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Eureka
Our Utah History Under Fire
As a child I was always fascinated by the small semi-ghost town of Eureka. When we passed through it on our way to the latest family adventure my imagination ran wild. The rustic landscape dotted with tailing piles and giant wood headframes filled my mind with visions of the past. I could imagine the hustle and bustle of miners as they chiseled away at a silver vein and I could almost smell the locomotives as they hauled ore off to the mills. Eureka was a piece of history right out of a wild west novel. Childhood dreams emerged into teenage adventures as I continued to visit Eureka and many of its prominent mines. I spent hours hiking around studying minerals in the mine dumps, watching the owls and falcons native to the area, and journeying deep into the workings of some of the west's most historical mines. Today, even though I am much older I still continue to explore many of Utah's mines and mining towns, but it was here in Eureka that I found my love for Utah's dying history.
Eureka is located approximately seventy miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Juab County. Incorporated as a city in 1892, Eureka became the financial center for the Tintic Mining District, a wealthy gold and silver mining area in Utah and Juab counties. The district was organized in 1869 and by 1899 became one of the top mineral producing areas in Utah. Eureka housed the "Big Four" mines -- Bullion Beck and Champion, Centennial Eureka, Eureka Hill, and Gemini-and later the Chief Consolidated Mining Company. Eureka's role as the central financial point for the district insured its survival. It housed business establishments, financial institutions, local and county governmental buildings including Eureka City Hall (1899) and a Juab County Courthouse (1892), various churches, and meeting places for numerous labor, social, and fraternal organizations. Mining entrepreneurs such as John Q. Packard, John Beck, Jesse Knight, Walter Fitch Sr., and others loomed as important figures in Eureka and Tintic history. In 1979 Eureka was placed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Tintic Mining District Multiple Resource Area, recognizing the importance of remaining buildings and sites.
The Utah Department of Oil Gas and Mining's (DOGM) Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program is charged with reclaiming abandoned mine areas under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. It is the AMR programs ultimate goal to backfill, gate, or blast every abandoned mine opening in the state. This all sounds great doesn't it? Sure it does, until you visit some of the sites that DOGM has finished working on. Some of you may have visited Jacob City before the DOGM destroyed it in the 80's. No one can deny how much damage has been done to the structures and mines in the Jacob City area. Eureka has seen its fair share of DOGM abuses in the past. In April of 1986 a contractor working for DOGM was preparing the collar of the Bullion Beck Headframe, a National Register Historic Site, for a steel “safety†grate. In direct opposition to contractual guidelines and federal law, the skip guides were smashed down with a backhoe. They fell down and became lodged in the shaft, so the contractor doused them with gasoline and set them afire. The cribbing around the collar smoldered and burned for weeks. Does this sound like the type of people we want responsible for working on and around our National Register Historic Sites?
The latest DOGM proposal is to spend over $400,000 to destroy 116 mines in the Eureka-Mammoth area. This is a very real threat to our mining history! I personally attended the pre-bid meeting and saw exactly what they have planned for Eureka. How is one to study a mine and its workings when 200 cubic yards of the mine dump have been thrown down the shaft? What of the natural caves and other wonders that are know to exist inside Eureka's mines? What about the owls that nest in many of Eureka's shafts and portals? DOGM's solution is to place a cement wall and hundreds of yards of backfill into all the mine entrances, effectively sealing them off forever. I especially have concerns about the Eagle-Bluebell lift, a National Historic Register Site. In order to place the proposed gate on the shaft they will have to disturb the lift itself. Are we going to see another Bullion Beck type disaster? I hope we can all band together and make DOGM rethink its actions in Eureka, especially in regards to all the proposed backfills.
Don't let DOGM spend our hard earned tax dollars to erase one of Utah's last historic mining districts! They have already destroyed far too much of our precious history. Take time now to forward this to everyone you think can help us save our mines and mining towns. For more ideas on how you can help, visit our website at www.helpmojaveunderground.com
-Sincerely
Stuart Burgess
mojaveunderground@gmail.com
Our Utah History Under Fire
As a child I was always fascinated by the small semi-ghost town of Eureka. When we passed through it on our way to the latest family adventure my imagination ran wild. The rustic landscape dotted with tailing piles and giant wood headframes filled my mind with visions of the past. I could imagine the hustle and bustle of miners as they chiseled away at a silver vein and I could almost smell the locomotives as they hauled ore off to the mills. Eureka was a piece of history right out of a wild west novel. Childhood dreams emerged into teenage adventures as I continued to visit Eureka and many of its prominent mines. I spent hours hiking around studying minerals in the mine dumps, watching the owls and falcons native to the area, and journeying deep into the workings of some of the west's most historical mines. Today, even though I am much older I still continue to explore many of Utah's mines and mining towns, but it was here in Eureka that I found my love for Utah's dying history.
Eureka is located approximately seventy miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Juab County. Incorporated as a city in 1892, Eureka became the financial center for the Tintic Mining District, a wealthy gold and silver mining area in Utah and Juab counties. The district was organized in 1869 and by 1899 became one of the top mineral producing areas in Utah. Eureka housed the "Big Four" mines -- Bullion Beck and Champion, Centennial Eureka, Eureka Hill, and Gemini-and later the Chief Consolidated Mining Company. Eureka's role as the central financial point for the district insured its survival. It housed business establishments, financial institutions, local and county governmental buildings including Eureka City Hall (1899) and a Juab County Courthouse (1892), various churches, and meeting places for numerous labor, social, and fraternal organizations. Mining entrepreneurs such as John Q. Packard, John Beck, Jesse Knight, Walter Fitch Sr., and others loomed as important figures in Eureka and Tintic history. In 1979 Eureka was placed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Tintic Mining District Multiple Resource Area, recognizing the importance of remaining buildings and sites.
The Utah Department of Oil Gas and Mining's (DOGM) Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program is charged with reclaiming abandoned mine areas under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. It is the AMR programs ultimate goal to backfill, gate, or blast every abandoned mine opening in the state. This all sounds great doesn't it? Sure it does, until you visit some of the sites that DOGM has finished working on. Some of you may have visited Jacob City before the DOGM destroyed it in the 80's. No one can deny how much damage has been done to the structures and mines in the Jacob City area. Eureka has seen its fair share of DOGM abuses in the past. In April of 1986 a contractor working for DOGM was preparing the collar of the Bullion Beck Headframe, a National Register Historic Site, for a steel “safety†grate. In direct opposition to contractual guidelines and federal law, the skip guides were smashed down with a backhoe. They fell down and became lodged in the shaft, so the contractor doused them with gasoline and set them afire. The cribbing around the collar smoldered and burned for weeks. Does this sound like the type of people we want responsible for working on and around our National Register Historic Sites?
The latest DOGM proposal is to spend over $400,000 to destroy 116 mines in the Eureka-Mammoth area. This is a very real threat to our mining history! I personally attended the pre-bid meeting and saw exactly what they have planned for Eureka. How is one to study a mine and its workings when 200 cubic yards of the mine dump have been thrown down the shaft? What of the natural caves and other wonders that are know to exist inside Eureka's mines? What about the owls that nest in many of Eureka's shafts and portals? DOGM's solution is to place a cement wall and hundreds of yards of backfill into all the mine entrances, effectively sealing them off forever. I especially have concerns about the Eagle-Bluebell lift, a National Historic Register Site. In order to place the proposed gate on the shaft they will have to disturb the lift itself. Are we going to see another Bullion Beck type disaster? I hope we can all band together and make DOGM rethink its actions in Eureka, especially in regards to all the proposed backfills.
Don't let DOGM spend our hard earned tax dollars to erase one of Utah's last historic mining districts! They have already destroyed far too much of our precious history. Take time now to forward this to everyone you think can help us save our mines and mining towns. For more ideas on how you can help, visit our website at www.helpmojaveunderground.com
-Sincerely
Stuart Burgess
mojaveunderground@gmail.com
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