The headline: "Copper," Deseret News, May 9, 1860.
Under this terse one-word headline, the Deseret News announced in two paragraphs that virgin copper had been discovered about 10 to 12 miles from Camp Floyd on Salt Lake Valley's west side.
But, "in these days, gold is the principal thing sought after, and a man who would engage in copper mining in an inland country like this might, by some, be considered in a state of insanity," the newspaper warned.
Time was to prove that copper mining in Utah was an "insanity" that led some to enormous fortunes and provided a good living for thousands of others along the way.
Two years after the newspaper's pessimistic assessment of copper's value to the Utah Territory, John Lowder was in Bingham Canyon looking for special logs to construct furniture for Gov. Stephen S. Harding. He and companions found what appeared to be copper ore in a creek bed. They took some to an assayer for analysis. But Lowder was called by Brigham Young to be a Pony Express rider instead, and when he returned to the canyon, others had filed on the land.
The metal was discovered in several areas of Utah and there was some mining at sites in Box Elder, Millard, Juab, Beaver and Washington counties. The first carload of copper ore from Bingham Canyon was shipped to Baltimore by the Walker Brothers in June 1868.
But in Utah's early mining history, copper was not the top consideration for prospectors who were looking primarily for gold, silver, lead and zinc.
Even Samuel Newhouse, son of immigrant Jewish parents, who had come West to seek his fortune, was not looking at copper as the source of that fortune. With Thomas Weir, Newhouse began buying up properties in Bingham Canyon in the 1890s, based on prospects for good gold recovery.
Further exploration of their properties, however, revealed an amazing fact: The copper in their mountain was worth more than the gold.
Utah's entry in earnest into the copper market coincided with a growing demand for the metal due to the proliferation of electrical lines and more sophisticated plumbing and construction pro-cesses.
As open-pit mining gradually transformed the east face of the Oquirrh Mountains into a huge manmade amphitheater, Utah became one of the top copper producers in the world. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Western Division of Kennecott Copper, which had evolved out of several historic multimillion-dollar business deals involving Bingham Canyon, was producing 230,000 metric tons of ore per year.
Then world competition, especially from Chile where mines had been nationalized, sent prices plummeting - from 101.374 cents per pound in 1980 to 65.566 per pound in 1985. All of America's copper mines were in trouble. Kennecott shut down for a year, initiated a $400 million modernization and re-negotiated terms with employee unions before reopining a year later.
From the first, mining in Bingham Canyon meant miners, and miners needed a place to live. The narrow canyon was not really conducive to homes and businesses, but they went up anyway, climbing the steep canyone walls in successive tiers. Some Bingham residents faced a climb of 100 or more steps up or down to get anywhere in the town.
Judy Arigoni and her half-sister, Rena Perelle, for instance, counted off exactly that many steps each time they made a trip from their house to the street with loads of laundry for their mother's cus-tomers.
All the accoutrements of community living eventually were in place - schools, churches, fire stations, community centers, government offices and, of course, a full complement of saloons (at one point, 29 were duly licensed) and a red light district. "Respectable" women stayed inside on the days when the district's ladies were herded to the doctor's office for mandated health exams.
In his book, "Bingham Canyon," Marion Dunn calls it a "town attached to a mine" with a 20-foot-wide street as an umbilical cord.
The street allowed for a horse-drawn vehicle (later an automobile) coming and one going. Any more than that was a traffic jam. Trying to get up or down the canyon during shift changes at the mines was an adventure. Dunn tells that a young man from Bingham who went to Salt Lake County offices to get his drivers license was asked: "Do you drive in Bingham?" When he answered "yes," the examiner dispensed with the driving test. "If you can drive in Bingham, you can drive anywhere," he said.
Some of the roads reflected the tenuous nature of mining. Damn Fool Road led to Damn Fool Tunnel, announcing in advance someone's suspected folly in selecting the site for a mine.
As in other Utah mining camps, jobs attracted a variety of people. Bingham had a "Jap Camp" and a "Greek Camp" and other little enclaves where people with like origins gathered. Over time, they melded into a cohesive community without the cultural animosities they sometimes brought with them, Dunn said.
The town incorporated in 1904 and was disincorpated on Nov. 22, 1971. The 1963 July 4 parade was the last. A visitor from Boston, staying in a local hotel, was flabbergasted that children were allowed to shoot off firecrackers at will throughout the town to celerate the holiday.
Until stores were well established, itinerant peddlers kept Binghamites provisioned. Jake Greenwood, for instance, would bring five or six wagons full of merchandise from Utah County periodically. He would stay at Chandler's Livery Stable and hire local boys for 25 cents a day to help solicit business and make deliveries. Dunn called him "a big man with a big stomach who did a big business in Bingham."
The canyon location created some natural hazards for Bingham. On several occasions, avalanches wreaked havoc. On the morning of Feb. 17, 1926, snow roared down Doty Gulch to bury homes and businesses. Thirty-nine people were killed and 17 homes demolished, along with a large boarding house.
Nick Vlasic and Jose Alencia were doing business in the meat house outside Alencia's Slavonian Merc at 8 a.m. when the avalance struck. Buried to the neck, Vlasic recounted that he could hear Alencia groaning for several hours and he tried to encourage him. Then the groans stopped. Vlasic eventually was discovered and pulled from his frosty prison, while Alencia was added to the grim toll of victims.
Roseafton Cesario, now in her 80s and a resident of Bountiful, recalls the day when a landslide roaded through the back of her house, totally demolishing the building. She and a friend each grabbed one of her sons and ran for the road.
Fire was a constant peril in a town where unpainted wood frame buildings snuggled close together in barren yards. In 1885, the entire town - fortunately a small town at that point - was burned. Again in 1919, flames destroyed 20 buildings on Upper Main.
The neighborhood of Highland Boy, where the worst avalanches struck, also suffered the worst fire. On Sept. 8, 1932, a fire started, apparently in the abandoned Princess Theater. Although it started small and people were able to save some items from their homes, the fire eventually created its own wind and "all hell broke loose." By the time the blaze was controlled, 35 people had suffered burns (none fatal) and 300 were homeless. The community had lost its school, several businesses and many homes.
From this challenging event, Ada Duhigg emerged with the title "The Angel of Highland Boy." She reportedly was first on the scene to lend assistance and was seemingly everywhere that a hand was needed.
The mines provided some informal benefits. Little children and old women in shawls gleaned bits of coal and discarded railroad ties from the mining properties to warm their homes during the winter.
If the mines were the focus for community life, they also could be the cause of its griefs. Strikes and work-related difficulties sometimes pitted workers against employers. The first big strike was in 1912.
In the end, it was the company's proposal to condemn much of Bingham so that mining operations could be expanded that led to the town's demise. The company claimed eminent domain and argued that the expansion would promote the greatest public good. The town was gradually withering away regardless. Many families had pulled out during a protracted strike in 1959. Others had already sold to the company or agreed to sell. An effort in the 1960s to reach agreement on a wholesale company buyout did not succeed.
After years of bickering and legal confrontation, 13 remaining Bingham property owners voted on Nov. 2, 1971 to disincorporate. The vote was 11-2. While the mine would continue to chew away its mineral-rich mountainside, the community had joined the roster of Utah ghost towns.