 
About the author
Old Postcards
Slide show
$24.95 +$3.00 shipping
Email: Eldonb3@gmail.com
Telephone: 970.245.8209
|
Copper Mining
And Utah History
Featuring the book "Copperfield Remembered"
by
R. Eldon Bray
About the book
The book "Copperfield Remembered"
contains over 140 photos of the Copperfield-Bingham Canyon area
including the Utah Copper (Kennecott) open pit mine. Most of the photos
are of historic scenes dating from the late 1890s to the 1950s. The
photos include mules, early steam engines and steam shovels, electric
locomotives, huge modern electric shovels and diesel-powered haulage
trucks. Descriptions with the photos provide considerable detail of
significance to Utah history. The photos and descriptions provide a
perspective from the early years of underground mining of
silver-lead-gold ores and of placer gold mining to the earliest years
of open cut copper mining and all the way to the present huge open pit
Utah Copper (Kennecott) mine that has engulfed the original town of
Bingham and the adjoining small communities including Copperfield.
Pictures show the underground mines on the first recorded mining claim
in Utah, the mule-powered Holden tramway, Shay engines and dinky steam
engines, the first steam shovel operations of the Boston Consolidated
high on The Copper Hill, the first steam shovel work of the Utah Copper
company at the bottom of The Hill, three railway bridges in Copperfield
and the Kennecott Utah Copper open pit mine and equipment as it grew in
size and was modernized. The pictures illustrate the birth of the
modern-day copper mining industry and its role in Utah history.
Features of the town
from the 1930s to its demise in 1958 are described. These descriptions
include the neighborhoods, businesses, schools, the underground mines
and the open pit mine that were literally part of the town of
Copperfield, or Upper Bingham, and the mile-and-a-quarter long
vehicular tunnel that led to the Observation Point for the world-famous
open pit mine. In addition to the well-known attractions there were
several little-publicized places familiar to all who lived in
Copperfield such as "The Copper Water", "The Cocoa Dirt", "Big Tree"
and the abandoned railroad grade of the Shay Track along which small
steam engines once hauled ore. There are many photos of Main Street,
Terrace Heights, Dinkeyville, Jap Camp, Greek Camp, Telegraph and the
U.S.. Also shown are the first and second (rebuilt) Copperfield
schools, Fox's Switch, the Circle, the U.S. Hotel, the Vehicular
Tunnel, Miners Merc the Combination Bar, the Observation Point and
E-Line bridge.
The activities of the people who lived in Copperfield
are described. They included Boy Scout Troop 112, matinees at the Princess Theater,
selling ore specimens to the tourists, and sleigh riding. The inhabitants had considerable
interaction with the copper mine and the railroad tracks that traversed the community.
A section of the book about neighborhood adventures includes boys showering in arsenic-laden
water, little kids going home after school via the underground mine tunnels and shaft and
a boy becoming airborne while flying a homemade model airplane.
Several humorous stories from the Utah Copper mine are recounted. These
stories tell of the locomotive engineer who soaked his false teeth in the water
bucket, the dozer operator who was caught with his dozer festooned with twenty-seven
untagged deer and the trackshifter operator who was determined to better the skunk
that had sprayed him but came out second-best.
In 1958 the town of Copperfield was finally overcome by the open-pit
mine. Several pictures show the town being demolished and ultimately disappearing
into thin air. Older residents of Copperfield can only look at the giant open pit
mine and speculate about where, in the void above the mine, their homes used to
be. Copperfield and all the other communities of Bingham Canyon are gone now.
The last of the book is taken up by the author's and his family's personal
history and adventures in the copper mining town. Some of the highlights include kids losing
their lunch money to the slot machines, taking a shortcut through the mountain by
way of an abandoned mine tunnel, "playing" with dynamite and with carbide "bombs",
the front-room stove that exploded, and the irate father who stabbed his son's football
to death. The author's brother was subjected to the family car having a unique "governor"
installed, was "saved from electrocution" while working on the track gang, and became
crippled while alone in the High Uintas. The author's father, who was born in Bingham,
had numerous adventures. These included his car, with no brakes, rolling backward
down the steep road below Telegraph and accidentally swallowing a small toad that hopped
away after he coughed it back up.
Near the end of the book are stories of hunting in the hills around
the copper mine. The boys' dog "Tip", who chased deer and attacked porcupines at every opportunity,
finally was in a position to "catch" a deer but then didn't know what to do.
The book is concluded with several amusing stories of the author's adventures
as a Geologist for Kennecott and a Scoutmaster in Copperton. Two of these "Geologic" tales are of
the fire hydrant in the street of Bingham that claimed its last victim in the 1960s and the
mysterious water can that was never empty. A memorable scouting story is of the
rope that broke in a tug-of-war and launched a young scout into the air and then
a landing in the creek.
A fitting last photo is that of two men who are dropping a thousand
pound mule down a 4-foot shaft.
Copperfield was a very unique section of Bingham Canyon which itself
was a unique mining town in Utah. Copperfield and indeed, all the communities in
the canyon, including Bingham itself are irretrievably gone - only the written word,
photos and memories remain. Many of the photos in this book have not been previously
printed in any other book; most of the stories presented in it are original. This
book serves to preserve much of the history of Copperfield and of Bingham and is a contribution
to copper mining and to Utah history.
The author hopes that all readers enjoy this book as much as he enjoyed
researching and writing it.
OTHER WEB SITES OF INTEREST
EugeneHalverson.Blogspot.com
|
|
