Utah Centennial County History Series - Grand County 1996

$2,150 worth of gold. However, as Michael Milligan reports, the company's expenses always seemed to outweigh the results. That seemed to be the case with all such mining activities. Yet that didn't stop the miners: "Although production costs consistently outweighed profits, whenever new methods were developed, miners returned to search for the elusive metal."" The riverbank area never produced enough metal to pay for the expense of securing it.

Also in 1894 health seekers from the east were reported to be in the vicinity of Westwater. The mild climate of the region was touted as beneficial to those suffering from tuberculosis. A sanatorium reportedly was built at Bitter Creek near Westwater for these health seekers; however, virtually nothing is known about it, its ownership, or years of operation.

Webster City was not a city, nor was it really even a town; it was actually the headquarters ranch of the Webster City Cattle Company and was located some twenty miles north of Thompson, high in the Tavaputs Plateau north of the Book Cliffs. The company became one of the largest in the county and was owned by a group of investors from Webster City, Iowa, who perhaps had links with English investors, since some reports have mentioned English ownership of the company. The headquartersltown was comprised of boarding houses for the company's employees and ranch hands and their families, but it also included a school, a community dining room, a store/commissary, and the mandatory saloon, as well as a fancy boarding house known as the Webster City Hotel. The company's cattle range included part of what was known as the Outlaw, or Owlhoot, Trail-a network of paths often used by those fleeing the law through the inhospitable Book Cliffs range to the even less hospitable (to lawmen) outlaw sanctuaries of Browns Park to the north and Robber's Roost in the San Rafael Swell area to the west.

Outlaws including Butch Cassidy, Elza Lay, and Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) were said to have worked for the company and lived for a time at Webster City. The area is known for a certainty to have been used by some outlaws, for at least three-Joe Walker, John Herring, and Flat Nose George Curry-were killed there by law enforcement officers. Also, as noted, Kid Curry (Harvey Logan) was said to have shot and killed Sheriff Jesse Tyler and