The scoop on Salt Lake County's missing mountain

      One of the paintings of the former mountain that hangs in the Utah State Capitol Building.

Salt Lake County has a missing mountain.
This mountain that isn't there has been gone for almost a century now.
Here's the scoop on where this mountain vanished ...

The Kennecott open pit copper mine, southwest of Salt Lake City, is Utah's most impressive man-made feature. It's only one of two unnatural things on the planet that can be spotted by orbiting astronauts (The Great Wall of China is the other). At 2.5 miles across and almost a mile deep, you could stack two Sears Towers on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.

However, most people probably don't realize that there's a "missing mountain" at Bingham Canyon — not the mountain of earth removed from below ground but a large mound that once soared skyward.

"It was a mountain," Philip F. Notarianni, director for the Utah State Historical Society and lifelong resident of Magna, told the Deseret News in 2003.

Indeed, two large paintings in the Utah Governor's Board Room at the Capitol depicts clearly how the earliest Bingham Canyon mining, located about 17 miles southwest of downtown Salt Lake City, looked. In the early 1900s, the reverse of what we see now was true — a road spiraled upward as the process slowly mined the mountain away before the "pit" came to be.

       An aerial view of the hole in place of the mountain, from Kennecott's museum collection.

According to Lila Abersold, visual arts coordinator for the Utah Travel Council, "Harry" H.L.J. Culmer made these two paintings of Bingham Canyon, probably some time between 1910-20, though no exact date has even been recorded.

They were among the earliest of paintings in the Utah State Capitol and capture Culmer's fascination with the mining industry.

"They are important paintings," Abersold said. "They offer a very early view of Bingham Canyon."

With more than 16 million tons of copper mined there — more than any other mine in history — a mountain is long gone and a gigantic hole is now there.

In Bingham Canyon's early days (1863-1900), all mining was done underground as tunnels were dug into the mountain. Miners were also then looking for gold, silver or lead, because the 40 pounds of copper per ton of ore wasn't a profitable process then.

By the late 1890s, all the easy mining had been done, and new considerations for the area were made.

Engineers Daniel Jackling and Robert Gemmell surveyed Bingham Canyon and proposed that copper ore could profitably be mined from the surface, using railroad cars and steam shovels. Their first report showed that the cost of producing one pound of refined copper would be six cents. With the selling price of copper at 14 to 18 cents a pound, their report looked impressive on paper.

There were skeptics, but by August 1906, steam shovels mounted on railroad tracks began digging into the mountain.

Less than three years later, the Utah Copper Company had 11 steam shovels, 21 locomotives, 145 dump cars and 16 miles of railroad tracks on the mountain. After buying out the Boston Consolidated Mining Company, which owned a portion of the mountain, mining really took off.

                                           The inside of the mountain is a deep hole today.

The "hill," as it was called, got smaller and smaller, and in 1912, there were 5,000 mine workers.

A major improvement came in the 1920s, when electricity replaced steam to power the shovels and locomotives. Shovels were also mounted on caterpillar tractors, giving workers more freedom to move about.

In fact, the Deseret News in December of 1922 reported that "a mountain once more begins to move" as mining activity increased dramatically at Bingham Canyon. "A whole mountain of copper is actually being moved away," the News reported.

It was in the 1930s that the "hill" was gone and mining work started to dig a pit. In 1936, Kennecott Copper Corporation bought out the Utah Copper Company.

(Written by Lynn Arave and originally published in the Deseret News.)

                                      How the missing mountain area looks now.

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1942: Utah’s first ever regular traffic jams were in Weber County, not S.L.; More WW2 tales

          The infamous "Death Curve" in Roy at 1900 West and Riverdale Road.

UTAH'S first ever regular traffic jams didn’t take place in the state’s most populous county, Salt Lake,  but in Weber County instead.

“Utah traffic peak reported on U.S. Highway 91. Safety Council notes heaviest travel in Weber County in study for tire conservation and car pooling,” a Sept. 18, 1942 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram stated.

It was the effects of World War II and all the federal defense installations in Weber County and north Davis County that fueled this road traffic.

“The northern part of U.S. Highway 91 in Utah, particularly in Weber County, is carrying the ‘heaviest traffic in the state’ and the ‘’heaviest traffic any Utah road ever has been called upon to bear,’” the story reported.

Traffic increases on Highway 91 in Riverdale were reported to be up as much as 245 percent over the previous year.

                              1900 West sign in south Roy.

                           1900 West (northbound) in Roy today.

In that era, there was no I-15. Highway 91 was essentially Main Street in Layton, State Street in Clearfield, 1900 West in Sunset and Roy and then Riverdale Road into Ogden. And, the infamous “Death Curve” was where Riverdale Road ended on the west and a sharp turn was required to turn south into Roy onto 1900 West Street.

                          Hill Air Force Base, top.

-More WW2 Utah effects: “Girls! Here’s chance to meet daring Army fliers; Serve your country and earn money, too” was a Nov. 3, 1942 headline in the Telegram.

“Hill Field,” the Ogden Air Depot (and now Hill Air Force Base), was seeking 30 young women to serve as receptionists for incoming planes. “They will meet all planes landing at the field, direct the pilots to parking areas, or park the planes themselves by means of tow tugs,” the story stated.

Other job duties would be arranging pilot accommodations and pay would be $1,200 a year (approximately $17,600 in today’s dollar values).

These job openings were part of a trend caused by World War II – many more women were needed to join the workforce.

-Davis and Weber County were well-known homes to many Utah military and civilian government personnel involved in the World War II efforts. However, surprisingly so was Morgan County. “Como Springs summer homes for war workers” was a Nov. 20, 1942 headline in the Morgan County newspaper. With home availability in Ogden expected to be up to 1,000 short, 56 summer homes at Morgan’s Como Spring resort were rebuilt to house government employees.

-World famous comedians Lou Costello and Bud Abbott of “Abbott and Costello” came to Salt Lake City in July of 1942 to promote war bonds.

“A pair of funny men came to Salt Lake City Wednesday on serious business,” the Salt Lake Telegram of July 22, 1942 reported. Several hundred fans welcomed the celebrity pair at the train station and then they were taken to Hotel Utah in a covered wagon.

Later, they entertained a crowd of thousands, performing on a platform at 200 South Main Street.

Then, they went to Provo, Bingham Canyon, Magna, Fort Douglas, Hill Field and the Ogden Arsenal – all between 11:30 a.m. and early evening, before heading to Idaho.

                   Highway 89 in Layton at Oak Hills Drive.

-Even before America’s involvement in World War II, the U.S. Army had requested that some key roads entering the Wasatch Front be improved and widened. Among these were Highway 30, from Echo through Weber Canyon to Uintah; the “Mountain Road,” from Weber Canyon to Farmington; the roads accessing Hill Field; and even sections of narrow highway in Parley’s Canyon. The Park Record newspaper of Oct. 24, 1940 reported these projects, scheduled to start in the spring of 1941.

                     Highway 193 connects Hill AFB with U.S. Highway 89.

When City Creek Canyon was heralded as a resort; Plus, mosquitoes in Utah’s early decades

                            On the western lip of City Creek Canyon, looking south.

CITY Creek Canyon is one of the natural gems of Salt Lake City. And, “City Creek as a resort” was an August 12, 1883 headline in the Salt Lake Herald.

The story stated that Big Cottonwood Canyon had been the camping resort of choice to date, though it is a long day trip to access it from downtown.

“But City Creek is right at your door; a man can attend to business up to 5 or 6 o’clock and ride or drive up the pleasant canyon six or seven miles in three-quarters of an hour, and remain overnight at a place where blankets are essential to comfort, where the fly doth not buzz and the mosquito settles down with the mantles or night; and the next morning he enjoys a pleasant ride down the cool canyon, where the birds are singing, the green boughs waiving, the waters murmuring and everything is quiet and calculated to assist the proper digestion of bacon, ham and beans.”

                   Looking down into the south end of City Creek Canyon.

“It is a very cheap luxury,” the story also stated, and one of the best ways for bracing against the withering heat of summer.

-Mosquitoes didn’t earn much, if any, press in Salt Lake City’s earliest decades. That may be because the pesky insects were only considered a small nuisance among the ruggedness of pioneer life.

One of the first references of mosquitoes was in the Deseret News on August 9, 1871 under the headline of “How mosquitoes bite.”

Surprisingly, the story states that after mosquitoes suck a person’s blood, they release poison into the wound.

“If he (a mosquito) were as big as a kitten, and his poison as strong in proportion, a ‘bite’ from him would kill us,” the story stated.

(Today we know mosquitoes do suck a human’s blood, but release not poison, but an anti-coagulant

into a wound – and the possibility of them transferring disease, like the West Nile Virus, is a significant danger.)

The Salt Lake Tribune of June 16, 1873 humorously stated, “Mosquito shooting is a favorite pastime in the lower wards” of Salt Lake City.

Indeed, the July 8, 1875 Tribune reported on an outdoor outing to Ogden by Masons at a beautiful grove. It stated, “after reaching the grove, divided time between dancing, croquet, partaking of bounteous lunch and fighting the festive mosquito.”

Next, the Deseret News of August 15, 1877 printed a story, “The Mosquito of the Yellowstone.” The entire story emphasized how bad that the future Yellowstone National Park was infested with the peskiest flying insects ever.

“Anyone who has ever been bitten by a Yellowstone mosquito will not need to be told how he feels … Seriously, the soldiers station in that country find life almost unendurable at this season of the year.”

-In another historical tidbit, a severe summer storm on July 28, 1904 knocked out power during some of the prime evening hours in downtown Salt Lake City. The Deseret Evening News of July 31, 1897 reported that at 5:45 p.m. the power went out. All street cars stopped and electric lights were out and a concert in the Salt Lake Tabernacle was half-way in progress and had to be halted. Then a downpour struck and pedestrians ran for shelter. The outage lasted by 20 minutes in some locations, but far longer in others.

                                              Ogden Canyon in the 1920s.
-Ogden Canyon was the site of a huge explosion on July 30, 1897 at an old powder mill. The Deseret Evening News of July 31, 1897 had the headline, “A terrific explosion.”

There was one victim, William Bowlder, who was described as a “charred and blistered mass of flesh.” The roof of the building was blown 100 feet away and Bowdler was hurled 15 feet from the site. The structure was a total loss.

-Finally, the same Deseret Evening News of 1897 also reported that a young man in Weber County was bitten by a rattlesnake and was slowly recovering. Said to be a “snake charmer” of sorts, who experimented with snakes, the bite was accidental. The bite happened in the community of “Coal Patch,” east of Pleasant View. The man, named Johns, was said to not want to handle snakes anymore.

Camp Steiner in its early days: Nearest road nearly 2 miles distant

          Looking down on Camp Steiner and Scout Lake  (center) from Bald Mountain.

CAMP Steiner, in the High Uintas of Utah, is the highest elevation Boy Scout camp in the United States, sitting at 10.400 feet above sea level.
But when did this Scout camp begin?
According to the Great Salt Lake Boy Scouts Council (www.saltlakescouts.org/steiner), Camp Steiner dates back to 1930.
However, the first newspaper reference on the camp was published not until July 17, 1933 in the Salt Lake Telegram.
And, it was the Telegram newspaper on July 27, 1935 that featured Camp Steiner in a lengthy report under the headline of: "125 Salt Lake Boy Scouts go back to nature at Camp Steiner for period of training and play in Lofty Granddaddy Lake area."
Camp Steiner was named for George A. Steiner, general manager of American Linen Supply Company, a key supporter and donor of the facility.
Located around aptly named Scout Lake, this camp is also only a few miles away from Utah's famous Mirror Lake.

                          Mirror Lake, with Bald Mountain in the background.

In 1935, the road through the High Uintas was limited. The Telegram report from that year stated: "The automobile road ends at Mirror Lake, a mile and three-quarters away, and all supplies have to be packed into camp."
(That's not the case today, as the "Mirror Lake Highway" (U-150) slices right through the mountains and even connects with Evanston, Wyoming.)
Back in 1935, a single structure, a log cabin, served as headquarters for the camp. All users slept in tents. It was to be a few years before other cabins were built.

                    A view of the some of the lofty lakes near Camp Steiner.

The beginnings of Camp Kiesel: Four different sites considered

                                                  The open area at Camp Kielsel.

CAMP Kiesel is a household word among Boy Scouts in the Ogden, Utah area. A popular day camp, this facility dates back to 1925 and mostly serves Cub Scouts today.
However, four different sites to considered as possible locations before the South Fork "narrows" location was selected.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of Feb. 27, 1925, possible camps sites were also debated, including ones along the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the Ogden River.

                           Water sports at the south end of Camp Kiesel.

The camp was to be named in honor of the late Fred J. Kiesel. He was a former Ogden City Mayor and is family had donated $3,500 toward a future Boy Scout camp east of Ogden. ($3,500 is almost $50,000 in today's 2018 dollar values.)
Back then, it wasn't the Trapper Trails Boy Scout Council that operated in the Ogden area, it was called the Ogden Gateway Council of Boy Scouts of America. 
According to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of May 13, 1925, a committee of businessmen (C. B. Empey, W.H. Shearman, Gus Wright, A.P. Merrill,  J.W. Ellington and John L. Taylor) made the site selection, whose location was about a mile north of the South fork "narrows" and near what was called "Big Spring," at the junction of Spring Canyon and Wheatgrass Canyon.

                            A typical outdoor class at Camp Keisel.

Then, an architect began to make plans for the site.
Development moved quickly and the camp first opened in June of 1925, with 60 Boy Scouts there on opening day. 
Camp Kiesel was officially dedicated on July 5, 1925, and a shooting expo was one of its initial grand-opening features.

                                           The BB gun shooting range at Camp Kiesel.

Back when a human life in Utah was ‘worth’ only $2.66 and when 41 head of cattle drowned in the Great Salt Lake

                                              A modern day traffic accident in Layton City.

 “ONE human life -- $2.66. That is the price placed upon life per individual in Utah by those changed with enforcement of the state’s traffic laws,” the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of Nov. 19, 1943 reported.

The Telegram’s headline was “Utah’s 84 traffic deaths this year emphasize trivial cost of killing.”

The story continued: “On the basis of 84 persons killed in Utah traffic (accidents) to date this year, the average fine paid to fix responsibility for each fatal mishap totaled only $2.66. There were no jail sentences imposed. In only three cases have manslaughter charges been filed. In only six of the 12 fatalities in Salt Lake City have any kind of charges been filed.

The story reported that the $2.66 is the average Utah fine assessed for the blame in a fatal accident. The fine averaged $5.76 in Salt Lake and only $1.95 elsewhere in Utah.

The lengthy story then listed a summary of all 84 accidents.

This report, given during the middle of World War II, obviously sought to reduce traffic fatalities and was a precursor to safety campaigns by the Utah Highway Patrol.

(Note that $2.66 in 1943 monetary value is equal to $38.80 in today’s dollar values.)

                        The Great Salt Lake north of Fremont Island.

-“Herd of stampeded cattle meet death in the Lake” was an April 12, 1900 headline in the Salt Lake Herald newspaper.

Some 200 head of cattle were grazing in a pasture between Hooper and Syracuse. Then, Joseph Manning of Hooper reported that a great storm arose and the herd stampeded to the west and even the Great Salt Lake didn’t stop them.

Ultimately the cattle ended up more than a dozen miles to the northwest, near Little Mountain.

“Many of them were swamped in the mud and perished,” the story reported. “Others waded out till they became exhausted, and still others swam for miles. Some were found eighteen miles from shore. In all, 41 perished. Four were extricated from the mud alive.”

The animals belonged to a variety of ranchers in Davis and Weber counties.

In its report of the cattle drowning, the Davis County Clipper newspaper stated that old time residents of the area said that the strong east canyon winds also used to drive cattle from the Farmington area way out west to Antelope Island.

-The first newspaper mention of fog in Utah territory was in the Deseret News of Dec. 15, 1853.

The report described the fog in Salt Lake City as very deep and dark, very much like the English fogs of fall, winter and spring.

          The Little Mountain area, as viewed from the north end of Fremont Island.

-Here’s how some Utah residents of 1881 helped the poor: “Tomorrow morning Mr. A. Greenwell and a party of nimrods are going to the Little Mountain (west of Ogden), in quest of rabbits. They say they will return in the evening, with 400 and distribute them to the hungry free gratis, on Fourth Street (of Ogden).” From the Ogden Herald, Nov. 8, 1881.

-Back in 1910, the early days of the automobile, travel was slow, particularly on rough and out-of-the-way roads. For example, the Ogden Standard newspaper of Feb. 28, 1910 reported that it took residents of Hooper some three hours to travel to Ogden. J.H. Fowles, a Hooper resident, said it ought to only take an hour to travel that distance. (Note it takes approximately 15-20 minutes to travel from Hooper to Ogden today.)

-The Salt Lake Tribune of Sept. 6, 1896 was a report of the Little Mountain area. It stated that the Native American settlers before the pioneers used Little Mountain as a chosen spot. They came to the spot to bury some of their dead.

                                                   The Kit Carson Cross on Fremont Island.


However, the same Tribune story displayed total ignorance over where the cross carved in stone on Fremont Island came from. This report stated the cross was already there when John C. Fremont and company arrived on the Isle in 1843. (In fact, team member Kit Carson himself carved that cross during their 1843 visit).

So, this newspaper report speculated that some earlier Christians – perhaps even Spanish missionaries must have visited the Island and carved that cross.

A Proposal in 1912 to add mystic charm to S.L. with various names changes -- Lone Peak, Cottonwood Canyons

JUST over a century ago, there was a brief effort to try and change some Salt Lake area geographical names, "to add mystic charm" and avoid the commonplace.
The Salt Lake Herald newspaper of July 25, 1912 stated that Joseph E. Caine suggested a change in some titles for the area during a speech given at Liberty Park.
City Creek and Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons were particularly mentioned as being too commonplace of names for an area so rich in pioneer history and effort.
"With such a world of romance in our history we should not have given to that magnificent gorge of the Wasatch so commonplace a name as Big Cottonwood Canyon. City Creek, Big and Little Cottonwood and Mill Creek Canyons, Twin Peaks and Lone Peak are all misnamed," the story reported. 
"There are a thousand cottonwood canyons in the western United States and as many mill creek canyons.Let us give to these and other great works of nature names that will mean something in the history of our state and that will carry with them the romantic charm of the days of the trail blazers."
Caine also suggested that Timpanogos be returned as the name for Utah Lake, as the Spanish explorers and Father Escalante had titled it.
He said more unusual name changers could "add to this state a mystic charm that will live forever in poetry, in painting and in song."
Sadly, Caine's suggestions were not heeded, or perhaps the commonplace names he wanted changed were already too permanent in the minds of Utahns.
And, certainly in the 21st Century, such names have well over a century of use.
Perhaps the "lone" example of a name Caine suggested that actually had an effort to alter it, was Lone Peak. For at least a few years in the mid 1910s, there was a temporary renaming to "Mount Jordan" instead. (Lone Peak is a distinctive, solitary peak at the far south end of the S.L. Valley.) The new name didn't stick, but it was used in many a newspaper story of that decade, including the S.L. Herald of Sept. 6, 1915.
Caine also neglected to mention that there are three sets of "Twin Peaks," found just along the length of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake County. Why that name repetition? Who knows, but "Double Peak" and North and South Twin could at least have been a little less confusing set of titles.

-Regarding Lone Peak, it was thrown back into public notice at the end of 1936 when a plan crashed on that mountain and yet could not be found for almost six months.
On Dec. 13, 1936, a Western Air Express transport plane crashed some 43 minutes before it was due at the Salt Lake Airport.
In  early June of 1937, some hikers found some airmail blown around near the top of the mountain and that led to finally locating the plane wreckage and the remains of its  four passengers and three crew members, finally ending the tragic suspense of the disaster.
An elevation of 11,000 feet above sea level, an arctic-like weather made location and recovery vert difficult.
It was believed, according to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of June 7, 1937, that it the aircraft had just been another 20 to 25 feet higher, it would have cleared the granite mountaintop safely.

-Lone Peak was back in the news about 18 months later when four Salt Lake men climbed Lone Peak's summit in a record three hours and 58 minutes.
Orson Spencer, Odell Pedersen, W.C. Kamp and Keith Anderson made the speedy climb from the Alpine side, They are members of the Wasatch Mountain Club and their exploit was reported in the Telegram of Oct. 3, 1938.

(-Other sources: “Utah Place Names,”: by John W. Van Cott and the Salt Lake Tribune, May 28, 1916.)

-Originally published in the Deseret News on Dec. 26, 2017.