Other Spanish Mines

Utah Historical Quartterly

Volume IX, 1941, Numbers 1-4

OTHER SPANISH MINES By Wm. R. Palmer

Little Salt Lake, in southern Utah, was known to white men nearly a half century before James Bridger discovered Great Salt Lake. Spanish priests, traders and soldiers of fortune traveled the Old Spanish Trail every year, and there are evidences that Iron County was well prospected for minerals. After the Mormons settled Iron County in 1851, they found many little prospect holes in the hills.

The settlers at Cedar City found in the head of Coal Creek Canyon, under the rim of Cedar Breaks, an old mine tunnel that had been dug to a depth of about two hundred feet, but had been abandoned for many years. Entrances to the tunnel were almost closed by weathering and caving. Bear tracks were found in the entrance, and no one attempted to go in for some years after the mine was discovered.

George Ashdown later set a sawmill not far from the old mine, and one day his son Fred decided to go in and explore it. Fred's venture was rewarded by the finding of an old doublepointed Spanish pick. On one of the trips of President Anthony W. Ivins to Cedar City, the old relic was shown to him, and he urged that it be placed in the L. D. S. Museum, Temple Grounds, in Salt Lake City. The pick was given to him to bring to Salt Lake, for that purpose, and is now on display there.

The Old Spanish Trail runs diagonally across Cedar Valley from the mouth of Leeches Canyon on the west to the springs that are now Enoch on the East. About two miles off the Trail, a side canyon called Winn's, comes down from the Cedar Breaks country. Near the mouth of Winn's Canyon is a lava slide, and on the face of a big lava rock is etched the following inscription: "T D — T W — 1831." There is also the letter F, made backwards, and the word "G O L D," the letter all backwards. On another rock is etched the Catholic cross, and below it "1831, A W - U J."

Who were these adventurers? What is the meaning of the inscriptions? Was this a prospect claim or was it a gold cache? I have spent many hours climbing the hills around about, and examining every mark upon the rocks, seeking, not for the possible hidden treasure, but rather for a key to unlock the mysteries of those ancient inscriptions. Who were T D, T W, A W and U J? and what were they doing in Southern Utah at that early date?