CHAPTER
15
WHERE NOW, SUMMIT COUNTY? i raveling through Summit County in 1997 is a bit like traveling through time. In some areas, the county seems to have changed little over the last half century. In other areas, it seems to change every day. The gritty occupations that once supported the county now sustain only a fraction of its population. The mines that gave Coalville its name are silent. Park City's silver mines have produced little ore since the early 1950s, none since 1982. The number of sheep grazing on county hillsides peaked about 1930.1 In the last seventy years, farmers and cattlemen have lost thousands of acres of productive agricultural land to freeways, reservoirs, and encroaching subdivisions. Timber production has been dropping since the 1970s. Even the county's oil fields, which gave the local economy a boost in the early 1980s, are in decline. By far the most rapid change is taking place in western Summit County, where recreation and improved transportation have brought a new type of resident to Park City and the surrounding communities. Expensive homes are spreading across the hillsides and into the 330
