Mercur, Carr

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Mercur, By Stephen Carr

(From Stephen Carr's "Historical Guide To Utah Ghost Towns," published in 1972, page 24.)

There has probably been more written about Mercur than was actually ever known. It all began in late 1869 when prospectors looking for silver up in Lewiston Canyon stumbled onto placer gold in some dry creekbed gravels. A few claims were made when the little bit of water that trickled down from the mountains made sluicing possible. Even though the first attempts at placer mining were quiet compared to most gold rushes, enough word got around that by 1870 the hills were crawling with prospectors. They knew of the rich silver properties around Ophir and reasoned there must be silver here as well as gold. Mines with the names of Sparrow Hawk, Silver Cloud, Marion, Mormon Chief, and Last Chance were located which led to the formation of a town called Lewiston at the forks of two small canyons. There were the usual saloons, gambling and dance houses, largely of tent and board construction. Mining activity peaked in 1873 when the Carrie Steele mine was discovered which shipped $80,000 worth of gold. A stage line was busy running six coaches a day through dusty canyons down to the flats; population reached close to 2000. Schools and a church were established. In 1874 the rich ores began to fade and by 1880 the buildings were gone, mines were derelict and everyone had left.

Just as the town became a ghost, a lone European prospector, Arie Pinedo, began grubbing around looking for rich placer deposits and any other metal that might be there. And, sure enough, another metal was there. He struck cinnabar and feeling he had hit a major mercury ore lode he named his claim Mercur in his native language. He also found gold in the cinnabar, but could not extract it with the usual methods of the day and so left the area taking his claim deed with him. From 1880-89 many prospects were made and gold was found in almost every assay but was so tightly locked into the substrate it could not be brought out. In the late 1880’s and beginning 1890, enough people were residing in the area that a new town was built on the old site of Lewiston. The earlier name was not usable then as it had been pre-empted by a town up in Cache County, so the citizens settled on Pinedo’s “Mercur.”

Water was still a problem, the drinking variety was solved by most people turning to spirits, if they already hadn’t. Culinary water users and teetotalers bought it from door to door salesmen who turned a neat profit. One water drummer didn’t make as much profit, however, as he gave a month’s supply free to a home where a new baby was born.

In 1890 several mining promoters took some of the ore to an experimental mill in Denver where a chemist had developed a cyanide process for extracting gold. The ore brought over from Mercur gave up 90% of its gold to this process and that was all that was needed to bring back the boom. The Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company in 1890 established the first operating cyanide mill in the United States at Manning, where plentiful water was located, just over the hill from Mercur. Soon the high grade ores were producing wealth and the old tailings were run through again making more profits. This was the peculiarity of Mercur ores. Although a decent-sized nugget was never found, the ground was literally full of gold but required new savvy to discover its secret.

In 1895 another trick was developed by Daniel Jackling, mining engineer from Colorado, who later became prominent in Bingham Canyon history. He started roasting the ores before submitting them to the cyanide leaching process and managed to squeeze the last 10% of the gold out of the country rock. With this final successful experiment Mercur was established. The townsfolk planned to incorporate the city on the same day that Utah was to be admitted as a state to the Union, January 4, 1896. Instead, however, they were busy digging the town out of ashes as it had largely burned down a day or two before. This type of event was the fear of every mining community, moreso in Mercur because there was no water.

The town was quickly rebuilt and many improvements were added. The Salt Lake and Mercur Railroad came into town in 1896. It began at the Salt Lake and Western Railroad station at Fairfield at an elevation of 5000 feet, climbed up Manning Canyon, through Manning and over the 7000 foot summit then down a thousand feet to Mercur. The road up the last five miles from Manning is one continuous tight curve after another in ever-ascending switch backs; and to realize that trains once traversed this same road bed is almost unbelievable. Of necessity, the railroad used Shay geared locomotives that would not run very fast and were stable on this type of railroad, instead of the conventional steam engine. The population in 1896 was 6000 and a new larger cyanide mill was in the building. The Golden Gate mill, finished in 1898, was the world’s first all-steel non-ferrous mining plant, and the first metallurgical plant in the Western Hemisphere to use transmitted electrical power. A 43 mile long high-voltage line was run from the Olmstead Power Plant in lower Provo Canyon. Water was piped in from Ophir Creek.

All the mines were producing and paying dividends as the old tailings and new ores were exploited. In 1898 the Manning mill shut down as the Golden Gate with its improvements took over. In 1900 the Consolidated Mercur Mines Company was formed of all the small mines. The town was beginning to appear as a very thriving city crowded with many substantial stone, brick and wood stores. The highway up Lewiston Canyon forked in the center of town due to the natural terrain, into two narrow gulches, Geyser Gulch to the left, and Horse Thief Gulch, with business buildings on both sides of the narrow roads. Another road was cut into the mountain to the south also lined with stores. Most homes were on Golden Gate Hill or over in Hekla Gulch which branched to the right of Geyser Gulch. Two newspapers had started, The Lewiston Mercury and The Mercur Miner. Finally there was a fire department, a brass band, schools, a church, a large opera house, dance hall, dental office, saloons, restaurants which were open 24 hours a day, several grocery, dry, hardware and milliner stores, candy shops, livery stables, and a couple of good hotels.

On June 26, 1902, in the lower part of town, the Chinese lunch counter was crowded, and as the proprietor was working his skillet, the hot grease caught fire. He quickly stepped out back and threw the burning grease on the ground to stamp it out. Suddenly a gust of wind grabbed the fiery liquid and spread it over the lunch shack and adjoining buildings. Within minutes the whole lower part of town was ablaze as matchbox buildings went up. Less than two and a half hours later every business building in town was destroyed including all the stone ones. Fortunately most of the residential areas were spared as was the mill which continued working.

Undaunted, however, the people rebuilt and by 1910 the population was reputed to be some 8-12,000. It was larger than Tooele City and there was talk of moving the county seat to Mercur. George H. Dern was the general manager of the mining company. In 1924-30 he was the Governor of Utah and in 1933 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Secretary of War.

In 1913, gold extraction finally fell below the profit margin, mines and mill shut down, the equipment dismantled and sold. By then $16,500,000 had been produced. The town dissolved, many buildings were torn down — the lumber, stone and bricks recycled, or moved away. The next year the rails came up down to Fairfield. By 1917 Mercur was deserted.

Like the proverbial cat, many of Utah’s ghost towns had three lives and in 1933 a new group leased the old consolidated properties, reopened old mines and introduced even newer methods of working gold. In 1934 a new area was located in Horse Thief Gulch and the town hit big a third time. The Snyder and Sons Company and the Manning Gold Mines Company built a new mill in Manning till water was made available in Mercur. Then in 1937, it was dismantled and reassembled in Mercur, again utilizing old Golden Gate tailings, of which there were many thousands of tons, plus the newly opened mines. One hundred fifty men worked in the new mill, and another hundred and fifty were working on the old tailings. With more modern methods and better gold prices, the lower grade ores were again made to pay and Mercur became the second largest gold producer in the state. Very few permanent buildings were put up. Quite a number of shacks and barracks were built but a real town with schools, stores, churches, even saloons was not. Travel being much improved, most people ran into Stockton or Tooele for necessities.

As World War II was peaking gold mining, in general, was banned, so once again the town folded up. In view of the town’s history, many people believe it will be resurrected when gold prices increase and government regulations are relaxed.

There is no trace of old Lewiston now, and relics from the second and third eras merge together. The massive foundations of the Golden Gate mill loom high above the old townsite like a huge medieval castle, and the immense piles of fine powdery tailings spread in all directions. Four large cyanide tanks nestle in the middle of the townsite, along with one lone faceless rock store. Several wooden and rusted tin shacks, from the third period, are rapidly falling down. High on the south hill are old trestles and mine workings. Be alert for rambling clumps of stinging nettle all through the area. The road up past the mill ruins leads 5.3 miles over the hump to Manning and down to Fairfield. It is a poor dirt road but passable in decent weather to all but very low-centered cars.

The most amazing aspect of the forlorn valley is that from a city with a population of 6-12,000 and dozens of stores and homes, there is nothing left. The residential district up Hekla Gulch is nothing but sagebrush. Only an obscure foundation remains in the center of town. Just remnants of a small-scale operation are left and they are not very spectacular. Historically, the remains of Mercur are impressive; photogenically, the old city is one of Utah’s most disappointing ghost towns.

Addendum: Mercur has been resurrected once again, although this time not as a town, only as a mine. In 1983 the Getty Oil Company reopened the Mercur area, removing most remaining ghost town structures and developing an open-cut gold mine. There are now miles and miles of closely-spaced mine roads criss-crossing the valley that once contained the old town itself. There are no homes or stores. Miners live in other communities within 10 to 20 miles, and commute. A visitors’ center has been built to help tell the story of Mercur.

Technology has improved to where it is now profitable to go through the old tailings piles once more, plus opening new ground throughout the townsite and surrounding hills. Huge excavators constructed in Japan have been imported to do the earthmoving. Some 80,000 ounces of gold per year are mined. The new owner, American Bar-rick Resources Corporation, expects to continue operations for at least the next 25 to 30 years.

Mercur's Railroad

(From Stephen Carr's "Utah Ghost Rails," published in 1989, page 127.)

During the second of Mercur's four lives, from 1890 till 1917, ore production, general freight and passenger activity were great enough to warrant the need for a railroad. Situated high up in Lewiston Canyon, many thought it would be too difficult to construct a line up the steep, although not terribly high, mountains and canyons.

Joseph G. Jacobs, however, took on the task as a challenge and engineered a twisting, standard gauge grade for the Salt Lake & Mercur Railroad up Manning Canyon from Fairfield Station on the Oregon Short Line's former Salt Lake & Western Railway. Begun in 1895, the road was constructed to Manning with initial gentle grades and mild curves. The shops of the railroad were located in Manning, as was the Mercur Mill, which processed ores from the mine. From Fairfield to the summit of the line, called Mercur Divide, the distance is only five and a half miles, yet the rail line was over nine and a half miles long.

Initially, the railroad carried 200 tons of ore per day from the mine to the mill in Manning. Even when the Golden Gate Mill was built in 1898 in Mercur, the trains still brought some ore from other mines to Manning and so continued to be very active. In addition, it was used by both mills and all the mines for transporting in all necessary freight and equipment.

By 1913, the value of the gold had played out in Mercur, some $16 million had been extracted, but there was not enough left to keep the mines, mills, town or railroad going. The road was used in transporting away the machinery of the Golden Gate Mill. Finally, in 1914, the track was dismantled back down to Fairfield Station.

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