Marsh Maps

The original Marsh Maps were drawn at 1:2400 scale in colored ink on starched linen. They showed the original topography and early geology, which was colored around the contacts with watercolor. They also include buildings and facilities of that vintage.

One day around 1975, Jaren Swensen and I were the only ones in the geology office and Jim Marsh came in and introduced himself. We pulled and showed him the Marsh Maps. He said they had been drafted by Kurt Hornickle.

In high school Marsh worked as a scaleman at the Drossing Plant of the International Smelting Company at Tooele. This was a nighttime shift, 11:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. which permitted him to attend High School during the day, and also practice football and basketball after school hours. In 1916 his girlfriend moved to California at which time Marsh joined the U. S. Navy. After receiving a discharge from the Navy, due to a disability resulting from an accident aboard ship, he returned to Tooele, and his brother got him a job at the International smelter as assistant repairman on the day shift at the Blast Furnace Department.

At the end of World War I in 1918, Congress passed a bill giving disabled veterans certain benefits for schooling, under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1918 (Smith-Sears Act) and later administered by the U.S. Veterans Bureau (established in 1921). Marsh was eligible for such benefits and was accepted for schooling at the University of Utah, and for several years he pursued a course in Geological Engineering, majoring in Economic Geology. In 1922 through the efforts of one his teachers at Grantsville Grade School, he entered Stanford University at Palo Alto, California, and continued graduate study in Economic and Petroleum Geology. He received a degree in Geology from Stanford in 1924.

After graduating from Stanford, Marsh joined the Utah Copper Company as Assistant Geologist, and helped organize the first Geological Department at the famous open pit copper mine at Bingham Canyon, Utah. In 1928, he was promoted to Chief Geologist at the mine, and in 1942 was given leave of absence to work for the U.S. Bureau of Mines, as District Engineer for Utah and Wyoming, a position he held until the end of the war in 1945.

After the war conducted various geological examinations throughout the Western United States. In 1946, he joined the Union Pacific Railroad Company as Chief Geologist and proceeded to organize a Geological and Mining Department. Marsh was in charge of all exploration and mining operations throughout the entire Union Pacific Land Grant which encompassed a strip of land approximately 800 miles long and 40 miles wide, in which Union Pacific owned every odd section in each Township. In 1965 after almost 20 years service, Marsh retired as Union Pacific's Chief Geologist, and continued with Union Pacific as Special Representative, Mining.

He retired from Union Pacific in 1967 and joined Neaves Petroleum Developments, Beverly Hills, California, in the capacity as Chief Executive, Mining, and as of February 1975 he was also Vice President of Comstock Gold, Silver and Copper Mines, Inc. Properties being explored and developed are located in Arizona, Montana, Nevada and Oregon. he and his wife lived in North Hollywood, California.