Mines above Springville & Mapleton

[ExpUt]

Does anyone know the history or status of the mines that sit at the base of the mountains immediately above Springville and Mapelton in Utah County? I've see the brilliant white tailing pile for years and have never made it over to see whats there. To the north of that and higher on the hill is what looks like a more typical "orange/yellow" tailing pile, with several old roads climbing up the face of the mountain to the site. Any knowledge on the area?

[John]

I grew-up in Springville & spent lots of time all over the face of that mountain. The tailings are whats left of some sort of processing plant, not a mine.

There is one map that shows up on a topo I've got. It's over more toward the canyon & up kind of high. Plus I've been in a few caves along there too.

[ExpUt]

USGS quads show several mines along that face of the mountain.

2-3 adits in Slate Canyon (right near the Springville/Provo border)

A single adit near the gravel pits at Ironton (the old smelter)

A single adit adit 1.5 miles up the canyon, geographically directly east of center street in Springville on the north side of Powerhouse Mountain.

Might be worth a hike once the snow melts?

[ajerome]

I have also been curious about these sites.

In south Provo, just above the "ovens", there has been mining activity all over the mountian face. From south state street, if you look up on the low mountianside, the mining activity that was done there is quite obvious. If you study the low mountianside carefully, you can even see where roads, used to access the various (and many) mining sites cris-cross their way up.

I have hiked around the area and found that these roads, although overgrown now with shrubs and small trees, were once used to haul some kind of ore down to the "ovens".

As for the ovens, in that one area, I have found at least 10; each is about 10 feet square, and up to 12 feet high. They are all similar in construction; mostly made of rock and cement, but also some fire-brick and other masonry. They all have an apture at the bottom to control air-inflow to the oven, and most have a round opening at the top where, I presume, some sort of crusible was set full of ore. Around some of the ovens, there are finger-sized fragments of charcol that was probably used as a flux agent (to remove impurities from the retrieved metal... whatever that was. Some of the ovens have quite a bit of cement work near-by that must have been part of the smelting-works. Some of that cement work is crumbling apart, and has exposed "re-bar" within. (I wonder how -old- it is, really, if it has rebar?)

Just below ovens and cement-work is a large tailings area. The tailings are "white". The white tailings have some folks assuming that it's a lime quary; but this cannot be the case. More likely, the mineral being mined in this area was found in veins of the white crystal structures in the rock. The crystal was mined, crushed, and then smelted. Heat up a batch of the crushed white crystal ore; let it cool, disgard the white crystal on the top to the tailings pile, extract the metal from the bottom for further refining. That's my guess.

I hiked up the shallow canyon above the tilings pile with my son. It was really hard, due to the debis is all small rocks and bolders extracted by mining activity above. Hiking up would cause it to slide down under your feet. About half way up, we found a 2-foot section undersized rail-road rail pounded into the mountian with a bolt in through a hole in the end. It appeared that this was a cable attachment point, used to hoist equipment up, and/or ore down, the shallow canyon.

About two thirds of the way up, we found 6 or 8 feet of the same undersized rail-road rail sticking out of the side of the mountian (through the mining rubble). I suspect that this rail was not used as a cable attachment point; but rather hints at a mine entrance. I would bet that if the debris were cleared away, following this rail, one would find a mine enterance.

I have made several hiking trips around this area, and have found further evidence supporting heavy mining activity all over the (low) mountian face in this area. I have extracted about a gallon can of the white crystal from one of the long-abandoned mining sites, crushed it, and heated it in my forge. Out of that quantity, after disgarding the roasted crystal tailings, a small quantity of metal was recovered (about the size of a pin-head). I don't have the ability to determine what type of metal it is; other than it is silver colored, and much softer than iron.

Being that I don't live too far distant from this area, I have asked all the "old-timers" I know about it. None of them have any recollection of any mining activity ever taking place there. In fact, most had never noticed the tailings, and had never seen the ovens.

I am sure that when those ovens were in operation, the smoke and flames from the oven would have been hard to mis. Hence, my best guess is that it must have been about 100 years ago (~1910) when they were last in operation.

If anyone has more information about this area, and the related mining activity, I would sure like to know more about it.

In the mean-time, I am enjoying my exploration of the area.

[Stuart]

Very interesting, I have also spent quite a bit of time staring up there trying to figure out what went on up there. If it was any kind of sizable operation I bet Russ could dig up something about it. I have wandered around quite a bit up slate canyon and have seen some minor prospects.

[ajerome]

I believe that I have found the name of the site (outlined above in my last post).

"Ironton South Quarry"

http://www.mindat.org/loc.php?loc=182041&ob=4

A friend of mine told me that there are several mines about 200' North of this area.
He indicated that they go about 30' back into the mountian. Perhaps this is the
"adit" referenced below:

"Ironton Adit Occurrence"

http://www.mindat.org/loc.php?loc=182039&ob=4

My friend said that he had encountered some rattle-snakes inside last time; so,
fair warning to everyone. All the same, perhaps I will locate it myself this weekend.

-adam

[John]

One thing I do know about Slate canyon is that there was a slate quarry. The thin slate from the area was used for roofing houses.

I've never figured out what the white tailings were from though. And Springville has a large area of the same type of tailings with a huge pile of what looks like hard-rock mine tailings above it. My friends and I spent a lot of time up there as kids, but never found anything that could explain what was going on there.

[Stuart]

There are also lots of HUGE spiders up Slate canyon, a few years back I was up there looking for prospects and I ended up bringing some home in a jar.

[jayb]

I found an on line map from 1876 of utah. In the area between springville and provo is written cooks mining dist. I've done a lot of resurch on this and have found nothing, was hoping to find out what they were minning. I know of a lot of mines in this area and was told by an old timer that most of them where covered up by the nat. gaurd

[ajerome]

A link to a related document that suggests the area was mined for lead and silver:

http://utah.ptfs.com/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=30730

[ajerome]

Apparently, this area was called the "Cook Mining District" (Thanks Jayb for the lead).

(See:https://books.google.com/books?id=7S...0provo&f=false)

On page 446, it states:

Cook and Spanish Fork Districts
[September 1880]
These are on the western flank of the Wasatch range, south of Provo District. They were organized during the great mining excitement of 1871 and 1872. The country rock is limestone. The ore is galena, carrying from 5 to 10 ounces of silver. All the mines have been abandoned.