Midvale Smelters

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This page was last updated on May 31, 2026.

Bingham Consolidated Smelter (1899-1907)

When it opened in 1901, Bingham Consolidated's smelter was the second copper smelter in the Salt Lake City area. Its fires "will be extinguished within the next few hours." The Utah Consolidated's Highland Boy smelter had been the first copper smelter (opened in 1899), and the United States smelter was the third. Judge Marshall's decree was to take effect on January 6, 1908, shutting down all smelters in Salt Lake Valley due to sulfur and arsenic emissions causing damage to farmers' crops. (Deseret News, December 24, 1907)

October 1899
Bingham Copper & Gold Mining Company started construction on its Midvale smelter in October 1899. ("Economic Geology of the Bingham Mining District, Utah", USGS Professional Paper 38, 1905, p. 254)

April 1, 1900
"The Bingham Copper & Gold Mining company's smelter will be located at Bingham Junction, on the east side of the Jordan river and north of the Old Jordan & Galena site, owned by the United States company." (Salt Lake Herald, April 1, 1900)

January 1901
Construction of the Bingham Consolidated smelter, started in 1899, was completed in January 1901, with test runs begun on January 15th. Full production began on January 31st. The new railroad was not yet complete, so the mining company was shipping ore from the mine to the smelter in what was called "a steady stream of wagons". To get the smelter into full production, in addition to their own ore, the mining company used custom ores from the Grand Central and the Tesora mines in Tintic, along with reprocessing the slag dumps from the old smelters at Stockton. Pending completion of the company's Copper Belt rail line, the mine began shipping its sulfide copper ore to the smelter by wagon and team. ("Economic Geology of the Bingham Mining District, Utah", USGS Professional Paper 38, 1905, p. 254)

(The new smelter was adjacent to the Rio Grande Western mainline at Midvale.)

May 1902
The expansion of operations for Bingham Consolidated brought other changes. In May 1902, a year after the Copper Belt railroad in Bingham Canyon was brought under the mining company's control, the smelter was expanded to allow the production of lead. (Hansen, p. 273)

November 1902
In his History of Bingham Mining District, Thomas Billings wrote:

The Bingham Copper and Gold Company was organized in December 1898 to work the carbonate and oxidized ores of the Commercial Mine which under the ownership of the Bingham Gold Mining Company was exploited for oxidized gold ore and treated by the cyanide process without success. Under the new ownership extensive exploration at depth was carried on and the results led to the construction of a semi-pyritic smelter in 1901 at Bingham Junction, now Midvale, Utah. This smelter went into commission in November 1902, originally built with a capacity of 1,000 tons for treating copper ore and in 1905 a plant of 400 tons capacity for treating silver-lead ores was added on a tract of land adjoining on the north the United States Company smelter. The Brooklyn and Dalton Lark properties acquired by this company in 1901 were unwatered by the driving of the Mascotte tunnel and shipments from these holdings commenced in 1903. These with increased productions from the Commercial mine and contracts for the treatment of the Boston Consolidated Stewart mine production and the copper concentrates from the Utah Copper porphyry operation necessitated additional furnaces and converters. Also, with the development of silver-lead ores in the Dalton Lark group, a lead furnace was added.

1903
Bingham Consolidated began shipping copper sulfide ores from its former Brooklyn property. (Economic Geology of the Bingham Mining District, USGS Professional Paper No. 38, 1905, page 381)

December 16, 1905
The combined properties of the Bingham Consolidated company were producing from 200 to 300 tons of copper ore daily during 1905 year, the product being shipped to the company's smelter, located on the Rio Grande Western railway at West Jordan, Utah, via a branch line from Revere station on that company's branch to Bingham. From 50 to 100 tons of lead ore is also produced daily which is shipped to the smelter of the American Smelting & Relining company at Murray, Utah. (Deseret Evening News, December 16, 1905)

December 24, 1907
Bingham Consolidated closed its Salt Lake valley smelter.

(Additional information about the Salt Lake valley smelter smoke case can be found in Michael Church's excellent article "Smoke Farming: Smelting and Agricultural Reform in Utah, 1900-1945" in Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, Number 3, Summer 2004)

(Although there was very little coverage in the local newspapers, the smelter smoke suit likely included a financial settlement for the farmers from the smelting companies. This sudden financial drain was likely the cause of the failure of Bingham Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company in late 1907. Or, maybe the company declared bankruptcy to avoid having to pay any such settlement. More research is needed.)

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