nevada
and Montana, Georgetown, Colorado and Columbia, California come to mind.
Ironically in the very same year three of Eureka's major businesses closed
and its most prominent if not most significant symbol of mining, the Bullion
Beck headframe, was being stabilized by a state agency under pressure to
reverse some of its more insensitive and illegal activites.

At this point we pause to tell the sordid tale (nearly as fascinating as

John Beck's discovery and development of the mine itself) of the Bullion
Beck headframe's recent near demise at the hands of the Abandoned Mine
Reclamation Program of Utah's Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. Situated
alongside US 6 just west of Eureka is a massive 65 foot Montana-type two
post "gallows" frame which hoisted men and equipment in and out of the
mine shaft. One of the largest and most substantial examples of such
structures in the West, it annually becomes more rare as the ravages of
time and man eliminate them. Many mining historic districts have only a
stray small example in poor condition remaining. One of several of an
excellent cross section of types in the Tintic, the Bullion Beck is fast
becoming a symbol of mining history of significance far beyond Utah.
The DOGM's AMRP expanded out from such busy recreational sites as
the Cottonwood Canyons to begin removing the "hazards" of abandoned
mines from Eureka in 1985. By April 1986 they had performed the requisite
paper work and had a contractor preparing the collar of the shaft for a
steel safety grate. In direct opposition to contractual guidelines and
federal law, the skip guides were smashed down unceremoniously with a
backhoe. Weather worn, they were viewed as "unsafe." (letter, Tintic
Historical Society Chairman of the Board to AMRP, April 3, 1986) The
splintered pieces were reportedly doused with gasoline and set afire. This
just months after the Wilberg Mine fire! .In spite of numerous tanks of
water dumped by the local fire department, the cribbing around the collar
smoldered and burned for weeks. Does this sound like the type of people
you want responsible for removing hazards from your National Register
Historic Site? In terms of Western mining history the destruction was
comparable to swinging the wrecking ball at the angel Moroni atop the Salt
Lake temple.
AMRP people continued to asSure the Tintic Historical Society and
numerous concerned citizens that there was "no effect" on the historical
significance of the site. When they finally viewed the damage the tune was
changed, but mitigating of the "effect" required continued pressure from
other government agencies and individuals. By summer 1987 the job was
finally complete and done nearly as well as it should have been in the first
place. But the tragedy was both more symbolic and more deep seated.
 The real tragedy is that AMRP people have a mind set inherently
insensitive to history. They possess the "beaver mentality" which views
every problem as an engineering opportunity. Rather than approaching, for
example, the problem of safely closing an open mine shaft with a view to
minimum materials and visual intrusion they choose the opposite. Their
projects in Eureka first put down a massive aluminum painted steel mesh
three or four times the size reason might suggest. After negative comment,
they repainted them brown and covered most of them with earth. Robert
Redford has commented on the "Neanderthal mentality" displayed by highway
engineers in Provo Canyon. "You don't have to destroy something to
improve it," he said. (Deseret News, Oct. 6, 1987, p. A7) Mining and
highway engineers are perhaps relatecJ.
What AMRPdoes speaks much more lOUdlythan what it says. Despite
the sensitivity to history they proclaim, their actions in Iron County are
exemplary. There "the bulldozers, backhoes and scrapers are sealing mine
portals, hauling off. mine tailings, and removing any traces of past
mining••••" That the "Leyson mine, first opened in 1854, has been identified
as the oldest coal mine in the state" ("Machines removing signs of Cedar
Canyon mining," Deseret News, Oct. 19, 1986) and was a significant
contributor to pioneer iron smelting efforts was apparently inSUfficient
justification to DOGM to save a few vestiges for the appreciation and
edification of future generations. Oh, but they were going to put up a
plaque, as if history were a zoo, and the whole thing only cost $182,750!
This is not to argue that there are no legitimate hazards around abandoned
mines. Rather that this is another out of proportion bureaucratic program
doing more damage than good crusading under questionable mandate to save
a tiny minority of the population from its own stupidity.
It is the razor edge of irony. One state agency tries to preserve a
little of Utah's mining past for the future while another works diligently to
obliterate it. One has a minimal budget, one has millions and the ear of
the media. Which do you think will prevail? Only if the truth becomes
known to a larger public can David entertain a modest chance of slaying
Goliath.

Those who read discover that history has a way of repeating itself.
Perhaps the best reason then for preserving some history is the time
honored dictum that a knowlege of the past can save at least some of us
from repeating some of the mistakes of the past. The preservation of
buildings, townscapes and landscapes is an evolving idea that has been
around in some form for centuries. Value in the practice is attributed to
such diverse notions as aesthetics, enlightenment and, especially in these
"cost-benefIt-ratio" times, economics. It has been well proven that in many
cases the past yields monetary as well as more intangible profits.
Sometimes only curiosity or chance operate to save places that become
appreciated in a later time.
Destruction of historic places also has many motives. Buildings as
well as books have been burned because some group or individual has
negative feelings about what a place symbolizes. Frequently the past stands
in the way of someone's view of "progress." A societal anomie and
preoccupation with materialism seem to be near the root of "tear it out"
tendencies. The physical past cannot become symbolic in the minds of its
viewers until there develops a chain of awareness, knowledge and ultimately
appreciation. The perception of what is "positive" or "negative" and to
what degree is very dependent on the viewer's frame of reference or
previous experience. Political, tax and insurance ramifications often
operate. Apathy and benign neglect are a two edged sword both preserving
and destroying.
Reasons vary then for the preservation and destruction of historic
places. The question remains, "So what?" What difference does it make
whether historic places are preserved or destroyed? The difference is far
reaching and frequently subtle. Numerous studies from urban planners and
geographers show that shape, detail, flow, sense of past and attractiveness
to pedestrians and human interaction all affect the social, psychological and
ultimately the physical well being of both people and places. Since people
tend to operate as left or right brain entities and the former dominate our
structured society of political, economic and social systems, it appears to be
an uphill battle to elevate the organization of habitat and environs to a
humane level.
Butte, Montana underwent an extensive Historic American Engineering
Record (HA ER) survey following local concerns that the adjacent open-pit
copper mine was about to swallow the town. Janet Cornish, Urban
Revitalization Agency director, said, "All of a sudden, people started getting
excited. Before, downtown had seemed an old, cumbersome area with
sentimental value and little else. Now the community saw its economic
potential, and they saw that people from outside the community were
recognizing it." (Tom Huth, "Mining in the West: Will Our Heritage Survive,"
Historic Preservation, May-June 1981 p. 15; also see USDI NPS, Butte,
Montana A Project Report, April 1981) In a materialistic world, the
survivors in the preservation game soon discovered that an economic appeal
based on well substantiated facts was their best approach. The modus
operandi became simply "show 'em how it makes 'em money!"
Of the many reasons for preserving mining history in Eureka and the
Tintic, the best may be economic and historical. Economic because if the
town's depressed economy is ever to achieve a degree of revival and
stability, the traveler's interest in mining history and not the boom and
bust mining economy itself will provide it. The district by accident of
unpopularity and neglect maintained a range of mining, commercial and
residential structures unexcelled in Utah and most of the West. The raw
material was and may still be there, but lacking is a view of Tintic's place
in the scope of Western mining history, a vision of the district's potential
and a commitment to plan, execute and "do it right." The historical
rationale is based on the townscape and the array of headframes and
surface plants that survive here compared to other districts that now "sell
history" with much less of the authentic to show.
Even building on your best bet, the material culture landscape of
mining past, does not go unopposed. Philosophies of preservation vary as
much as human beings. Some prefer to see the district remain a quiet rural
retreat and personal playground. Some still carry that old West frontier
notion transposed, "the only good planner is a dead planner." Personal
rights remain viscerally more important than public ones especially when it
comes to property. Opposition also comes as an outgrowth of the
automobile and mass communications. The locals can drive out and tune in
to get what they want out of town, and the out-of-towners can commute to
work the mines during the next mineral boom. These songs are replayed
across rural America.
 The preservation ethic did not win the West, Manifest Destiny did.
There remains a refreshing lack of realization that the frontier era is over.
That can be a very appealing force to urbanites, tourists and other
outsiders. It also points to the paradoxes pervading the story of
preservation in Western mining districts. One federal and state tier of
bureaucracy labors to interpret and save our past so that we can
understand and appreciate it. Another layer of federal and state agencies
operating from the other side of the brain accidentally and on purpose
destroy the same past under a relatively legitimate mandate to protect the
public from hazards. One mining company bulldozes headframes and
business blocks in a twinge of liability consciousness and tax reduction.
Another opens a historic tunnel to tours and yet another shares its
extensive historic research with interested historical societies. Some people
bought locally, even if it cost a few dollars more, and others awaited the
trek to the valley to shop. Now there is little option. Some are sensitive
to commercial facades and paint schemes while others "don't give a damn."
Individualism, at least, is alive and well in the Tintic!
Paradox also appears in other districts. Robert Hope, Australian
president of Denver-based Houston International Minerals Corporation,
acknowledges both past mistakes and the inevitability of conflict at their
Virgina City, Nevada operation. "We should have let the community know
what we were doing; now we're being more up front, and I think we're
being accepted as responsible corporate citizens." After a $78,000
contribution to a historic district survey he said, "We were paying for
information--we wanted to see what is really there. To some extent,
people perceive value where we don't. Obviously we can't preserve every
building." (Huth, 1981)
Perhaps more pressing than the direct mining impacts on past mining
landscapes (to a degree natural and evolutionary) are the indirect or
secondary effects of the recent mining and energy booms. A new mine or
leach field or seismic survey is much less destructive than the associated
influx of people with a vandal mentality and no roots in or appreciation of
the local community and its history. Denice Wheeler, secretary of the
Uinta County Historical Society in oil boom Evanston, Wyoming, summed up
the flip side of the newcomer-oldtimer influence this way. "The new people
in town have become extremely interested in our history. People who've
lived here all their lives become sort of immune to their heritage ••••" (Huth,
1981)

Landscape and townscape change in the Tintic Mining District may be

conveniently divided into three major time periods; pre-1869, and before and
after 1929. The era of Native American and Spanish Influence probably had
little impact on the look of the place. Chief Tintic's guerrila war forays
from the springs at Homansville and vicinity put a little fear in a few
valley settlers and a label on the district, but their nomadic lifestyle left
little mark on the land. The Indians in fact were in close harmony with
the natural scheme of things. The Spanish are reputed in some accounts to
have left arrastra paths from mining efforts in the region, but this remains
one of those obscure stories of an obscure place and time that has not
been well researched. The Spanish were noted for primarily working
surface outcrops and natural openings.
 The second phase of landscape change in the Tintic came with
discovery of the Sunbeam in 1869 and the beginning of the "Big Four"
mines in Eureka Gulch the following year. The 1870s Discovery and
Development era saw high grade ore so rich it was plucked from surface
exposures, loaded in wagons for haulage to the railroad in Salt Lake and
shipped to San Francisco and around the Horn to Wales for smelting.
Consolidation and Expansion occurred in the 1880s and 1890s when mills and
smelters struggled with the district's complex ores and railroads finally
connected the place to big city capital and technology. The boom and bust
cycles had already begun. A 1900 description from the !!!!. Lake Mining
Review (April 30, p. 5) serves to indicate the flavor of the district when
Eureka had a popUlation of 3500 and Mammoth 1200. Eureka "•••boasts of
nearly every metropolitan advantage and is a little city instead of an
isolated mining camp •••• Mammoth also has kept pace with the times, and,
while not as large as Eureka, enjoys about the same facilities." Three
decades of New Technology from 1900 to 1930 saw the automobile and
electric power arrive and a continuation of cyclical economics.
The Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of October
24, 1929 marks a major downhill turn in the ongoing cycles of boom and
bust in Tintic towns and mines. Production slowed in the '30s to pick up
with World War II demand in the '40s. By the late 1940s many houses were
moved from Tintic towns to valley towns like Springville, Spanish Fork and
Nephi. Some were burned and others were torn down, but the late '40s and
'50s saw significant portions of the built environment disappear. The 1950s
and '60s era of Diminishing Production saw the rails pulled up and a
gradual exodus continue, leaving a ghostly shell of the district's former
self. The 1970s and '80s witnessed the paradox of Preservation and Apathy
as the nation's bicentennial generated a superb local historical society and
finally the closure of the last operating mines in the district. The post-
Depression period was one of disappearing and shrinking towns and a
contracting Eureka commercial district. The town that had expanded up
Eureka Gulch, and extended from nearly the Evans to Knightsville, began a
process of shrinking at the margins and thinning from within. A
counterpoint of new home building by natives and lovers of the place and
via the idiosyncrasies of politics also began to fill a few gaps.
Not surprisingly, the mining towns of the American West bear striking
similarities. The men were highly mobile in their thirst for that "big
strike," and architecture, mining methods, and social institutions flowed
freely from place to place. Common themes and occurances include fires,
floods, celebrations, the arrival of "city slickers," ladies of the evening,
shootings, hangings, fast faro games at numerous saloons, and fortunes won
and lost. The shift whistles resounded across the landscape, the pump and
hoist engines hummed, and mighty teams of mules and horses freighted in
life's necessities until the railroad and later trucks appeared. Hard men at
hard work in the mines, mills and smelters dominated the scene off Main
Street. Much appeared the same from Tintic to Tombstone. Structures
moved quickly from canvas tents and log cabins through simple wood frame
dwellings and false front businesses to more elaborate structures of wood,
brick and stone in the style of the time. As mines played out and people
departed, the towns became ghosts of their former glory or disappeared
altogether. The pattern was repeated full cycle throughout the West's more
prosperous mining districts.
 Tintic has long been one of the West's most overlooked districts. In
spite of phenomoneal production records and a history and folklore
unexcelled by the more notorious districts, the Tintic has wallowed in the
backwater eddys of obscurity. One reason is simply that it sits 75 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City in a Utah long dominated by a view of history
distinctly Mormon. The railroad and mining impacts continue to be
perceived at best out of context with the Mormon story. Tintic was well
known to the mobile miners who criss-crossed the West, but to the general
population it was as unknown at the turn-of-the-century as it remains
today. If Utah is a perception depression in the West, Tintic is surely one
in Utah. Part of the reason for that lies in the Wasatch Front's peculiar
"Westside-Eastside" mentality. Places west of the River Jordan have never
been perceived as "desirable" in the eastside mind, no matter what their
economic, historical or aesthetic amenities. Perhaps that concept stems
from sources of life-giving water, primarily a product of the Wasatch and
Uinta Mountains.
The old shorter range corporate mentality of squeezing the bottom line
from afar is well represented by at least one Tintic mining company. The
example of Jerome, Arizona where "historic properties are being held in
limbo by inactive mining interests" (Huth, 1981) comes to mind. There is
also evidence for a corporate view that includes history and its material
expressions in a longer view. Centurion and Western have valued historic
photographs that include mine dumps. They help evaluate old mines for
potential reprocessing and help reconstruct past mining activity and even
sections of mines underground. The company has uncovered records around
the country, some painting an unpretty picture of the lot of labor and
company policy. Maimings were frequent in the "good old days" and a
death or two in the drifts was insufficient event to be noted in the local
newspapers. It took a disaster like the September 1914 Oklahoma stope
cave-in that trapped 12 miners and killed 11 to unavoidably appear in print.
Life was hard way back when wages were $3.00 or $4.00 a day.
Sunshine's recent replacement of Kennecott was quietly heralded with
the local comment, "finally got somebody in there knows how to mine
underground." Indeed, they discovered lost ore bodies and held great
promise until $5.00 silver and state bureaucracy encouraged closure. The
company contributed a mine tour, over-counter silver sales, dollars and
enthusiasm to the Tintic Historical Society and town efforts to begin a
viable tourism campaign. Busted again by golly, but the minerals are there
waiting to become ore again and usher in another boom era.
The Tintic Mining District is a complex district. The ores baffled
early smelter designers who found few mines produced a similar product.
The same problem still puzzles the mining engineers. The geology is cut by
numerous faults and intrusions and still intrigues serious students of the
earth. The Salt Lake Tribune noted Tintic's mineral potential Jan. 1, 1892.
"Its growth has ii'O"i"'been commensurate with its merits. It took years to
find out that the rich surface deposits were not all that was good in the
lodes. When these surface deposits were worked down to the pyrites, or
'white iron,' further sinking was stopped, and it has been the work of the
past year or two to demonstrate that there is mineral in paying quantities
and qualities below this iron stratum, and many old claims will soon become
shippers." Ninety-five years later thorough and perhaps first region-wide
evaluations of the district's mineral potential are finally underway.
 What would the old-timers have done with seismic data, core drills and
satellite imagery? Part of the change we view in mining and the boom
towns of mining is related to other external changes. Supply and demand
from far distant places, fear of war and depression and alternative materials
all affect the silver market. Perception can even prove more important
than reality. One reality that affected activity in the 1980s was noted by
Rosenthal and Young. "Since the base price for silver is double or triple
what it was back in the 1970s, and prices for lead, zinc, and copper have
been level since the mid-1970s, the importance of silver in metal-mining
operations has multiplied." (D. Rosenthal and E. Young, The New Case for
Silver, 1985, p. 17) This factor led to reprocessing of tailings or dumps
and increased capital flow toward primary silver mines.
Recent indications are positive for life in the old district's mines. A
Seattle stockbroker and analyst specializing in North American gold and
silver companies recently toured the district and noted that Centurion and
Western now control an area almost as large as the famed Carlin District in
Nevada. "Before [the Centennial-Eureka] was closed the mine produced 1.5
million tons of ore with an average grade of 0.3 ounces of gold and 14.0
ounces of silver per ton. At today's prices this represents $288 million of
gold and $180 million of silver. Since the mine was closed in 1927, there
has been absolutely no modern exploration or drilling done ••••" (Jeff Conley,
"Centurion Mines A Sleeping Giant Reawakens," Bull and Bear, Oct. 1987, p.
ll) ----
A few predictions for the not so famous Tintic are perhaps in order.
It seems likely that the past will continue to repeat itself in slightly
altered forms. Mining will continue its cycles of boom and bust and those
apocryphyl tales of a kings ransom in once "worthless" Tintic Standard
mining stock traded for a night on the town may well repeat themselves.
Those with the earliest information and the resolve to evaluate and act on
it will again someday amass small fortunes from the Tintic. The mineral
base would seem to be there awaiting the alignment of outside factors
again. Another boom in mining will likely change the face of the main
district. Men can move mountains a good deal more quickly these days.
Historian Phillip Notarianni concluded a lecture on the district's past
in these words. "The idea of a 'thread of optimism' through the fabric of
Tintic's history exists. This is tied closely to the cyclical pattern of
economy, or 'peak and trough' type of activity. Tintic is indeed still alive,
and historic preservation may well help it to remain alive." (Notarianni,
unpublished paper, no date) Tintic is indeed no "ghost," though a shadow
of its former self. But in spite of a class local historical society (recipient
of the coveted Corey Award for the finest local historical society on the
continent in 1985) many landmark structures have disappeared. Even more
tragically, many more non-landmark structures equally critical to the mining
landscape compage--its assemblage of elements creating a sense of place--
have disappeared. When it comes to historic landscape and townscape, it
takes a well fired minority and broadening local base to first appreciate
what it has and then to challenge adverse and insensitive changes spawned
by big corporations, big government, big dollars and small minds.
The question arises, "at what point is it too late?" At what point
have too many sites been lost to retain a flavor that tells enough of a
story of the place to attract enough visitor dollars to begin to preserve it?
It is a complex question. In any case, if answers emerge, they will find
Tintic's and the rest of the West's material mining heritage held hostage in
large degree to appetites and forces well beyond Eureka Gulch.