History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

COAL MINES. 737
miles of Salt Lake City, and where it could be profitably
worked. 49 Between that date and 1880, 126,000
acres of coal-lands had been surveyed in various counties,
50 and in 1883 the total area of such lands was
estimated at 20,000 square miles. The largest deposits
are found on the eastern slope of the Wasatch,
extending at intervals from the Uintah reservation
through Sanpete, Pleasant, and Castle valleys, as far
south as Kanab, and its vicinity. In considerable
areas the formation is broken or destroyed by erosion,
among others, in the neighborhood of Iron City,
where veins are plentiful, though too small to be profitably
worked. On the Weber and its tributaries in
Summit county, for 12 or 15 miles above Echo City,
there is coal of fair quality for household and steammaking
purposes, which has been worked since 1867,
some of the mines being opened in 1883 to a depth of
1,100 or 1,200 feet. From the Coalville mines, a few
miles south of Echo, were drawn until recent years
most of the supplies needed for Salt Lake City and
the northern settlements. At Evanston, also in Summit
county and on the line of the Union Pacific, there
is a vein of bituminous coal from 17 to 19 feet in thick-
ness. In 11 out of the 24 counties of Utah coallands
had been surveyed in 1880, varying in extent
from 120 to 35,696 acres, and in several others it was
known that coal existed. Perhaps the most valuable
deposits are in the Sanpete Valley, where the seams
vary from 6 inches to 6 feet of bituminous coal, which,
when a better plant is used in the mines, may produce
a serviceable coke, while in the mountains to the
* 9 Utah Acts Legist., 1855, 393. The reward was claimed in 1860 by
Wm H. Kimball and John Spriggs, whose petition was referred to a committee
and refused, on the ground that the mine was more than 40 miles distant
and the coal of inferior quality. See Utah Jour. Legist., 1860-1,. 73,
1862-3, 65-6. In 1863 a mine bad been opened 40 miles from the capital,
the coal selling at $40 per ton.
58 For list of counties, locations, and number of acres in each, see Utah
Gazetteer, 1884, 62. For coablands taken up in 1876-9, according to the
Burveyor-general's report, see S. L. G. Herald, Nov. 26, 1879.
Hist. Utah. 47