Minerville: The Beginnings of Lead-Silver Mining in Utah

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 51, 1983, No. 3

Minersville: The Beginnings of Lead-Silver Mining in Utah

BY KEITH A. KELLY AND J. KENNETH DAVIES

IN 1859 A GROUP OF ENTERPRISING MORMONS began working a mineral deposit near what legend said had been an old Spanish silver mine. Located near the present-day site of Minersville, Utah, this mining operation began as a lead-producing venture. With full approval and encouragement of their leader, Brigham Young, its promoters laid out a townsite, built a lead smelter, and began supplying lead to the territory. Later, the mines in the area would become the first silver mining operations within the current boundaries of the state of Utah and some of the earliest in the West.

In most histories of Utah precious metal mining, the role of Minersville is obscure. Since the mines began as lead mines and since early writers ignored Minersville in recounting the story of Utah precious metal mining, the area is not given full credit as the first documented, major precious metal mining region in Utah. A reexamination of the Minersville story reveals that the first Mormon miners attempted to develop silver finds in the early 1860s, before significant numbers of Gentile (non-Mormon) prospectors entered the territory. But like the early non-Mormon mine developers who later appeared in the territory, the Mormons in early Minersville were hindered by a lack of technical understanding of how to properly process and profit from their valuable silver ore.

The Minersville experience was not the first Mormon encounter with mining. Indeed, it was merely an extension of earlier Latter-day Saint mining efforts. Unfortunately, these earlier efforts are often overlooked or played down because of the common view that the Mormon people were counseled and pressured by their leaders to avoid mining.

This idea that the Saints had little to do with mining stems partly from the fact that they were primarily an agricultural people who wanted to develop a self-sufficient, spiritually oriented economy in the Great Basin. Since they had to struggle to feed and clothe themselves, it is reasoned that they had little time to mine precious metals. It is supposed that since they wanted self-sufficiency, they did not want a trade dependent, boom-bust, precious metal mining economy. In addition, it is often averred that mining was to be avoided because of a tendency of mining camps to be sin-ridden.

These views were reflected in the statements of early church leaders. Typical was the statement of Apostle Erastus Snow:

We have all the time prayed that the Lord would shut up the mines. It is better for us to live in peace and good order, and to raise wheat, corn, potatoes and fruit, than to suffer the evils of a mining life, and do no more than make a living at last.

At the same time, Brigham Young and others fostered the belief that if the Lord wanted the Mormons to have gold and other precious metals, He would open the way for the Saints to obtain them. In 1849 Young said:

When the saints shall have preached the gospel, raised grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for a supply of gold to the perfect satisfaction of his people; until then, let them not be overanxious for the treasures of the earth are in the Lord's storehouse, and he will open the doors thereof when and where he pleases.

As a result of these and other statements made by early church leaders, the typical picture painted of faithful Latter-day Saints is one in which precious metal mining should be and actually was avoided.

Unfortunately, that picture is inaccurate. Mormons, faithful and unfaithful alike, engaged in precious metal mining as early as 1848 when several members of the Mormon Battalion were involved in the Sutter's Mill gold discovery in Cali fornia. They were followed by one to two hundred more California Mormons that year. Although Brigham Young wanted the Saints to build a self-sufficient, agriculturally based kingdom, he recognized the need for gold to facilitate trade and the purchase of goods not produced in the Rocky Mountains. To minimize loss of manpower he publically counseled the Saints to stay at home to farm while privately calling many on gold-mining "missions" to provide needed funds for the kingdom. These gold-mining missionaries, along with those who were given permission to go and the disobedient who left for the California gold fields on their own, represented a substantial number of the Saints. Recent research by J. Kenneth Davies indicated the extent of this mining effort:

The truth is that there was substantial Mormon involvement in the gold fields, far beyond participation in the initial discoveries at Coloma and Mormon Island, and extending far beyond 1848. In fact, the Mormon presence in the gold fields constituted the first substantial church colonization attempt, albeit temporary, outside of the Salt Lake and Weber Valleys. It appears that between nine hundred and a thousand adult Mormons may have been involved in the gold fields between 1848 and 1857, with as many as eighty family units, including women and children. As many as 15 to 25 percent of the overall 1847 adult male pioneer group and 50 percent of several subgroups of Mormon pioneers that year went into the gold fields.

Their efforts were financially successful. Davies added:

In contrast to many other early Mormon economic efforts, this one was highly successful, bringing probably as much as one hundred thousand dollars in gold into the Salt Lake Valley from 1848 to 1851, providing gold backing for the Mormon money-system and the "foreign exchange" needed for economic expansion.

The economic impact was important, but perhaps as substantial was the psychological, social, and precedential impact of the experience. The gold rush exposed many church leaders and members to a lucrative mining experience. Other Mormons not quite so fortunate could only observe and wonder with envy at the apparent success of some of their colleagues. At the same time, Mormon miners in California were introduced to the emerging conventions of mining: the mining district organization of property rights and the techniques of extracting precious metals. These almost certainly affected later Mormon mining experiences when some of these California miners turned to Utah's hidden mineral wealth.

Other mining experiences among the Saints in the 1850s were more mundane, aimed at supplying the Mormon commonwealth with such needed commodities as salt, coal, iron, and lead. Perhaps the most noted of these early mining operations was the iron mission. Organized in 1850 and later established at Cedar City by thirty-five men skilled in mining and manufacturing, the mission produced its first iron on September 29, 1852. To provide capital to expand the promising operation, Mormon leaders in Britain persuaded several wealthy English converts to subscribe to shares in the Desert Iron Company. Despite this auspicious beginning, Indian troubles, floods, technical difficulties, problems with the furnace, and lack of proper fuel hindered the operation during the next few years. Finally, in 1855 the pioneers executed several reasonably successful runs. But difficulties continued to plague the mission. In 1858, after the operation had been interrupted by a call to mobilize for the coming of federal troops, Brigham Young ordered the enterprise closed down.

Although the iron mission was a financial failure, it did show the determination of the Saints in the face of repeated failure. At the same time, its difficulties foreshadowed problems that the leadmining mission near Las Vegas would face.

The Las Vegas venture began in 1855 as a mission to the Indians led by William Bringhurst. In exploring the surrounding countryside, some of the missionaries found what appeared to be valuable deposits of lead ore. When samples arrived in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young seized the opportunity to begin a lead-producing operation. Nathaniel V. Jones was sent "to search for and examine into the location, quality and quantity of different ores and metals" in the Las Vegas area. He rejected the earlier find as impractical to work but finally located a promising body of ore. Although the new location was twelve miles from running water and without a grazing area for their animals, the men were not deterred. Their favorable report led Young to call sixteen men to begin a mining operation under Jones's direction, a turn of events that disappointed Bringhurst who had made plans of his own in the area.

To assist Jones and his men, Brigham Young enlisted the aid of Isaac Grundy, probably the only Mormon in the West with a technical knowledge of lead smelting. Grundy jointed the Las Vegas contingent and began building a furnace to smelt the newly mined ore. Unfortunately, the local materials used in the furnace were unable to withstand the high temperatures necessary to process the ore. Jones traveled to Salt Lake City to procure proper materials, and by Chrismas Day 1856 smelting operations had begun.

The miners worked hard to produce lead, but the yield was poor. Grundy was unable to solve the problem of how to separate out the ore's high silver content. Other problems hampered the operation as well, and it was finally abandoned by Jones in January 1857.

With the failure and great capital loss attending the lead and iron missions, Brigham Young was not ready to call anyone to another mining mission. However, he did encourage careful private initiative on the part of several prominent Mormons in developing another find. With his encouragement, the first lead-silver mine within the current boundaries of Utah was opened.

In 1857 and 1858 the Mormons' Great Basin kingdom was nearly turned upside down. A federal army was approaching Utah and the Mormons were prepared to resist. Mormons in northern Utah made ready to flee to the south, and outlying settlers and missionaries around the world were called home. Southern Utah became a refuge for Saints returning from California and for those who had abandoned their homes to the north.

During this unsettled time Jesse N. Smith, a prominent leader at Parowan, Utah, was instructed on December 18, 1857, to help the Mormons at San Bernardino, California, move back to Utah. With this group was Isaac Grundy, who on March 23, 1858, moved into Jesse Smith's old home in Parowan. Smith and Grundy, along with several other enterprising Mormons, apparently spent time exploring and prospecting in the area. Sometime during 1858 they located what would become the first lead mine in Utah. Although it is not clear that the mine was first located that year (one writer says it was opened a year earlier and another says it was first worked in 1854), Grundy and several of his co-workers presented Brigham with samples of their prospecting when they traveled to Salt Lake for a church conference. On November 12, 1858, the Journal History account noted: "Bishop Tarlton Lewis, Wm. Barton and Isaac Grundy presented Pres. Young with some rich specimens of lead, zinc, copper and grey silver ores, which were obtained 25 miles below Beaver Settlement and four miles from Beaver river and near a good spring of water." (Note that the specimens included silver as well as lead, zinc, and copper.) Brigham Young approved the men's plan to develop their finds, and the next spring found them hard at work building a new settlement to support their mining operation. Jesse N. Smith's journal entry for March 13, 1859, recorded: "Went to Lower Beaver Valley in company with Isaac Grundy, T. Lewis, W. Barton and John Blackburn, our object being to find a location for a settlement near a lead mine, lately discovered there."

But beginning the new mining operation was not easy; the men experienced opposition from farmers who had begun a settlement six miles downstream from the miners' proposed location. The farmers felt threatened by the mining operation and were concerned that it would use up or pollute the water they needed for irrigation. Bishop Philo Farnsworth of Beaver joined the farmers in opposing the surveying of the proposed community.

At the end of March the miners' and farmers' conflicting claims were resolved when Apostle Amasa M. Lyman called the two groups together. Jesse Smith recorded the meeting:

Mar.26. Upon arriving at the Cottonwoods a notice informed us that A. Lyman, Bishop Farnsworth, and others were seven miles down the river at a place called the "Farm" awaiting to adjudicate the water claims.

Mar. 27. (Sun.) Brother Grundy and myself mounted at 2 a.m. and rode down to the "Farm." A. Lyman called all parties together and advised that the water claims be settled without dispute, and went on his way to Salt Lake City. It was finally agreed that the mining settlement at the Cottonwoods should be entitled to one-eleventh of the water of the creek for irrigating purposes. An article to that effect was written out and signed by Bishop Farnsworth on behalf of the farmers, and by I. Grundy, on behalf of the Mining Company.

Two weeks after this incident, Lyman arrived in Salt Lake and reported to Brigham Young that he had "travelled down the Beaver river 19 miles to Grundy's smelting furnace thence 6 miles to the new farming location. . . ." He added that Grundy had "made a location for smelting lead ore on the south bend of Beaver river and 4 miles from a lead mine." Lyman also "informed Prest. Young of difficuly [sic] as misunderstanding between the miners and Farmers at Lower Beaver," explaining that "the men who have commenced farming 6 miles below the smelting location are afraid that the water from the furnace will poison the land."

On April 13, the same day Lyman reported to him, Brigham Young wrote to Bishop Farnsworth, expressing his support for the miners and assuring him that the mining operation would not injure farming operations:

Bro. Isaac Grundy very properly wishes to engage in developing the mineral resources in your region, for which business he has a taste and many good qualifications. Such a course has the approval of my judgement, and I can but think that his operations, if properly managed, will prove of much local and general benefit. But to accomplish this you must be aware that Bro. Grundy and his co-laborers, and others who wish to be more or less connected with the ramifications into which such business may branch, should have the privilege of selecting the most advantageous location possible; and, as the country is roomy, let those who wish to engage exclusively in farming, grazing, &c. consider their own interests and that of their neighbors, by locating their places in a way that will not infringe upon bro. Grundy and those above named, giving them their choice of location upon unoccupied lands, and not stingily limiting them in quantity.

It is an entirely mistaken idea that the washing of the ore will injuriously effect [sic] the water for drinking or culinary purposes, and of course not for irrigation; neither are the smelting operations injurious, except the fumes, and they need not harm any one if the smoke stack is properly constructed.

Trusting that this communication will prove satisfactory, and that each one will be disposed to locate the operation with a view to promote the interest of all.

Meanwhile, the miners had already begun laying out a town, setting up farming operations, and organizing a mining company. On April 9 Jesse Smith wrote:

Reached the Cottonwoods on the Beaver [River] late, after traveling about 16 miles. Went to work fencing, ploughing, sowing, making water ditches, etc. I laid off the town of Minersville. A lead mining company was organized with Isaac Grundy for president; myself, secretary; T. Lewis, William Barton, John Blackburn, James H. Rollins, Silas S. Smith and Samuel Lewis, directors.

Grundy and his business partners, recognizing the failure of earlier mining operations, developed this find prudently. They planted crops to sustain themselves and did not immediately build a large reduction furnace. They worked the mine cautiously but confidently. Soon they had lead to ship to Salt Lake City. Onjuly 13 Smith noted: "Four of us worked digging lead ore, got out about 1000 pounds. (Tues.) Worked, hauling ore and melting it. On the 28th our company sent some 650 pounds to Salt Lake City."

So confident were the miners of their operation that on August 5 Tarleton Lewis at Beaver reported to George A. Smith, one of the apostles assigned to supervise the Saints in southern Utah, that the operation would "be able to supply the territory with all the lead and zinc that would be needed."

Six days later, Apostle Smith visited with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City until 11:00 P. M. discussing "the prospects of the Southern Country and . . . the lead mines at Minersville on the Beaver." This was not the only information Young received from the mines. On August 24 Isaac Grundy wrote to him, describing the operation and the area, requesting more miners for the settlement, suggesting that the farming village downstream be merged with the Minersville settlement, and asking for advice. His letter, along with one sent to Young a month later, gives perhaps the best description of the operation available:

According to your instructions I proceeded to select and organize a company of ten men for the purpose of working the mines in this vicinity. We are located about sixteen miles down the stream from Beaver Settlement the mines are about four miles North of us in the edge of the mountains.

We have prospected several leads and raised between six and eight thousand lbs. of lead ore. I think when the ore is in smelting order it will yield about sixty-eight percent lead.

We intend now to put up a temporary furnace and send up to your city between [6]00 and 1000 lbs between this time and Conference.

Grundy described the living conditions and the farming operation that the miners developed to maintain self-sufficiency, noting that

We have not yet been able to put up houses for ourselves.. . . We have been quite busy subduing and fencing out field, building a dam and making ditches, &c, we are preparing to sow fall wheat which we think will be ready to harvest next June or early in July.

Grundy closed with a reiteration of his cautiousness and an invitation for more miners to come down and assist the operation:

We purpose [sic] carrying on these mines upon a safe [process] and do not design putting up extensive works or machinery until we have further proved them we wish to raise a considrble [sic] quantity of ore before going to very great expense in building furnaces. So far as we have worked or examined the leads the prospect is very favorable. . . . We would like to employ about four good miners we would give them steady work and a chance to take up land and raise their bread with the rest of us should the mines fail.

A month later, writing again to Brigham Young, Grundy explained that a small air furnace had been built and that lead would be again sent to Salt lake City. He continued to express caution ("We do not wish to get no debt beyond our income"), and he repeated his plea for more workers, explaining that their numbers were "too few to carry on the business successfully."

Grundy's letters agree with other evidence indicating that although this operation was supported by Brigham Young and other church leaders, it was intended as a profit-making business venture. The organization of a mining company reinforces this idea. In addition, Jesse Smith's journal refers to a business deal. On January 9, 1860, he wrote, "The company let the mines to John Protheroe to mine on shares." James Henry Rollins (who was called as bishop of Minersville in 1859) mentioned another contractual arrangement in his memoirs: "The company with Isaac Grundy hauled rock and made a primitive furnace, to which we hauled the ore, Brother Grundy smelting it for one-half of the product." Apparently, some of the men objected to the arrangement, because Rollins wrote on the next line: "Some of our company withdrew." Another reference in Rollins's memoirs removes all doubt about the intention of the lead miners to profit personally from their work:

The first bar of lead smelted weighed 60 lbs. This was carried to Salt Lake by Tarlton Lewis. The six bars I took myself, and sold to the merchants for 250 a lb., and I obtained for it shoes, clothing and groceries of all kinds. After this we procured molds which run bars that weighed 1 lb., and sometimes we run 5 lb. flat bars. The 5 lb. bars I sold to Brother Pyper for the purpose of making white lead. The smaller bars I sold for 250 a piece, as I went up through the country.

Indeed, the miners were simply following Brigham Young's advice:

Your best plan for making the lead business increase and sustain itself is for you to market, at the best prices you can, small quantities as you produce them, and procure your groceries, provisions, &c, and increase your works as your means derived therefrom and the demand increases.

A few months later the Desert News encouraged the miners in their work, suggesting that they could make "handsome profits by supplying the market at prices that will effectually exclude importation."

According to the Journal History, the mining operation prospered in the early months of 1860, but later in the year production of lead apparently slowed down. Although no specific reason was given for this slowdown in Journal History records, it seems to have coincided with the development of silver deposits in the Minersville mines.

The men at Minersville probably knew about the silver content of their lead ore from the beginning. Lorenzo Brown's October 17-20, 1856, diary entry recorded of the Las Vegas venture, "Grundy is quite confident there exists a large amount of silver in the lead as it is very hard and has a clear ring unknown to lead." If Grundy had suspicions that the Las Vegas lead contained silver, he certainly would have suspected silver in the Minersville ore. According to one account referring to the Minersville ore:

The ore was soft in nature, with gold assays running as high as one-half ounce to the ton, silver from 19 to 30 ounces, and 38% lead. The high silver content caused the report to be carried to the East that the Mormons used silver bullets.

If the miners did not realize the value of their claims initially, they certainly did later. In February 1861 two visiting Mormon leaders, George A. Smith and Joseph Young (Brigham's brother), "visited the mines near Minersville. Elder Joseph A. Young went down 80 feet into one of the pits and secured specimens of lead, copper, silver, anitmni [sic], zinc, bismuth and iron ores." On March 7 the two men arrived in Salt Lake, presumably to report back and show their samples to Brigham Young.

Although the report of metal samples taken by Joseph Young may seem exaggerated (Could he really have found such variety in a single deposit of ore?), another account contains a definite statement that silver was being mined: "Elder Geo. A. Smith reported that the led [sic] mines near Minersville worked by Nathaniel V. Jones have turned into silver worth $1700 a ton." This report may also be exaggerated; nevertheless, it gives positive support to the contention that Mormon miners sought to develop silver finds long before the "first" silver discoveries made near Salt Lake in 1863.

Apparently, the reports from Minersville enticed Brigham Young to visit the mines on his tour of southern Utah in May and June of 1861:

On Monday the 3rd, Pres. Young and most of the company took the road to Minersville, thirty-five miles distant from Parowan, in a north-westernly direction. The road was found to be very rough. They arrived at Minersville at 3:00 p.m., and held a meeting in the evening. Presidents Wells and Young addressed the congregation. On Tuesday, the party visited the lead mines, some four miles from Minersville and then went to Beaver. . . .

Later, when writing to Amasa Lyrnan and Charles Rich (apostles to the gold fields and cofounders of San Bernardino), then in Europe, about his trip to southern Utah, Brigham Young mentioned his mine visit but chose not to say anything about silver in the mines: "We visited the mines near Minersville, and at once saw that an abundance of lead, zinc, and antimony, and red, yellow, and white paint can be produced there, so soon as the proper attention are devoted to those matters." It is not clear whether Young encouraged or discouraged silver mining at that time. He might have chosen not to speak about it while quietly permitting it. Or he may have discouraged it while encouraging the miners to produce the lead needed for the territory. Whatever his reaction, no further mention was made of the mines until 1864 when the coming of non-Mormon miners to southern Utah led to the organization of a mining district.

In light of the preceding evidence, the question naturally arises: Why are the Minersville silver mining attempts ignored in most of the histories of precious metal mining in Utah? There are several reasons. First, there seems to have been some incentive and precedent for Mormons to suppress any evidence of precious metal discoveries in Utah in order to discourage non-Mormon entry into the territory. This makes written information about Minersville silver difficult to find. Second, the early Mormon property right system did not require the customary mining district organization. To most historians a mining district's organization was simultaneous with a significant discovery. Third, adequate technology simply was not available to process the Minersville silver. To understand fully why Minersville is ignored as the first silver mining area in Utah, each of these three reasons must be considered in its historical context.

Mormon suppression of mining discoveries to discouragenon-Mormon entry into the territory seems clear in light of the political climate of the early 1860s. Johnston's Army had entered the territory in 1858, and the Mormons still felt threatened. They realized that their hold on the Great Basin was tenuous and that an influx of Gentiles could overwhelm them. The Civil War was in its infancy when Brigham Young's secretary recorded:

The President is usually cheerful, the present distracted state of affairs of the U.S. following so soon after their wicked attempts to root up the Kingdom of God, and afflict his saints inspires the President with strong hopes for the prosperity of the cause of God. . . . But . . . the discovery of a gold mine might be the means of breaking us up.

It is not surprising that he vehemently denounced actions that might encourage such a find when he toured southern Utah (including Minersville) four months later:

In the house of George A. Smith at Parowan, Prest. Young gave a short but very powerful sermon. He rebuked the speculators very sharply—those who were trading with the army and gentiles and who still profess to be Saints. He said "I marvel at the patience I have had with such men. Here is B. F. Stewart and his brother and hundreds of others I could name. Bishop Warren is another. They are a stink in my nostrils, they will trade with our enemies and sustain them. They would let in all hell on us for a few dimes; they would like to open a gold mine, establish whiskey and whore shops, do anything for money, and be hale [sic] fellows well met with those damned curses. They would cut my throat if they had the power, but I will live to see them damned. . . .

It is safe to conclude that church leaders muted any reports of silver finds at Minersville. No account of silver reached the press; the only references to the discovery exist in private reports from southern Utah church leaders to their prophet.

At the same time, the silver discovery has been overlooked by historians because no mining district was organized to specify property rights over the lead-silver ore. Typically, when a gold or silver deposit was located in the early West, a mining district was formed to delineate and legitimatize claims. Almost without exception, districts were created by the local miners as soon as recognized discoveries were made. A mining district, with its by-laws and regulations, notified the public that precious metal mining was taking place.

In Minersville no mining district was necessary. The Mormons held to a system of property based on three principles: first, the right to hold property was based upon its use; second, natural resources, including mineral deposits, were publicly owned; and third, business was subject to close civil and ecclesiastical regulation. This property right system provided nearly all of the advantages that a mining district would afford. The principle of use insured that no one could claim and withhold potentially valuable mineral property from prospecting and mining. The strict community control over natural resources provided for arbitration of any mineral property disputes. And tight church and civil control over private enterprise meant strong enforcement of established property rights. It should not be surprising that the early miners at Minersville failed to form a mining district to protect their finds.

While the absence of a mining district in 1860 Minersville makes the silver discovery easy to ignore, the lack of silver smelting technology had made production of commercial-grade silver impossible. Brigham Young had considered himself fortunate to have Isaac Grundy available to process lead in Las Vegas, but the only man in the territory to understand lead smelting almost certainly did not possess the knowledge necessary to separate silver profitably from the ore. He may have been able to extract some silver, but it was probably mixed with lead. A knowledge of the technical and refined smelting process was probably not possessed by anyone in the territory at the time.

Real silver smelting did not begin in Utah until almost ten years later when the transcontinental railroad made Utah mining boom. It was tried unsuccessfully in 1864 in Rush Valley, near Salt Lake. At that time, soldiers stationed in Utah during the Civil War invested over $100,000 in smelting processes with unprofitable results. The 1864 non-Mormon miners certainly had more up-to-date technology than the 1860 Minersville Mormons. Ore actually had to be shipped out of the territory for successful smelting.

In sum, the silver mining operations near Minersville are forgotten because they were not publicized, not accompanied by the usual mining district property structure, and not commercially profitable. But they did take place. Early western mining history is replete with stories of mining operations that were little known and soon forgotten. Because of the circumstances surrounding the Minersville discovery and silver mining development, its story fits quite easily that category. It has seldom been recognized as the first precious metal mining operation within the present-day boundaries of Utah.

A year after Brigham Young's visit to Minersville in 1861, Utah was once again the unhappy host to a federal army. In 1862 Col. Patrick E. Connor was sent to Utah with a detachment of California and Nevada Volunteers to protect the mail route, subdue Indian tribes in the area, and keep an eye on the Mormons. After establishing Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City they had little to do. Instead of letting his troops sit idle, Connor encouraged them to prospect for gold and silver. On October 17, 1863, silver ore was discovered in Bingham Canyon in the Oquirrh Mountains a few miles southwest of the Mormon capital, and a wave of excitement and optimism swept over the soldiers. Connor saw the discovery as the beginning of another gold or silver rush that would profit him personally and attract thousands of outsiders, removing the Mormons from their dominant position in the territory.

Clearly, a mining district was needed in Minersville to prevent potential entrants from seizing old Mormon claims. The value of the mines was recognized, as well as the fact that existing enforcement structures under the Mormon system would not control outsiders. So, it should not be surprising that Bentham Fabian, a writer who described the status of Utah mining in 1872, reported that the Pioneer Mining District was organized in 1864 to regulate mining activities near Minersville.

None of the original records of the Pioneer District are known to remain. If they survived through the 1870s, they were probably destroyed in an 1889 Beaver County Courthouse fire. 44 Nevertheless, it may be surmised what the district organization must have been like from the account of a group of Mormons and non- Mormons who organized a mining district in 1864 in Meadow Valley, about 100 miles west of Minersville:

All the men went to the Meadow Valley camp at the Warm Spring. The following morning, March 18, they held a "miners meeting." William Hamblin was elected Chairman, and the men proceeded to establish the Meadow Valley Mining District and passed laws to govern the filing of claims. Using [Stephen] Sherwood's copy of the [1863 West Mountain Mining District by-laws] as a guide, ". . . the laws were passed section by section, sections being changed or rejected to suit our sense of right and justice; they were adopted or chanted by a vote . . ." The group then elected Stephen Sherwood the Recorder. . .

With the organization of the Pioneer Mining District, mining in the area probably continued quietly through the rest of the 1860s, although the rate of return on silver mining in Utah was negligible until the railroad brought low-cost transportation to the territory. History contains few references to mining activity in the district during this time except in a speech by Territorial Gov. Charles Durkee and in the Journal History. Durkee reported in his December 1866 address to the territorial legislature that he considered the Minersville and other Utah mines to be "equal in richness to any yet discovered upon the continent." A few years later, a letter filed in the LDS church historian's office reported that work continued on the Minersville mines. Little more is known until the coming of the railroad to southern Utah in 1871 stimulated mining in the area. At that time a new mining district—the Lincoln District—was organized, and claims from the Pioneer District were transferred to it. The new district continued through the turn of the century. Although the area never experienced a mining rush, several mines produced silver and gold consistently through the 1870s. It may thus be identified as a successful, albeit limited, conclusion to the Mormon mining venture.

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