Mercur, formerly called Lewiston, was a town that refused to die. During the 1860s, a few hardy prospectors eked out an existence by mining in Lewiston Canyon. Results were meager. The thought was if there were a few good nuggets here and there, there must more and better deposits somewhere in the canyon. Persistence paid off as good deposits were found. Gradually, as the word spread, miners came to town to work the silver mines and soon a real boom developed. When the boom died in 1880, Lewiston died with it. Now came a rebirth. A lone prospector came to the deserted town looking for a deposit of gold. What he discovered was evidence of quicksilver, a vein of cinnabar. He named his claim by his word for mercury, Mercur. Assayed, the ore showed a good content of gold worth more than the mercury. Efforts to get the gold out of the rock proved to too expensive. The town, now named Mercur, died once again. Next came a group of men with financial resources dedicated to finding a way to extract the gold from the rock. They succeeded and Mercur rose again to be a boomtown. During the early part of 1896, a fire nearly destroyed the entire town. Mercur was soon rebuilt and was again destroyed by fire in 1902. Again rebuilt, the current boom lasted until 1913 when deposits seemed to be failing. By 1925, Mercur was once again a ghost town. However, in 1934 a side canyon called Horse Thief Gulch was found to be rich in gold and in two years Mercur had risen again to become the second gold producing town in Utah. The end finally came in 1951 when the cost of mining exceeded the value of gold. Could it happen again?

UPDATE: In Mercur, Utah there is nothing left as the entire town site has been destroyed by modern strip mining operation that is still occupied by the mining company. In 1983 the Getty Oil Company reopened the Mercur area and removed most of the remaining structures. The American Barrick Resources Corporation, the current owner, expected mining to last 25-30 years.(1) Newer processes made it profitable to go through the old tailings and recover even more metal. A few years ago the last truckload of ore left. Although the mining has stopped there is still heavy equipment being used as they "reclaim" the land and replant with natural vegitation. Access to the site is forbidden but you can get to many good overlooks of the area by taking four wheel drive roads from Ophir towards the site of Manning. I dont have a detailed description of how to get there since I basicbasically found it out of curiosity to find out where the roads went. - Brian Snarr

July 20, 2007 The state of Mercur.  Entrance to what was the town.  The town is gone just check it out on Google Earth.  Mined to oblivion is correct.
Courtesy Duane Armijo