Intro from Ogden- Thanks for your efforts!

[josh bernhard]

Hi all, I've loved your site and videos, which I stumbled upon while doing research on Jacob City, which I visited for a few days about five years ago.

Ghost towns are my passion, I have to visit at least two a year. Some become a labor of love, as with what happened when I visited the coal mining town of Sego, Utah. I met with some locals, interviewed residents of the town, and wound up with a project that I am still working on, researching the history of the mining activity in the area.

As a historian of sorts, I applaud your efforts to explore, document and preserve historic mines and mining facilities- it is hard to find a group with as much zeal and as many accomplishments as yours that is interested in actually going out and restoring, documenting, preserving, etc.

The Ophir Hill mine is on my wish list of places to visit. I've seen plenty of shafts and tunnels (adits) from the surface, but never from inside.

[ExpUt]

Welcome to MU.

[Dawn_CL]

Wowwww! Ogden huh? (takes a minute to relive the memories) I used to live in Ogden and i LOVED it there. I lived out on Wall Street to be exact, near the dog food factory and remember commuting from Ogden to SL by bus for business i was there for years ago and yes it has been yearssss since i have been to Ogden. Never thought id see anybody from Ogden here. LOL

Anyways, im from northwestern AZ now so welcome to the forums.

I DO have a question for you though even though im not sure how long youve been around the Ogden area. I wasnt able to do any exploring back during my days in Ogden, mainly because i wasnt into it and i was too busy conducting business back then but my question to you is:

Would you happen to know of any explorable mines and such out around the Ogden/ SL area?

I believe i asked someone here that question before (i think it was Crystal) but she said she wasnt sure. They never did much exploration up that way.

[josh bernhard]

I don't know about explorable mines, having never actually been inside one (at least not very far), but I do know that Mont Ben Lomond, in North Ogden, is full of tunnels.

In the late 1800's to the 1920's some farmers in the North Ogden area had claims all along the north and east sides of the mountain, many with substantial but not excessive profits, as they were mined part-time. The miners would light fires at the peak as a signal to those in the valleys that someone was up there; when they were ready to return with the ore they would put the fires out.

I have not been up there lately to check the mines out since I read about them; however, I have heard that there are several cabins and a few other buildings still standing near the final ascent to the peak.

I don't know about any underground mines nears Salt Lake City, most being taken over by the ski slopes, but in Provo there was a rather large yet well hidden tunnel in the foothills behind Brigham Young Universtiy that my father entered during his college days, and he says he spent quite a few hours exploring in there with a friend, even meeting up with a few shafts. I don't know if this one has been reclaimed by the government or not (I hate those guys sometimes) but it's worth checking out.