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Utah's Iron Industry, Arrington

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Leonard Arrington on Utah Iron

From Great Basin Kingdom, An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, by Leonard J. Arrington, 1958

(Arrington's endnotes are included for researchers wanting to review his source material. More modern, online source material has revealed the severe limitations Arrington was working with in his time period, which included solely non-digital material, manually researched. But his citations make for excellent starting points.)

Public Works (1852-1865)

[pages 110-111]

As the public works department became larger, and as its activities became more complex and involved, three additional shops were established which constituted the first light industry in the region. These were the machine shop (1852-1864), the foundry (1854-1864), and the nail factory (1859-1865). The machine shop, which included machinery for wood and metal work, was established in the winter of 1852-1853. The machinery was powered by a large water wheel made possible by running a channel from City Creek down the north side of North Temple Street. This shop was operated partly for the benefit of public works projects and partly as a service to the community and church-at-large. In the former capacity it manufactured, repaired, and sharpened tools of many types, and manufactured wheels, cranks, flanges, locks, and other equipment useful in construction. In the latter capacity the shop made a fire engine, a carding machine, threshing machines, and two large lifeboats for the use of the church president. The cutlery manufactured at the shop, which attained wide popularity among Mormon officials, included Congress knives, swords, saws, currier’s tools, and pruning hooks.

The foundry was erected adjoining the blacksmith shop in 1854. In this shop were cast iron, brass, copper and lead materials in many patterns, including such useful items as cog wheels, cranks, mill gearing, water wheels, trip hammers, and anvils.

The expensiveness of nails, due to the length and difficulty of haul by ox-team from St. Louis, hampered Mormon construction activities until the coming of the railroad in 1869. Church leaders continually experimented with construction materials and devices which would economize in the use of nails. Some buildings, as for instance the famous Mormon Tabernacle which still stands, were tied together with rawhide thongs and required few or no nails. The widespread use of rocks and adobe cut down the use of nails as well as of timber. As early as 1850, a mission was dispatched to Iron Mountain, in southern Utah, to develop an iron industry which would make possible homemade nails. While this Mission was struggling to produce home-mined iron, one of its skilled members produced nails from wagon tires and other iron articles which had been transported into the Great Basin. A quantity of these cut nails were sent to Salt Lake City in 1851, and again in 1855, but the quantity which could thus be fashioned was severely limited. [Note 53: Journal History, December 13, 1851, May 14, 1855.]

("Journal History" -- The Journal History of the Church (officially cataloged by the Church History Department as collection CR 100 137) is a massive, day-by-day scrapbook-style chronological record documenting the history, people, and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830 to 2008 (1830-1924 is available online). Spanning over 1,200 volumes, it serves as one of the most comprehensive primary research tools for Latter-day Saint historical and biographical research.) [Link - The Journal History of the Church]

When federal troops occupied Utah during the years 1857-1861, iron supplies once more became abundant, causing Brigham Young, as trustee-in-trust of the church, to order machinery for manufacturing nails and screws. [Note 54: Journal History, August 29, 1858; Millennial Star, XXI (1859), 719-720.]

The machinery arrived in Salt Lake City with the first Church Train in 1859, and was installed in a factory constructed on Big Canyon [Parleys] Creek. By April 1861, public works employees were turning out nails by the ton. [Note 55: Journal History, April 7, 1861; "Diary of George Laub," typescript, BYU.]

(Other sources show that the first nail-making machine first came into use in 1854-1855. It was in St. George, operated by hand and produced 100 nails per hour, with the nails being "headed" by hand. In 1862-1863, the first machine that made nails that included the heads, was put into use at the Nail Factory in Salt Lake City.)

The supply of iron left by the army was exhausted by 1865, however, and the "Old Nail Factory" closed down.

Cooperative Iron Works, Iron County (1870-1873)

[pages 315-316]

Under the general sponsorship of the church, the Union Iron Works was organized in 1870 to attempt the development of the resources of Iron Mountain. This association produced up to 2,500 pounds of "good" grey cast iron per day, and sold a variety of products to the silver and lead stamp mills at Bullion, Nevada.

[Note 100: Deseret News, May 10, 1870, June 18, 1870, August 30, 1871; Salt Lake Herald, December 16, 1871; "Record of Incorporations," Iron County Courthouse, Book A. This company was also known as the Pinto Iron Company because Iron City was located on the Little Pinto Creek. Principals in the company were Ebenezer Flanks, Seth M. Blair, Chapman Duncan, Homer Duncan, and Peter Shirts.]

The capital resources of this enterprise were strengthened in 1873 by the formation of The Great Western Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company, which imported engines, material, and machinery for moulding and casting iron, and constructed a substantial engine house, blast furnace, air furnace, pattern shop, and business office not far from Cedar City. Producing up to five tons of iron per day, the company turned out various pieces of cast iron, including stoves, flat iron, and mining machinery for sale in Nevada mining camps. Among other things, the company furnished the twelve life-sized iron oxen on which the baptismal font in the St. George Temple rests.

[Note 101: Deseret News, October 1, 1873, June 24, 1874, October 1, 1875; George A. Smith to Joseph F. Smith, Journal History, November 26, 1874.]

Iron County and the Board of Trade (1881-1884)

[pages 345-346]

The Board of Trade convention appointed a committee to organize a company for the manufacture of iron and coke. The Utah Iron Manufacturing Company, with a paid-up capital of $50,000, was organized in August 1881. With financial and other assistance from the church, this company acquired coal and iron lands on Iron Mountain previously worked by the Deseret Iron Company, Union Iron Works, and Great Western Iron Company, and was prepared to experiment with iron manufacture when some of its claims were allegedly "jumped" by a wealthy non-Mormon, and the case remained in the courts until 1884. When the litigation was nearing completion the First Presidency of the Church, with the assistance of the Board of Trade committee, organized a new company called the Iron Manufacturing Company of Utah, with $250,000 capital stock. The church subscribed about one-fourth of the stock, including about $25,000 in tithing credit, for the patenting of iron and coal land claims, and for the support of laborers engaged in developmental activities. The Iron Manufacturing Company hired an experienced ironmonger and built a furnace, factory, and storehouse. Some twenty men were employed during the winter of 1883-1884. A small railroad, twenty miles in length — the Pioche and Bullionville Railroad — was purchased and rails, cars, and equipment were transported to southern Utah for use in carrying coal to the iron furnace. Another railroad was laid out, running from Iron City to the Utah Southern line at Milford.

Utah's Iron Mission (1851-1858)

[pages 122-127]

Iron. It will be recalled that a colony had been planted at Parowan in 1850-1851 to serve as a supply base on the Salt Lake to California route and to initiate an iron industry. This colony was largely made up of farmers and frontiersmen, but it included a number of persons who were experienced in mining coal and working with iron. The first year's efforts were devoted to the construction of roads, bridges, canals, and a fort, and to the planting of crops. In November 1851, after the harvest had been completed, a group of thirty-five men skilled in mining and manufacturing were called to found the "pioneer iron mission" at Cedar City, some twenty miles south of Parowan. Committees of these "iron missionaries" were appointed to lay out a village, erect a fort, dig a canal, plant a cooperative farm, construct a road to the coal deposits, build a road to the timber, and locate materials with which to build a small blast furnace. On September 29, 1852, less than a year after the mission had been founded, the blast was put to the furnace, and "a small quantity of Iron run out, which caused the hearts of all to rejoice." [Note 108: According to the record book of the company in possession of William R. Palmer, Cedar City, Utah.]

The iron was used in making horseshoe nails and a pair of andirons [a pair of horizontal metal bars used to support firewood in an open fireplace] (called dog-irons). [Note 109: Deseret News, December 13, 19, 1851]

Meanwhile, Brigham Young and other church officials were taking steps to enlarge the Iron Mission and give it a strong financial and technical base by instructing leading missionaries in Europe to send qualified men and necessary equipment to Utah. In September 1851, while the advance company of Iron County colonists was harvesting their first crop, President Young wrote to leaders of the church in Europe, asking them to search out "brethren who could make different kinds of iron from magnetic iron ore" and send them to the Salt Lake Valley:

(The above was also printed in the Deseret News, December 13, 1851.)

In obedience to the instructions in the Epistle, Franklin D. Richards and Erastus Snow, presidents of the British and Scandinavian missions, discussed the matter in a number of church assemblies in England, and finally held a special European conference of the church in London, at which they presented before the assembled thousands the necessity of helping to establish an iron manufacturing industry in Utah. [Note 111: A synopsis of the conference is in Journal History, April 6, 1852.]

Richards and Snow obtained from the presiding elders of the various Mormon congregations in Europe the names and addresses of the "wealthier brethren" and spent most of the next month in visiting them. They "laboured" with these brethren and reported finding "a general readiness on their part to receive our counsel, and employ their funds as we thought best for the making of iron in these valleys." [Note 112: A report on their activities is found under the title "Manufacture of Iron in Utah," Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 2]

They also visited various iron works in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland and obtained general information "on the subject of making iron from magnetic and other ores."

On April 28 and 29, 1852, Snow and Richards held a meeting in London with the iron-masters and men of means who expressed an interest in the project. The "Deseret Iron Company" was organized with a capitalization of £1,000,000 ($4,840,000), of which eight shares, valued at £4,000 ($19,360), were subscribed at this initial meeting. The officers included Erastus Snow, president; Franklin D. Richards, secretary; and Thomas Tennant, treasurer. All subscribers were Mormon convert-capitalists. The "articles of compact" shows the mixture of religious sentiment and business procedure which was typical of most Mormon enterprises of the period, and includes the following:

For as much as we invoke the blessing of our Heavenly Father upon our Capital and Business. Therefore, Resolved that each member of the Deseret Iron Company shall hallow his Stock vested in the company unto the Lord by paying tithes thereon, and that the company regularly tithe their increase ever after. [Note 113: "Minute Book of the Deseret Iron Company," MS, in the possession of William R. Palmer, Cedar City, Utah. Extracts from the minutes are found in John G. Crook, "The Development of Early Industry and Trade in Utah," pp. 39ff.]

Snow and Richards, with the assistance of some experienced iron-masters, arranged for the purchase and transportation of various kinds of iron-making machinery, and then hurriedly embarked for the new world. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in August, 1852, in time to be present when the Iron County delegation took the first supply of precious molten iron to Brigham Young. Warmly complimented by the First Presidency for their success in organizing a company and securing Old World capital, Snow and Richards were advised to establish works in Iron County as rapidly as possible. [Note 114: Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 2.]

Upon their arrival in Cedar City in November 1852 Snow and Richards suggested that the newly formed Deseret Iron Company buy out the Pioneer Iron Company by exchanging its stock for the investment of the latter.

[Note 115: The records of the Pioneer Iron Company state: "On the 29th of November [1852] a meeting was held in the schoolhouse by the brethren of the Iron Company, when it was resolved that the company sell out to Snow and Richards. Also resolved that the company agree to take whatever Snow and Richards say they will give, and that it be left entirely with them." At a meeting held that evening Snow and Richards offered the company $2,865.64, which was unanimously accepted, and the next day, November 30, 1852, a bill of sale was drawn up and executed, and the property duly passed to the Deseret Iron Company.]

This was done, and President Snow reported the results of the visit of himself and Franklin D. Richards as follows:

The consolidated Deseret Iron Company, with a paid-up capital of nearly $40,000, now made plans to employ regularly half of the seventy men in the colony. As one of them wrote: "All that is wanted is Mormon Capital: Bone and Sinew." [Note 117: Henry Lunt, Deseret News, December 25, 1852, February 26, 1853.]

When one of the workers, in examining the Pioneer blast furnace, discovered a four hundred pound lump of "superior quality pure malleable iron," the stockholders (which now included all workers) and church leaders found it difficult to suppress their excitement and enthusiasm, despite the onset of a severe winter which made it impossible to use the water in Coal Creek or use the road to the coal mines. The territorial legislature caught the contagion of this enthusiasm, and not only approved the incorporation of the Deseret Iron Company with substantially the same charter as that drawn up in London, but also appropriated $5,000 "to advance the Iron interests in Iron County."

[Note 118: Copies of the acts approved December 27, 1852, and January 5, 17, 1853, are in Deseret News, January 22, 1853, and Acts, Resolutions and Memorials (Great Salt Lake City, 1855), pp. 235-237.]

The bulk of the territorial appropriations was expended in the spring of 1853 on explorations for a superior vein of coal and the construction of a suitable wagon road to it. A long vein, seven feet thick, was located on the precipitous side of a mountain about seven miles east of Cedar City, a quantity of coal was dug, and the road completed at the reasonable cost of $6,000. For a time, this mine produced coal at the rate of 100 tons per week. [Note 119: Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 5; Deseret News, December 25, 1852, April 2, 1853.]

The company also employed a Mr. J. James of the Victoria Iron Works, Wales, to construct a small air furnace in which to try the experiment of fluxing the richer ores without the blast. This furnace, completed in the summer of 1853, was built of adobe and rock and had a funnel 300 feet long through which smoke was conveyed to a chimney stack forty feet high. A casting house was also completed. An average of about seventy men worked more or less regularly on company assignments. [Note 120: Deseret News, February 26, 1853. A portion of the daily journal of the company indicates that sixty-eight men worked 2,106 days for the company from January 1 to April 1, 1853. Crook, pp. 50-51.]

Despite the enthusiastic and hopeful labor of the missionaries, however, a number of circumstances delayed the work. When active preparations were on foot for putting the blast to the furnace near the end of July, news reached the southern settlements that an Indian war had commenced. The iron work was suspended and the colonists were instructed to devote their now-famous "persevering industry" to the erection of extensive fortifications and securing grain, hay, and wood for the winter. [Note 121: William R. Palmer, "Pioneer Fortifications," Improvement Era, LIV (1951), 149ff.; Journal History, October 6, 1853; Carvalho, Incidents of Travel, p. 276.]

On September 3, the community was visited again by "a terrible flood" which "swept down Coal Creek, carrying before it all bridges and dams, completely inundating the site of the works, and sweeping off much of the Company's property." [Note 122: Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 3.]

Twenty and thirty ton boulders were deposited with the debris. The remainder of the year was required to rebuild the dam and repair the breaches. The year 1853 passed without tangible result, though the company had expended more than $18,000 in "cash," of which $10,000 was expended in Utah for labor, food, and equipment, and $8,000 in England on machinery and transportation. [Note 123: A curious financial statement is found in Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 3.]

The First Presidency of the church, however, continued to support the colony and took measures to nurse it along. They called Isaac C. Haight, recently returned from a mission to England, to go to Cedar City and "take charge of the iron works."

[Note 124: "Journal of Isaac C. Haight," Part II, typescript, Library of Congress (Utah, W.P.A. Collection), p. 13. Under date of October 8, 1853, Haight wrote; "I had much rather have stayed here [Salt Lake City], but am willing to obey the counsel of my Brethren."]

They also denied the petition of a number of the colonists asking for release from the Iron County mission:

During the spring of 1854, after the completion of the fort, coal was hauled on sleds and the furnace was again put into operation. Some iron was made, but repeated experimentation had impaired the workability of the furnace, and it was necessary to construct a new one. This task occupied the attention of the iron company during most of the year. The red sandstone furnace, built under the direction of Elias Morris, foremost Mormon carpenter and building contractor, was twenty-one feet square and thirty feet high, and required 650 tons of rock. Estimated to cost $4,000 in labor and materials, the new furnace had a capacity of ten tons per day. The blast was made by a new large blowing apparatus powered by a waterwheel. Six coke ovens were also built, in order to supply the furnace with good coke. [Note 126: Isaac C. Haight to Franklin D. Richards, September 24, 1854, Millennial Star, XVII (1855), 5–6; Deseret News, January 4, 1855.]

Recognizing the many unexpected obstacles the company had to contend with, Utah's territorial and church leaders were not yet discouraged. After all, they reasoned, the experience gained in the first two years augured well for future success. [Note 127: See Brigham Young, Governor's Message, Deseret News, December 14, 1854.]

Responding to the suggestion of Brigham Young, the legislature advanced the company another $4,840 on January 19, 1855, by authorizing the governor to purchase on behalf of the territory two shares of stock. [Note 128: Acts, Resolutions and Memorials (Great Salt Lake City, 1855), pp. 399–400.]

As trustee-in-trust of the church Brigham Young advanced another $4,840 by subscribing for two shares. Both subscriptions were probably paid "in kind," that is, in the form of food, clothing, materials and supplies, livestock, and labor.

[Note 129: The shares of Utah Territory were purchased by a transferal to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company in Salt Lake which, in turn, issued a warrant in favor of the iron company. The church paid for its two shares by transferring to the iron company accounts from the local tithing offices, as follows: from the Cedar City Tithing Office, $2897.20; from Harmony Tithing Office, $105.57; from Parowan Tithing Office, $1837.25. The company then drew a general assortment of goods from these offices. "Records of the Deseret Iron Company," Crook, pp. 49, 58.]

In anticipation of Brigham Young's visit to Cedar City in the spring of 1855, every effort was made to institute a successful run. In order to keep the furnace burning a large quantity of sage brush was pulled and piled before the flue. On the first twenty-four hour run, 1,700 pounds of "good iron" were produced. By constant effort, another ten tons were manufactured in April. It was from some of the iron made in this run that the company made the only casting which survives — a bell cast by the public works department in 1855, whose ringing called the colonists to church. [Note 130: Deseret News, May 2, 1855; "Journal of Isaac C. Haight," p. 16; Millennial Star, XVIII (1856), 60.]

Having solved, as they thought, the technical problem of producing iron, the next step was to acquire more workers. A call was made in May 1855 for 150 wagoners, miners, colliers, lime burners, lumbermen, quarrymen, brick and stone masons, carpenters, machinists, charcoal burners, and furnace men, besides fifty teams to haul fuel and ore. [Note 131: Deseret News, May 27, 1855; Address of Brigham Young, May 27, 1855, Journal of Discourses, II, 281–283.]

Virtually all of these responded. By the fall of 1855, the iron works were reported to be "progressing first-rate," with a "hot blast, which operates complete," and "several tons of castings of various descriptions," and with other "good iron" manufactured in November. The uncertainty of the waterpower, however, hampered operations during the winter of 1855-1856 when the stream was frozen for three months. Coal was also inaccessible during the same period. [Note 132: Millennial Star, XVIII (1856), 14, 251.]

An attempt was made to overcome this dependence on waterpower by the installation of two thirty-horsepower steam engines. At least one of these engines seems to have been supplied by the church. [Note 133: Deseret News, March 5, December 10, 1856; Heart Throbs of the West, II, 216; "Journal of Isaac C. Haight," p. 21.]

While this gave a more dependable source of power, the problem of obtaining suitable coking coal remained. Coke made from the Cedar City coal was very weak and friable; in addition to this weakness, it is said to have carried about five per cent sulphur. [Note 134: Robert S. Lewis and Thomas Varley, The Mineral Industry of Utah, Bulletin No. 12, Utah Engineering Experiment Station (Salt Lake City), p. 67.]

["Friable" coal is coal that is soft, brittle, and easily crumbled or broken into smaller pieces during handling, transport, or combustion. It does not make good coke.]

Brigham Young thought for a while to solve this difficulty by moving the iron smelting operations to Wales in Sanpete County, where a large bed of coal, ideal for foundry work, had been located. The iron ore was to have been taken to Wales by team from Iron Mountain. This project was never carried out. [Note 135: Sermon of May 27, 1855, Journal of Discourses, II, 282.]

Other accidental factors hampered operations in 1856. When the furnace was started up in June, for example, the hot blast pipes accidentally burned out, chilled the furnace, and they had to "blow out" without producing any iron. Everything was in order by the first week of August, and the furnace started up once more, but an untimely drought caused a failure in the water supply and they had to "blow out" once more. Finally, the grasshopper plague of 1856, which devastated virtually the entire territory, forced the iron colonists to devote most of their efforts to securing enough food to keep their families from starving.

[Note 136: Christopher J. Arthur, clerk of the company store, who had just been married, wrote in his journal: "1856—have been a hard year—grasshoppers—scarcity of breadstuff—Weeds and bran bread. It has been kisses without the bread and cheese, but we had happiness & contentment." "Autobiography, Part II," typescript, Library of Congress (W.P.A. Collection), p. 16, also "C. J. Arthur's Diary," p. 111, film from the original in the Mormon File, Huntington Library.]

Other difficulties operated in 1857. The danger of floods forced them to move the scene of their operations to higher ground. A new site was laid out, complete with lots for homes, public buildings, and iron works. This relocation occupied the colonists for several weeks. When they were ready to resume manufacturing operations, they received word from Brigham Young "to suspend all business and take care of the grain as the United States were sending troops into the Territory to oppress the Saints, and force officers upon us contrary to our wishes and the constitution." [Note 137: "Journal of Isaac C. Haight," p. 21, entry for September 1857.]

Convinced that the "Utah Expedition" was seeking to repeat the kind of "persecution" to which the Mormons had long been subject, the iron missionaries, along with other Mormons, immediately began a series of military drills and exercises.

Almost a year was devoted to various kinds of service connected with the Utah War. When that question was settled, in 1858, the company built a new furnace, but "for the want of fuel and the lining giving way" they had to blow out. [Note 138: "Journal of Isaac C. Haight," p. 25.]

[A "blow out" is the planned process of shutting down the furnace. It involves stopping the addition of new raw materials and letting the existing internal contents melt down until the level drops to the air nozzles.]

Two more unsuccessful trial runs were made in September and October 1858, after which the experiment was finally given up and the works were officially closed. [Note 139: Journal History, October 7, 1858.]

Almost ten years of labor, and the direct expenditure of approximately $150,000, had resulted in nothing more than a few andirons [a pair of horizontal metal bars used to support firewood in an open fireplace], kitchen utensils, flat irons, wagon wheels, molasses rolls, and machine castings. Small, volunteer, cooperative industry was simply unable to cope with the problems associated with developing a major resource.

Additional Reading

John G. Crook, "The Development of Early Industry and Trade in Utah", University of Utah, 1926

Leonard J. Arrington, "Planning an Iron Industry for Utah, 1851-1858" The Huntington Library Quarterly XXI (May 1958)

Leonard J. Arrington, "Iron Manufacturing in Southern Utah in the Early 1880's, The Iron Manufacturing Company of Utah," Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXV (1951), 149-168.

Incorporation papers, Utah Iron Mining Company and Utah Iron Company, Office of the Secretary of State; JH, November 9, 18, December 8, 18, 30, 1899, January 13, 1900, April 18, 1902, September 24, 1903.

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