Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

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RIO TINTO KENNECOTT
Right: People throughout the world came to the Bingham Canyon Mine to live
and work where more than forty distinct camps and towns were built in the
canyon. Pictured is the Highland Boy district in 1910.
Below: Miners at the Bingham Canyon Mine, shown here in 1906, had an
early vision to mine and process copper ore using steam shovels and
locomotives that laid the foundation for the modern operation today.
Rio Tinto Kennecott is a fully integrated mining, concentrating,
smelting and refining company committed to practicing
sustainable development in every facet of its business.
Like its parent company, Rio Tinto, Kennecott believes that
sustainable development is about taking a long-term view of
mining. It is about meeting the needs of today’s generation
without compromising the needs of future generations.
Aligning its business strategies and daily practices around
the concept of sustainable development strengthens its
operations and products, builds enduring communities and
provides lasting benefits for its employees and stakeholders.
Kennecott’s parent company, Rio Tinto, has its headquarters
in London, with a regional center in South Jordan, Utah.
The company has five major plants stretching seventeen
miles along the Oquirrh Mountains and
is a world leader in mining and processing
the earth’s mineral resources.
Kennecott owns the Bingham Canyon
Mine, which has provided minerals
from its rich ore body for 111 years.
Kennecott produces copper, molybdenum,
gold, silver and sulfuric acid, and
has historically supplied about fifteen
to twenty-five percent of the United
States annual copper supply.
The U.S. Army is credited with the
start of mining in Utah in 1863.
Troops under the command of Colonel
Patrick Conner are said to have discovered
Utah’s first mining claim and
helped to form the first mining company
and mining district in Bingham
Canyon. Early mining at Bingham was
underground, with the exception of
placer mining.
Bingham Canyon was a beehive of activity at the turn of
the century. Dozens of small companies dug tunnels and
sank shafts in the mountains where they were mining silver
and gold ores, but not the abundant low-grade copper ores
that were considered a nuisance.
Daniel C. Jackling, a twenty-nine year old metallurgical
engineer, with his partner, Robert Gemmell, a mining engineer,
studied and assayed ore samples from the operations
that dotted the canyon to determine the value of the
“nuisance rock” found by early miners. They determined
that vast tonnages of low-grade copper ore existed in the
main mountain that divided the canyon. This was the
kind of ore the mining companies tried to avoid because it
interfered with the recovery of the metals they were mining.
Jackling’s vision was to mine and process this mountain
of porphyry copper ore using steam shovels to remove
the ore and waste, and steam locomotives to transport it
from the mine to large-scale mills. This marked the first
use of mass-production technology in copper mining.
Mining experts of the day scoffed at Jackling’s crazy idea—
especially when ninety-eight percent of the rock was waste.
Most investors also agreed that it was a bad idea.
S A L T L A K E C I T Y — L i v a b i l i t y i n t h e 2 1 s t C e n t u r y
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