Tintic, Uncle Sam Mine

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This page was last updated on November 21, 2025.

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Overview

(The focus of this page is the surface workings of the Uncle Sam mine, as visible in photographs, as well as a general description of the mine, with minimal coverage of the geology and financial returns. Also to establish a timeline using sources not previously readily available.)

May 4, 1903
"James Chípman, manager of the Unele Sam and Lower Mammoth Mining companies, says that the properties of these companies are looking better. The Uncle Sam has two cars of ore now on the market that runs $5 in gold, 114 ounces silver and 8.3 per cent lead; the Lower Mammoth has one carload that goes $2 gold and 99 ounces silver." (Salt Lake Telegram, May 4, 1903)

"In 1905 concentration mills were built on the Godiva and Uncle Sam properties, using water piped 2 miles from Homansville. The Uncle Sam mill was also operated by the May Day Co. some time later. Attempts made by lessees of the May Day property to dry concentrate the carbonate ore by a process patented by Dietz & Keedy resulted in a very good grade of cerusite concentrates. In 1913 the old ore and tailing dump of the May Day was treated in a cyanide plant operated by lessees. In the later part of 1913 a mill was completed to treat the low-grade ores of the Knight mines (the Iron Blossom, Colorado, Beck Tunnel, Black Jack, Dragon, and Swansea) by the Knight-Christensen process of chloridizing, roasting, and leaching, which was said to be excellently adapted to a mixture of oxidized, sulphide, and siliceous material that could be formed from the ores of these mines. Before certain mechanical difficulties could be overcome the plant was destroyed by fire on April 6, 1915." (USGS PP 111, page 405)

1919
From "Geology And Ore Deposits Of The Tintic Mining District, Utah," USGS Professional Paper 107, 1919.

Uncle Sam workings (May Day mine). The upper tunnel, the portal of which is at the shaft, altitude 7,115 feet, is long and contains many of the earlier workings. About 350 feet southwest of the Uncle Sam shaft the crosscut reaches the line of the Godiva channel, which here trends northwest. The workings extend more or less continuously for 500 feet southeast of this point. The level extends 800 feet farther south into unproductive territory and then bends east for a few hundred feet to reach the flat workings in the Humbug claim, also on the Godiva channel. These workings are in part on the level of the Uncle Sam tunnel but mainly on the Yankee tunnel level (altitude 7,019 feet).

The explorations on the deeper levels from the Uncle Sam shaft have failed to discover other ore bodies.

 

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