The Ghost of Mercur

THE GHOST OF MERCUR

By Douglas D. Alder

Mercur's magnetic appeal draws a different public in 1961 than her annals show for 1900. Today only an occasional motorist or hiker persists through the parched Manning Canyon of the Oquirrh Mountains to the ghost town, at one time Utah's mining mecca. The only present evidence of occupancy is the lazy tinkle of sheep bells. The richest "find" left for discovery, apparently, is a "prospective" topic for a history thesis.

After the first minutes of peering into huge cement tanks, filled with tons of sediment, and kicking rusty pipes, the contemporary "Mercur meanderer" may become perplexed. There appears considerable variety in the age of the ruins, and astute observers may perceive that Mercur's ghost is not one but three!

1870-1893 LEWISTON

To recover artifacts in the present ruins of Mercur, which would date back to the first or 1870 era of the town, would require the aid of an archeologist. For among the hills of the canyon today, the evidences of the two later periods are far more predominant. But the strike that opened the canyon to wide notice came in 1870. R. C. Gemmell published the following account of Mercur's origin twenty-seven years after the first claim was laid:

The first location in the district was a placer claim, located by L. Greeley on April 20th, 1870. Other and similar locations followed, but placer diggings could not possibly be made to pay for two very good reasons — lack of gold that could be panned and lack of water. In fact, there is no evidence that placer mining was ever seriously attempted. The Sparrow Hawk, Last Chance and Marion claims were among the first lode claims located, and were the first ones surveyed for patent, the surveys having been made early in 1872. These claims are but a few hundred feet northwest of the present town of Mercur. Some very rich silver ore was discovered on them (some of it going $4,000 or $5,000 to the ton) and they were soon sold to an English syndicate. The ore proved to be very "pockety," and after building a mill, spending about $700,000 and clearing only about $100,000, the company suspended operations.

Soon after the Sparrow Hawk discovery, a rich strike was made in the Carrie Steele. It is said that from this pocket a few men took out about $83,000 in three months. Other strikes followed and in 1872 and 1873 the hills were swarming with prospectors. The town of Lewiston was built on the present site of Mercur, and was soon a full-fledged mining camp, with the attendant typical saloons, gambling-houses and dance-houses. But no steady producing mines were found; the excitement began to die away, and Lewiston, which had grown to a town of some 1,500 people by 1880 had dwindled down to one house and to one inhabitant, Moses Manning, who remained to work out his own and others' assessments. It is estimated that during this excitement only about $350,000 were taken out and that many times that amount was expended. Machinery, supplies and labor were all so high that it required $60 ore to pay.

Correlating Gemmell's report with later research one can summarize the first period of Mercur's history with the following generalizations: the first important ore was silver; placer activities failed; a town, Lewiston, of about 1,500 persons, grew and disappeared quickly; because of "pockety" lodes, milling activities were also a failure — however, 46,000 ounces of silver were extracted from 1871 to 1881 with a value of $55,936; losses generally exceeded profits; of the present ghost town, very little, if anything, dates back to the first period.

1890-1917 MERCUR

On April 30, 1879, a Bavarian, Arie Pinedo, found the Mercur lode. The tradition is that he believed he had discovered a vein of cinnabar and therefore named it after its product — mercury. (Mercury in German is "der Merkur," hence the name "Mercur" for the mine, town and company.)

Pinedo was unsuccessful in extracting significant amounts of mercury and the excitement soon passed. But the canyon remained the haunt of roving silver and gold prospectors.

According to Heikes, the gold discovery came about 1883. The ore assayed in paying quantities, but the yellow metal was able to evade its captors for a full decade. The clay-like nature of the red earth and extreme fineness of the gold made panning completely ineffective. Even the mills at first failed to extract the elusive material. This story is briefly summarized by Franklin and Miller:

About 1890, when the cry for more gold and less silver was going up, a group of promoters secured an option on the Mercur property from the German owner and sold it to some men in Nebraska — John Dern, E. H. Airis, G. S. Peyton, and Hal W. Brown, who organized the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company. The first plant was built at Manning, where a good supply of water was available. The owners were in despair, and all but two refused to put more money into the seemingly worthless mine.

About this time, William Orr arrived from Australia bringing news of the recently invented McArthur-Forrest cyanide process for the treatment of gold ores. Peyton borrowed money from a bank to send a car of the ore to the metallic extraction plant in Denver, Colorado where good recoveries had been reported on small samples. The result of the test on this carload lot of ore justified raising enough money to build a cyanide plant, the first built and operated in the United States. (Peyton and Brown sold their stock to the Dern interests.) The plant was enlarged in 1893 to 100 tons; again in 1896, to 200 tons; and again, in the same year to 350 tons.

The cyanide process saved Manning! The amalgamation process intended for the $25,000 mill built by the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company did not prove successful and the company faced failure. The stockholders were ripe for a new process and cyanide proved to be worth their risk. The cyanide method departed from the previous system of separating the gold by means of crushing and washing. The principle of chemical precipitation was its basis. First the ore was crushed and roasted. Then it was placed in large tanks. After mixing with water, cyanide was added and allowed to leach through. As it filtered down, the gold was dissolved by the cyanide and carried to the bottom. There sluices diverted the valuable liquid from all tanks to a central receiver. Zinc was then added, replacing the gold in solution and causing it to settle. It was then collected as pure gold.

This process required expensive equipment and high voltage electricity. Evidences of both are examinable in the present ghost town. The entire system is not what the layman expects of gold mining. The pick and shovel are not the secret at Mercur. Like the nearby Bingham copper mine, the process was designed for low grade ore. The average extraction in 1896 was about one-half ounce of gold per ton of ore. By 1912 the ratio declined to one-fourth the 1896 figure. So it is doubtful that any prospector ever did or ever will stumble across nuggets of the sought-after metal.

Such a process explains the unique nature of Mercur. Construction of large mills, water pipelines, a 32-mile high-voltage electricity transmission line and a railroad to Mercur were necessary to transform the desolate canyon into productivity. This is not to mention the erection of a booming village to house and service 2,351 people.

The cyanide process assured the success of the Manning Mill; but in like manner assured its obsolescence, for with a profitable extraction available, investors were easily convinced to place new mills nearer the ores. Captain J. L. De La Mar bought the Golden Gate group near the Mercur Mine in 1895. After two years of research improving the extraction methods, the Golden Gate Mill was begun. In 1898 the mill began operations and thus idled the Manning Mill, three miles south of the mine. The Golden Gate was the major factor in all of Mercur's activities. It soon became the employer of nearly all the Mercur miners. The tailings from the mill are yet the predominant feature of Mercur's ghost. Since their deposit, the weather has beaten them so that they now appear somewhat like Bryce Canyon.

In 1899 the De La Mar and Mercur interests joined to form the Consolidated Mercur Gold Mines Company. Although there were many private prospectors and small firms active in the canyon in the first years, the Consolidated company became paramount in the life and activity of the town and remained so until 1917.

Transmission of electricity to Mercur was one of the most significant factors in the camp's history. The extraction process in the mills depended on electrical power. (Water power was nearly nonexistent, and the importing of coal for all needs would have been burdensome and expensive.) While De La Mar was planning his mill at Mercur, a colorful and enterprising engineer, L. L. Nunn, was projecting an extended electric power scheme for central Utah. In 1897 Nunn contracted with De La Mar to provide the Golden Gate Mill with 500 horsepower of electricity. A sixteen-foot dam was built across the Provo River and the Olmstead Generating Plant was constructed there. The line from the plant skirted the north end of Utah Lake and then went up over the mountains into Mercur. The 40,000 volt transmission line was laid a distance of thirty-two miles and stirred wide acclaim as being the first long-distance high-voltage project in the world.

Another problem facing residents in the canyon was the water shortage. In the early days it is said that whisky-drinking was condoned because water was so scarce. But the laying of a pipeline from Ophir Canyon, eight miles away, exploded such excuses.

Also remarkable among the phases of the Mercur story is the Salt Lake and Mercur Railroad. Originally the line was intended to bring the ore from the Mercur area three miles south to the Manning mill. The tracks were soon extended on down the canyon to Fairfield connecting with the Union Pacific lines. This allowed passenger and equipment to travel by an all-rail route from Salt Lake City via Lehi and Fairfield. Much of the color of the 1890's in Mercur was connected with this one-car railroad. James W. Neill gives this contemporary account of a ride on the "Salt Lake and Mercur."

Top: The Methodist Church Choir ready for a Christmas program.

Bottom: The Mercur Volunteer Fire Department preparing for a Fourth of July parade photographed in front of the new City Hall. Date about 1901.

Mercur is reached from Salt Lake via the Union Pacific Railway with one change of cars at Lehi Junction, change again at Fairfield, where the Salt Lake & Mercur Railroad, with a little narrow gauge car on broad gauge track, meets the Union Pacific trains and conveys one to Mercur. This railroad is a wonder to the traveler: the trip over it is well worth the taking even if the mining camp at its western end were no attraction. ... It is 12 miles long, and I heard an old railroad man say that he would wager "big money" that in four miles of it one could not find a straight rail! It crosses a divide 1,800 feet above the Fairfield station, reaching this point by a series of curves, loops, twists and turns which fairly make one dizzy, and discounts any of the scenery on the famed Marshal Pass on the D. & R. G. Railway or the Hagerman Pass of the Colorado Midland. The single car is taken over by a diminutive engine of the Shay type, and at every turn the passenger holds his breath for fear this little machine will actually jump over what, to all appearances, is the end of the track. The rails are not yet laid into the town of Mercur proper, but a short drive of one-half mile in a "hack" fills the gap.

Neill described the town as comparable to those he had visited in Colorado and gave a description of the "real estate boom." He records in 1896 that "city lots 25 X 100 ft. . . . were actually changing hands for money consideration at a rate of from $500 to $1,500. . . ."

The recently acquired picture collection at the Utah State Historical Society gives a vivid account of daily life during this the second of Mercur's lives. The collection shows such glimpses of the town life as the Methodist Church Choir, the Rat Ball Team, the Golden Gate Band, the Volunteer Fire Department, the Mormon Bishopric, the Fourth of July celebrations, the Marshal and his aides and the Scarbarough Boarding House and tenants. Also pictured are the buildings and machinery of the Golden Gate Mill, the city officials and the Great Fire of 1902.

The most remarkable and widely publicized event of Mercur's entire history was the great fire of June 26, 1902. Other fires broke out in the town prior to that date, but they were less devastating. William Waterfall, the major collector of the pictures mentioned above, was then among the volunteer firemen. He records his experiences at the fire in the journals of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers as follows:

The most serious fire Mercur ever had occurred June 26, 1902. At 9:30 a.m. I was operating the electrical hoist for the Consolidated Mercur Mines, which raised and lowered workmen to and from the mine and to different levels. The cage was about 1,500 feet away from the operator when the phone rang. I answered and was told that a serious fire had broken out down town. From outside the hoist house I could see the flames coming through the roof of the Preble Building. I blew the fire signal and phoned the mine, telling them to turn out as the town was doomed. By the time I reached town, 1,200 feet below the hoist house, the fire was beyond control. By 12 o'clock every business house in the town was gone.

The fire leveled the entire business district but left many of the homes intact. The mill was also untouched and continued to operate until 1913. As other mining camps, Mercur thus displayed the amazing ability miners have to thrive on uncertainty.

Among the residents of the town who moved on to prominence in the state and nation were D. C. Jackling and George H. Dern. Jackling was the builder of the Golden Gate Mill and remained there many years prior to his activities at the Bingham Copper Mine. After the move to Bingham he founded the open cut mining method which was revolutionary to the whole world of mining.

George H. Dern was general manager and superintendent of the Consolidated Company at twenty-nine years of age. He later gained national prominence as governor of the state of Utah from 1924 to 1930 and as Secretary of War in 1933 under Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1935 Dern penned a letter for publication at the Mercur reunion. His comments, quoted here in part, give an indication of life in the community:

Although I was actively associated with Mercur Mining operations from 1894 until the mines were shut down in 1913, my most vivid recollections are of the five-year period from 1904 until 1909, during which I resided in Mercur with my family.

That was not very long ago, but still it was before the automobile era. It is true that an occasional car of that period wearily chugged its way up the canyon and reached Mercur all out of breath, but no Mercurite was so plutocratic as to be the owner of one of those new-fangled contraptions.

When we wanted to go places we used horsepower produced by oats and hay, rather than horsepower produced by gasoline. If we wanted to go to the City, we went by the trusty Salt Lake & Mercur Railroad, with its more or less dependable Shay engine — dependable when it stayed on the track.

If we wanted to go to Tooele or elsewhere down in the Valley, we used horse-drawn vehicles. Many a happy hour have I spent in the old Con. Mercur buckboard.

If we wanted to roam the hills, we either did our roaming on our own power or else rode horseback. So long as I live I shall cherish the memory of dear old Topsy, my saddle horse, known to everybody in town.

Not only were we still in the horse and buggy days, but we were also in that primitive age when there were no movies. Can you imagine that? How did we ever stand it?

We stood it fine. I venture to say that every old Mercurite today will say, with fervent sincerity, "Those were the happiest days!" I am willing to admit that they were the happiest days of my life. This was partly because I was very deeply interested in my work as General Manager and Superintendent of the Consolidated Mercur Gold Mines Company, and partly because I liked the people with whom I was associated. By that time Mercur was a one-mine Camp, and we were all working for, or dependent upon, the same company, and were one big, happy family.

It was an ideal community life. Nobody high-hatted anybody else. Everybody knew everybody else, and everybody was interested in everybody else.

By the fall of 1913 the gold extraction ratio per ton had declined below the profit margin which caused a shutdown. Four years later the mill and equipment were dismantled and sold. Gilluly reports that until then the total output of the Consolidated Company and its preceding component companies amounted to 4,336,621 tons. This yielded about $16,500,000 of which about $3,500,000 went to dividends. By 1917 Mercur was again a ghost town.

1933- THE SNYDER MINES

Except for the tailings remaining from the Golden Gate Mill, most of the present ghost town originated during the third of Mercur's lives. This makes the town not so old after all, as the third activity began in 1933. In that year the use of the Consolidated Mercur properties was leased to W. F. Snyder & Son Company and the Manning Gold Mines Company. During the idle period of twenty years, two changes occurred which made new endeavors feasible. First, advancements in metallurgical methods presented possibilities of extracting higher percentages of gold from the ores. Second, the increase in the market price of gold from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce made work with even lower-grade ores profitable. The combination of these factors invited a project to rework the massive tailings which had been deposited at the sites of the old mills from the two past eras.

Manning was again the first area of activity. A counter current decantation cyanide plant was put into operation on the site of the old Manning Mill. After reworking those dumps, the mill was dismantled and moved to Mercur in 1937. There operations continued until the beginning of World War II.

The processes of the Snyder Mines in 1933 and at the Golden Gate Mill in 1900 are similar in their use of cyanide extraction. The Snyder plan, however, arranged a system which sent the gold in solution to the top of the tanks where it was caught in a runoff system. The earlier process extracted the solution at the bottom as it leached through. Detailed accounts of the metallurgical aspects and productivity of the project are outlined by Franklin and Miller in their Bureau of Mines Technical Paper.

The Beaver Press reported that in 1937 a $15,000 monthly payroll was being paid at Mercur. In addition, the paper claimed $20,000 to $30,000 monthly went for equipment and supplies being shipped to the camp. Despite these figures, the camp of the 1930's never seriously threatened the reputation of the "glorious days" of 1900. Very few permanent buildings were erected. In fact, a real community with schools, churches, newspapers, stores, etc., is not discernable in the ruins of the third Ghost. However, most of the plant is still standing and tells a story of advanced mineralogical procedure.

The future of Mercur is indefinite. Since the beginning of World War II the Snyder Mines have been generally idle. Various surveys have been made and projects entertained since then. Whether the Ghost will submit after expending three lives or try for nine will be recorded in future annals.

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