John Beck

Mr. John Beck, owner of many mines, and discoverer of the remarkable Bullion-Beck mine, is one of the most notable and enterprising men in the State of Utah. Today a millionaire, he has known fully what poverty is. But no condition has been equal to change a being blessed with an unbounded hope and a confidence in his destiny that cannot be shaken.

He is president and principal owner of the mine that bears his name - in fact, he controls the property - which is more fully described elsewhere. He is vice-president of the Northern Spy Company, owning a group of claims near Silver City, and which produce gold, silver, lead and copper. He owns about nine-tenths of this mine, which is now being worked under lease. He is president of the Buckeye Mining Company, located a little south of Silver City. This property is now shipping ore which yields gold, silver and lead. It is one of the promising properties of the district. The Governor, located above Silver City, is his personal property, now being worked under lease to Mr. E. Kirby, Superintendent of the Bullion-Beck mill. It produces gold, silver, lead and copper. He owns the Black Cloud Iron mine, situated north of Eureka. He owns four-fifths of the Crown Point mine, which adjoins the Bullion-Beck. Its product is gold, silver and lead, and is at present being worked. He also owns the North End, being an extension of the Crown Point.

He is vice-president of the Trapper Mining Company, which owns claims near Ketchum, in Idaho, that yield gold, silver and lead. He owns a one-third interest in the Prairie Basin claims near Salmon City, in Lemhi County, Idaho. These are placer as well as ledge claims, and yield gold with a heavy percentage of tin. He also possesses large magnesia deposits in Idaho, near Soda Springs, the product being 95 per cent pure and boundless in quantity.

In the Newton mining district, Beaver County, this state, in what is also called the Sheep Rock district, he has some heavy interests that give most favorable promise of future growth and yield. In Uintah County he owns nine-tenths of the claims of the Utah Asphalt and Varnish Company, and of the Ashley Coal Oil and Gilsonite Company. The former owns fifty-five asphalt claims and the latter six. In these claims coal, crude petroleum, as well as pure bitumen in soluble form are found. The bitumen boils up from springs in a country that is full of loose sand, and the blowing winds drive the sand into the springs, the result being an asphalt product in the exact proportions needed for paving purposes, viz., 16 per cent bitumen and 80 per cent, sand, the balance being moisture. The future prospects of these two companies cannot be really estimated, so great they are.

He is president of the Green Onyx Company, whose fine quarries are near Lehi, and owns onyx quarries personally. He is also the owner of extensive beds of fire clay and kaolin near Lehi, Utah County, this state. Assay tests show that these clays contain 33 per cent aluminum, while no superior fire clay for manufacture of fire brick is known.

He is one of the originators in the movement for the manufacture of sugar from beets in Utah, and aided in having the factory located in Utah County. He is still a heavy owner in the Utah Sugar Factory, and one of its directors. He owns a big orchard in the same county, and now has over forty acres in grapes alone.

He owns the Saratoga Springs, near Lehi, which give a flow of pure, unmineralized warm water, which he has utilized to afford public bathing. He is also the owner of the famous Beck's Hot Springs, in the north end of Salt Lake City, and which are reached by three lines of steam railways.