DUGWAY MINE
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DUGWAY MINE |
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NAME: Dugway Mine COUNTY: Tooele ROADS: 4WD GRID: 1 CLIMATE: Snow in winter, hot in summer BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring or Fall |
COMMENTS:
No residents. Dugway mine is located at the extreme north end of the Dugway mountain range. The best way to get there is to take the Pony Express trail just west of the Dugway geode beds then you will make a left just before fish springs. No buildings are left standing there are a few mining items left. REMAINS: Tailings, wood from collapsed buildings, and mining equipment. |
| After the first discovery of silver in the Dugways in 1870, a small camp named Bullionville appeared, with a store, saloon and even a butcher shop. Bullionville's leading mines were the Silver King, Black Maria and the Queen Of Sheba while smaller properties included the Yellow Jacket, Harrison, Cannon and Buckhorn. Distances in the desert country were too great to make hauling ore to the railroad profitable, so a smelter was erected in Smelter Canyon. Mine owners built it at great expense, but after it was completed they learned that smelters require a great deal of water to operate, and water is one thing the Dugway Range had little of. When its smelter proved to be useless, mines closed, and by the late 1880's Bullionville was a deserted camp, with piles of high grade ore stacked up waiting for the day when the proposed railroad would arrive. It never came. Few know of the old camp in Smelter Canyon, because the north end of the range is off-limits. Signs warning it is part of the Dugway Proving Ground, a test area for explosives and poison gas, keep them away. Submitted by: Chris M. Van Patten |
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