Living Our Dream

Golden Spike National Historic Site

The Golden Spike National Historic Site is the location where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were joined to form the first transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The site is known as Promontory Summit, and it is located about an hour and a half north of Salt Lake City.

We had originally planned to move the motor home up the road to visit the Golden Spike Historic Site, then take a short loop up into southern Idaho before heading east. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the reservations we wanted in Idaho because of some sort of baseball tournament, so we scrapped our plans for a loop into Idaho and extended our stay in Salt Lake City by a day. We drove up to the Golden Spike Historic Site in the car, and then we'll head east from Salt Lake City in the motor home.

We arrived at the Golden Spike NHS just as a reenactment was finishing up. We usually poke around the visitor center to get our bearings and watch the video before we start exploring, but the next reenactment wasn't for almost another two hours, so we rushed out to catch the end of the one that was in progress.

We missed the actual driving of the spike, but we heard the train whistles and celebration as we walked out toward the tracks. We arrived in time for photos of the locomotives and costumed actors.

There are two locomotives that are replicas of the ones that were originally at the ceremony on May 10, 1869. These replicas are as true to the originals as possible, although some concessions were made for safety reasons. For example, the original locomotives had boilers made from wrought iron plates riveted together. The boilers of the replicas are welded steel and are many times stronger than the originals. However, the welds are hidden and there are realistic-looking faux rivets to make the replicas look authentic.

Pictured above is the replica of the wood-fired #60 locomotive known as the Jupiter belonging to the Central Pacific Railroad. The Central Pacific laid track from the west toward the east. The Jupiter, which was built in 1868 in New York, was used to haul Central Pacific President Leyland Stanford's special train to Promontory Summit for the joining of the rails. After the ceremony, the Jupiter continued in freight service until she was deemed obsolete at the turn of the 20th century and scrapped.

The other locomotive, shown below, is a replica of #119 belonging to the Union Pacific Railroad, which laid track from the east toward the west. Coal-fired #119 pulled the Union Pacific train carrying Vice-President Thomas Durant and his contingent to Promontory Summit. Number 119, which was built in 1868 in New Jersey, was scrapped in 1903.

After the reenactment you could hang around and climb onto platforms behind the locomotives, look into the cabs (what a maze of levers, pipes and valves there is in there) and talk to crew members. We learned the locomotives are kept in a nearby train shed overnight, and they are fired up and brought out every morning during the summer.

We headed back to the visitor center and checked out some of the displays and artifacts, and we watched the movie. The building of the first transcontinental railroad was kicked off by the passing of the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862. The Union Pacific would build from the east (Council Bluffs, IA), and the Central Pacific would build from the west (Sacramento, CA). The railroads received a subsidy from the government that was paid for by 30-year bonds and by grants of government-owned land.

The Central Pacific, which had to build across the mountains, received a higher subsidy per mile than the Union Pacific. Still, most of the work by both railroads had to be done by hand, and it was difficult. Cold and snow across the plains hampered the Union Pacific and the mountains slowed the Central Pacific. There were times when blasting and hand digging tunnels through the mountains held progress to as little as 8 inches a day.

As the two railroads approached each other in Utah, no agreement had yet been reached as to where the final meeting point would be. Since the railroads were receiving payments from the government for every mile of track laid, they were eager to lay as much track as possible. They changed their paths to be more or less parallel and kept right on laying track right past each other. And we thought government indecision, waste and cost overruns were something new!

Congress eventually made a decision on when and where the tracks should be joined. On May 10, 1869, laborers and executives from both railroads, along with government officials and other dignitaries, gathered at Promontory Summit where Leyland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad and founder of Stanford University, reportedly drove the Golden Spike. However, other reports said that the hammer swings of both Leyland Stanford and Thomas Durant from the Union Pacific missed the spike, and the spike was actually driven by a track foreman. At any rate, the Golden Spike was removed after the ceremony and is on display at Stanford University.

One interesting thing we learned was the driving of the Golden Spike was likely one of the first, if not THE first, event to receive live media coverage. The hammer and spike were wired so the blows could be sent nationwide as clicks of the telegraph. When the Golden Spike was replaced by an ordinary iron spike after the ceremony, the final telegraph message was transmitted to both the east and west coasts. The message simply read, "DONE."

Near the visitor center there are two gravel roads that you can drive to follow some of the old railroad grades and see some of the areas where workers had to make cuts through hills and place fill in valleys to maintain a maximum 2% grade (2 feet of rise for every 100 feet of forward travel). One road follows the railroad bed to the west, and one follows it to the east. We chose to drive the eastern section since that was on our way back to the motor home.

Along the way we passed the "Last Cut." This was the last obstacle for the Union Pacific Irish and Mormon workers as the track approached Promontory Summit. Sometimes the material cut from a hill was used to fill the next valley, but here there was excess rock left over at this cut. Notice how it was neatly stacked atop the far side of the cut with larger rocks toward the bottom of the piles and smaller ones toward the top. This was done to help keep the piles stable so they wouldn't fall back into the cut.

The Union Pacific Railroad hired mostly Civil War veterans who were Irish immigrants. The Central Pacific used mostly Chinese laborers. A little farther along the gravel road we came to the Chinese Arch. Ancient Lake Bonneville once covered this area, and the arch was probably created by the action of the waves along the shore of the lake eroding fractured rock. Although the arch was created by natural forces, it was named to honor the hard work of the Chinese who labored for the Central Pacific Railroad.

From the area of the arch we could see the salt flats at the northern end of the Great Salt Lake off in the distance.

Along the way we could sometimes see two rail beds running parallel and two parallel cuts through a hill confirming the fact the railroads passed each other and continued to lay track. There is another overlook where this can be seen even more clearly. There is a gully that runs uphill from the overlook. At the top of the gully, the Central Pacific made a fill across the 500-foot gully, and the Union Pacific hastily built a trestle. The Central Pacific's Big Fill can be seen as the dark area (blue arrow) in the photo below, and the abutments for the Union Pacific's trestle (lighter bumps with red arrows) can be seen in front of the Big Fill.

Only a few trains rolled over the rickety trestle after the tracks were joined. All trains ended up using the track across the Big Fill instead.

The transcontinental railroad was not truly transcontinental when the rails were connected on May 10, 1869, because there was not yet a bridge over the Missouri River (passengers and freight had to ride ferries across the river and change trains) and the final leg from Sacramento to San Francisco was still under construction. Still, the symbolic joining of the country was just what was needed after being torn apart during the Civil War. Planning that had begun as early as 1830 had finally come to fruition after 6 years of difficult construction work.

As we got to the intersection with the main road after leaving the historic site, there was a sign that read, "Rocket Display 2 Miles." Well, that sounded interesting even though it was the opposite direction from the motor home. We decided to make a slight detour to check it out.

It turns out ATK Aerospace manufactures and tests rocket fuel and rockets. Since it was Saturday, they were closed, but that didn't matter because the rocket display was outside as we thought it would be. They had on display rocket test motors less than a foot long to a solid-fuel booster rocket from the space shuttle. The shuttle booster is the large one in the back. It is 149 feet long and weighs almost 150,000 pounds empty.

The shuttle booster rockets are reusable, and ATK also does the refurbishing to ready them for the next launch. The shuttle booster rockets only burn for 122 seconds, but in that time a pair of them provide enough thrust to accelerate the shuttle to a speed of over 3,000 miles an hour.

The the next photo shows a Patriot surface-to-air missile. The missiles are shipped in a protective tube that also serves as a launch tube.

It was a very interesting display. There were labels with the name of each rocket and with various statistics and facts. It was a fascinating side trip.

As we drove along State Route 83 back toward the interstate, we could see the remnants of the old railroad bed running parallel to the road about a hundred yards to the south. Sometimes it would disappear for a time, then then you could see it again for a while.

In 1904, a cutoff was completed that eliminated the section of track at Promontory Summit. The new route, called the Lucin Cutoff, used a trestle to cross part of the Great salt Lake and eliminated the climb and curves at Promontory, and shortened the route by 43 miles. The rail to Promontory was dug up in 1942 and the steel was re-used in the war effort.

In spite of the elimination of the part of the route where the Golden Spike was driven, much of the route followed by the first transcontinental railroad is still in use. Of course, the track and ties have been replaced several times, and the roadbed has been improved, but the new rail bed runs right over the top of the old.

After our visit to the Golden Spike National Historic Site and to the ATK rocket display, we stopped for a burger at Red Robin. We had the following day to relax, do laundry, and do our pre-departure chores before moving to a new location. We're planning to meander our way east, so look for our next post.

Salt Lake City, UT, Part V: State Capitol

Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah. We enjoyed our visit to the capitol building in Austin, TX, so we decided to head downtown again to visit the Utah State Capitol building.

The Utah State Capitol is located on a hill overlooking the city. There is plenty of free parking all around the building, and since the legislature wasn't in session, we had no trouble finding a spot.

Guided tours are available on weekdays on the hour. Unfortunately, we arrived between tours. You can do a self-guided tour, but access to some of the rooms is restricted unless you're with a guide. Since we arrived between tours, we were planning to do a self-guided tour; but one of the guides graciously offered to do a special tour just for us. It would be shortened somewhat because she had to be done in time to lead the next regularly-scheduled tour, but we would be able to see the rooms that would have been closed had we not been with a guide.

Utah was admitted to statehood in 1896 and was the 45th state. The Salt Lake City and County Building was used as the capitol until the present building was completed in 1917. The quartz monzonite (a type of granite) that was used for the exterior is the same stone used for the Temple. The 286-foot high dome is covered with copper mined in Utah.

The first floor has a number of glass-enclosed display cases containing artifacts and photos about the history of Utah. You can also read about the extensive renovations to the building that were begun in 2004. Part of those renovations included the installation of 265 base isolators in the basement to help protect the building from seismic activity. The isolators weigh 5,000 pounds each and consist of layers of rubber and mesh with a lead core to absorb vibrations.

As we reached the top of the steps to the second floor, we could see the main hall of the capitol lined with marble from Georgia. The 24 one-piece columns that line the hall weigh about 25,000 pounds each.

On the second floor visitors get their first glimpse of the rotunda. The dome is 165 feet above the floor and has a 6,000 pound chandelier supported by a 7,000 pound chain.

The rotunda was left unfinished for 20 years until the WPA completed the impressive murals that depict 19th-century Utah life.

The murals at each end of the main hall were the first works of art commissioned for the capitol. The one at the western end depicts the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers in 1847.

On the second floor is also the State Reception Room. Nicknamed the Gold Room for its lavish use of gold leaf decoration, the room was intended for formal functions.

The Utah government is divided into three branches - executive, legislative and judicial - and their legislature has two branches much like the federal government. The offices and chambers for the three branches of the state government are located on the third floor. Although the  executive suite was closed to the public, we got to see the chambers for the other two branches.

The Utah State Supreme Court currently tries cases at the courthouse downtown, but their original chamber, which is shown in the next photo, is sometimes still used for important announcements and photos.

 

Although the House and Senate chambers are also on the third floor, you can get a better view from the galleries that are on the fourth floor. The public can sit in on sessions if there is room, and if they are quiet. The photo below shows the Utah State Senate Chamber...

...and the next photo shows the larger House Chamber.

We would have missed the Supreme Court Chamber and the views of the Senate and House Chambers from the galleries had we done a self-guided tour. We're glad the guide offered to take us on the special tour.

It was still a little before noon when we finished our visit to the capitol, so we had plenty of time for a little family research. The LDS Church maintains the largest family history library in the world, and their research centers are open to anyone. We're not into genealogy, but we were both curious about great grandparents and where they came from. Margery knew a lot about her Swiss roots on her mother's side, but she didn't know much about her great grandparents on her father's side. Paul knew his family on his father's side came from Germany, but he didn't know when they immigrated. We thought we would spend a few hours to see what we could find out.

The Family History Library is a 145,000 square foot facility that provides computer access to census, birth, death, marriage, property, probate and cemetery records - and more. Other documents are available on microfilm. For privacy reasons, only census information for 1930 and before and personal records for people who are deceased are available. If you're trying to connect with your former college roommate, a long-lost cousin or your old high school flame whom you think is still alive, this isn't the place to look. Try Facebook.

For first-time users and/or for initial, relatively simple searches, using the Family Search Center in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building located a few blocks away from the main Family History Library is recommended. Since we were first-time users and we were doing initial searches, we went to the Family Search Center.

We found a free, on-street parking space the same place we did the last time we went downtown to see Temple Square, which is where the Family Search Center is located. It was a walk of only about three blocks.

The first thing we learned is searching for your family roots isn't an exact science. There are people at the center to show you how to use the computers and to guide you in your search, so that helps. The next photo shows Paul searching family history records.

We were advised a good place to start is with census records. We both found family information in the census records, but there were some discrepancies. Immigrants didn't always speak very much English, so information that was conveyed verbally like answers to immigration and census questions may not have been recorded accurately. Not only that, but a lot of vital statistics weren't recorded back then as accurately as they are today. Many births took place at home, so a lot of birthdays are listed as approximate.

In the end, we both found some useful information about our great grandparents. Some of the information was inconclusive, but we have a good starting point if we ever decide we want to dig deeper.The LDS Church has Family Search Centers all over the country. They're free, and they're open to the public. There are also online search sites that are available for a fee.

We headed back to the car and back to the motor home. We had one more sightseeing outing planned in the Salt Lake City area, so look for our next post.

Salt Lake City, UT, Part IV: Great Salt Lake

Salt Lake City is located at the southeastern corner of the Great Salt Lake. The Great Salt Lake has several islands, the largest of which is Antelope Island. Since Antelope Island is located near Salt Lake City, it was a good place for us to see the lake.

Antelope Island is a state park with a causeway to the island that starts on the mainland near Syracuse, UT, about 28 miles north of where we were staying. Along the causeway, we saw flocks of gulls. The dark shadows along the shore in the photo below are billions of brine flies. As the gulls walked along the shore or flew a few inches above it, clouds of the flies would erupt, and the gulls would have a feast.

We stopped at the visitor center which is located on a rise that affords nice views of the lake to the north and west. The next photo is the 6-mile causeway onto the island.

 

Bridger Bay is on the northwestern corner of the island and is where the swimming area is located. We didn't try it, but swimming is supposedly fairly easy because the high salinity of the water makes it very dense so you float very easily.

 

As we entered the visitor center, we saw dozens of barn swallow nests under the roof overhang. There were chicks in the nests, and the parents were flitting back and forth trying to keep them fed.

At the visitor center, we learned a little about the lake. The Great Salt Lake is about 75 miles long and 28 miles wide at the widest point. It has an average depth of only about 13 or 14 feet and a maximum depth of about 33 feet. Because the lake is so shallow the size can vary greatly with small changes in depth, and the changes in depth occur depending on the season and rainfall. At an average area of about 1,700 square miles, the Great Salt Lake is the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere.

The salinity varies according to location, rainfall and season, but it can run as high as 25 to 28%, which is 7 or 8 times saltier than sea water.

"America's Dead Sea" is the name sometimes given to the Great Salt Lake, but the lake is far from dead. As we saw on our way across the causeway, there are many California gulls around the lake. There are no fish in the lake, but the gulls, along with other migratory and nesting birds, feed primarily on the brine shrimp that live in the water and on the brine flies. In turn, the brine shrimp and brine flies feed on several types of algae that survive in the salty water.

The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of a larger, deeper lake called Lake Bonneville that once covered most of Utah. Lake Bonneville had an area of almost 20,000 square miles and a depth of 1,000 feet. In the distant past a significant amount of water was released from Lake Bonneville through Red Rock Pass in southeastern Idaho and ran across the southern part of Idaho. We visited southwestern Idaho in 2008 and saw where the water carved out the canyon where Shoshone Falls is located. To read about our visit to Shoshone Falls and southern Idaho click here. Following the release of the water, warming temperatures after the Ice Age increased the evaporation rate of the remaining water. With no outlet, the salinity of the lake continues to increase.

After we left the visitor center, we stopped a short distance down the road at the Lady Finger Overlook. There is a short trail that leads out onto a spit of land that overlooks Egg Island, which is a small island that is a bird rookery. The next photo shows Margery near the start of the trail.

 

The last part of the trail was pretty rocky and pretty buggy. Fortunately, Margery grabbed a packet with a towelette of insect repellent as she got out of the car. It helped. The photo below shows both of us near the end of the trail.

 

And the next photo shows Egg Island off in the distance to the left. We could hear the birds out there squawking.

Also contributing to the squawking was a magpie that followed us for a short way.

Looking back toward the main part of the island, we could see the mountainous spine of Antelope Island. There are several trails up to some of the peaks, but we decided to pass on the steep climbs. The peaks are more than 1,000 feet above the level of the lake.

 

 As we said, Antelope Island is the largest of several Islands in the Great Salt Lake with an area of about 42 square miles. Antelope Island has dozens of freshwater springs, and it is the home to pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, coyote, bobcats, badgers, and numerous species of birds.

Antelope Island is also home to a herd of American bison. The bison were introduced to the island in the late 1800s. We'll have more about the bison a little later.

There is a road to the south that goes about 2/3 of the way down the eastern side of the island. At the end of the road is the Garr Ranch that was started in 1848 by Fielding Garr under the direction of the Mormon Church. He selected that location for the ranch because that was the biggest and most reliable spring on the island.

The LDS Church raised cattle, sheep and horses on the island from 1850 until it relinquished possession of the island in 1875. At that time, the Federal Government opened the island to homesteaders.

Investors began buying up the land from the homesteaders. By the late 1800s, most of the land on the island was owned by the Island Improvement Company. The company controlled the island until 1972 when it was sold to another company. The state bought up the land in 1981 to make the island a state park.

Today, the ranch has buildings and equipment from the 1800s to the later 1900s. The corrugated-metal shearing barn in the photo below was built in the 1920s for one of the largest sheep operations in the west. Over 10,000 sheep were on the island at that time. The barn had a gasoline engine that turned shafts and pulleys to operate 10 mechanized shearing stations.

The photo below shows the ranch house. There have been several additions to the house, but the original portion was built in the late 1840s.

 

One interesting piece of equipment was the sheep camp, which could be considered an early RV. Paul was looking for the electrical hookup.

Margery found the inside to be...well, let's just say it was cozy.

As we said earlier, Antelope Island has a herd of bison that numbers about 600. There were about 40 or 50 of them on the salt flats near the ranch.

 

One of the bison below is taking a dust bath. It is thought the dust helps ease skin irritation caused either from shedding, which was going on at the time, or irritation from insect bites.

 

In the fall, volunteers round up the bison. The bison are checked by veterinarians, they're given shots, and animals are selected for sale to keep the herd to a manageable size.

On our way back north toward the causeway and the mainland, we took a short side road part way up the mountain to one of the trail heads. From there we got a great panoramic view of the eastern side of Antelope Island. The photo below is looking to the southeast toward Salt Lake City.

We had time for a quick Walmart stop on the way back to the motor home to pick up a few groceries. We relaxed a while, but there is still more to see around Salt Lake City, so look for our next post.

Salt Lake City, UT, Part III: Emigration Canyon

 After we left the Bingham Canyon Mine, we drove about an hour over the the eastern side of Salt Lake City to Emigration Canyon. As we mentioned in our last post, Emigration Canyon was the place where Brigham Young and the first Mormon pioneers entered Salt Lake Valley.

We had two reasons for going to Emigration Canyon. First, it is the location of This is the Place Heritage Park, which commemorates early pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. Second, it is the home of Ruth's Diner which was featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It took us longer to get to Emigration Canyon than we thought, and it was after 1:00 PM. We were very hungry, so we went to Ruth's first. The photo below shows the outside of Ruth's Diner.

Ruth was born in 1895. As a young woman, she performed in some of the bars around Salt Lake City as a singer.

In 1930, she opened Ruth's Hamburgers in the downtown area. After the building where she rented space for her hamburger shop was sold and demolished, Ruth bought an old Salt Lake City trolley car, moved it up to Emigration Canyon, and reopened her restaurant in 1949. The original trolley car is still part of the restaurant. It is the windowed section behind the center umbrella in the photo above.

Ruth was very independent, and she built an apartment off the back of the diner where she lived alone with her Chihuahua dogs for almost 40 years. The photo below shows Ruth with one of her dogs. You can tell she was a no-nonsense woman. Her dogs were reportedly pretty feisty, too.

Ruth's became a favorite stop in the 1950s and 60s for frat boys from the University of Utah looking for a cold beer and local color. Ruth didn't care much for regulations and didn't bother to check IDs.

Ruth sold the diner to one of those frat boys back in 1977, and she lived out her days in a duplex behind the diner. The diner was sold to its current owners, Tracy and Erik Nelson, in 2001.

Renovations to the diner have just been completed, and although the inside is very nice, we chose to eat out back on the patio. If you check the menu under the Ruth's Diner link above you will see there have been some upgrades over the years, not only to the diner itself, but also to the menu. Margery had a Caprese sandwich, which is fresh mozzarella cheese, caramelized balsamic red onions, roasted tomatoes, fresh basil, and pesto mayonnaise on toasted pesto focaccia. Paul had a pulled pork barbecue sandwich. The pork was very smoky, and the sauce was thick and sweet. Yum!

 

Ruth's "Mile High" biscuits are also served with the sandwiches. They are truly the tallest biscuits we have ever seen. They are also so rich they almost don't need butter. We had them with homemade strawberry jam.

Normally, we wouldn't have had dessert after such a big lunch, but Ruth's is famous for chocolate pudding. This isn't your mama's pudding out of a box. It's made from scratch and it's rich, smooth and chocolaty.

With our bellies full, we drove a short distance down the canyon to This is the Place Heritage Park. As the story goes, Brigham Young was very ill with a case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and was riding in the back of a wagon. After coming down the canyon, Brigham Young proclaimed, "This is the place" after seeing Salt Lake Valley.

The LDS Church was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1830 in western New York. In 1931, Smith moved the church to Ohio, then to Missouri, and later to Illinois. When Joseph Smith was arrested and subsequently killed by a mob in 1844, Brigham Young assumed control of the LDS Church. When conflicts between Illinois residents and LDS followers continued, Brigham Young led his followers to Utah in 1847.

In 1947, on the 100th anniversary of Brigham Young's entry into the valley, This is the Place Monument was dedicated. Although the monument was created primarily to commemorate the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers, other pioneers and explorers such as Benjamin Bonneville (U. S. Army officer, trapper), Jim Bridger (mountain man, trapper), John Fremont (U. S. Army officer, explorer), Silvestre Vélez de Escalante (18th century Franciscan missionary and Spanish explorer) are also honored. 

A group of private citizens bought the land surrounding the monument and donated it to the state. In 1959, a visitor center was built near the monument. Popularity of the monument led the state to begin planning a more elaborate living history museum in 1971. The state purchased additional land and began moving, restoring and reconstructing historic pioneer buildings on the site.

The first building moved to the park in 1971 and restored was Brigham Young's Forest Farmhouse. The house, which was originally located in the southern part of Salt Lake City, was not used as a residence, but was used to entertain visiting dignitaries and guests. The farm also served as a research facility to experiment with various crops.

There are now 30 or 40 historic structures in the park that have been relocated or reconstructed. These include log cabins, frame homes, adobe homes, shops, meeting halls, and stores. The photo below shows two of the log cabins.

The cabins were typically one room - cooking and living on one side, and sleeping on the other - with a sleeping loft above for the kids. The next photo shows the bedroom side of one of the cabins.

One of the more elaborate homes was the reproduction of the Heber C. Kimball house. The original house was located on a 10-acre lot at the edge of Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Heber C. Kimball was one of the early leaders of the LDS Church. The house needed to be large because some sources say Heber had over 39 wives.

The house in the photo below is the Fairbanks house, which was relocated from Payson, UT. Payson is located south of Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young used to stay with Fairbanks when he was on his way to visit some of the southern Mormon communities. The house is fairly large, and the Fairbanks were most likely an upper middle class family.

We walked most of the main streets and looked into a number of the buildings, but it was getting late. We were getting tired, so we called it a day and headed back to the car. On our way out of the park, we stopped at another monument to the Pony Express. Salt Lake City was a major city on the Pony express route.

The Pony Express was founded in April, 1860, as a means of delivering mail rapidly from St. Joseph, MO, to Sacramento, CA. By changing tired horses for fresh ones at stations placed about 10 miles apart along the 2,000-mile route, riders could cover 75 to 100 miles a day. After traveling that distance at a full gallop, the riders would also stop to rest. When one rider stopped, another would take over so the mail could travel both day and night. Mail could be delivered from the East Coast to the West coast in about 10 days using the Pony Express. The Pony Express only operated for about 18 months until October, 1861, when the telegraph made it obsolete.

Back at the motor home we began planning our next sightseeing adventure. There's lots more to see around salt Lake City, so stay tuned.

Salt Lake City, UT, Part II: Bingham Canyon

Bingham Canyon is located to the southwest of Salt Lake City, and it is the location of the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, which is operated by Kennecott Copper. There is a $5 charge for private vehicles to enter the overlook area and the visitor center, and all proceeds from entrance fees go to local charities.

 The mine in Bingham Canyon has been in operation since 1906. Although there were smaller mining operations in the canyon as early as the 1860s, larger scale open-pit mining didn't begin until 1906 following the formation of the Utah Copper Company. Today, the pit is over 2.5 miles across and more than .75 miles deep and is the largest open pit mine in the world. The mine has yielded over 18.1 million tons of copper, 23 million ounces of gold, 190 million ounces of silver and 850 million pounds of molybdenum. Gold and silver are impurities in the copper and are a byproduct of the refining operation. Molybdenum is a metal that is used to increase the strength of steel.

After passing the entry station, vehicles proceed up unto the canyon to the visitor center. Large piles of overburden tower over the road.

From the observation area outside the visitor center you can peer down into the massive pit where roads spiral down to the bottom. The ledges are to help prevent slides.

Drill rigs bore holes 55 feet deep into the bench areas. The holes are filled with explosives which are then detonated to break up the rock and ore. The explosives are detonated two to four times a day. Unfortunately, we didn't get see any blasting while we were there.

The gigantic haul trucks can carry 255 to 360 tons. Some trucks haul overburden to the rim of the pit, while others haul ore to the crusher, which is located at the left side of the pit in the photo above about one third of the way down.

To get an idea of how big the trucks are, there is a tire on display at the observation area. The tire is 12.5 feet high with a tread width of 55 inches. The tires weigh over 10,000 pounds and cost about $25,000 each. They last about one year (55,000 miles), and there are 6 tires per truck. The company operates 64 trucks.

From the crusher, the ore is carried by conveyor to the concentrator, which is located about 5 miles outside the pit. The ore, which contains less than 1% copper, is crushed further to a fine powder and mixed with water and chemicals. The copper reacts with the chemicals and is carried to the surface by air bubbling through the mixture. The slurry concentrate, which is now 28% copper, is piped 17 miles to the smelter near the Great Salt Lake.

At the smelter, the slurry is heated to drive off the moisture and impurities and to melt the copper. The molten copper, now 99.5% pure, is cast into large plates.

The plates are shipped by rail to a refinery where the copper is further refined to 99.99% purity by electrolytically redepositing the copper onto stainless steel plates. The copper is stripped from the stainless steel and is finally ready to be shipped.

As soon as we entered the visitor center, Paul saw a sculpture that was commissioned by a former CEO as a tribute to the family and as a reminder of the Kennecott safety program. The worker in the sculpture was wearing what appeared to be a V-Gard hard hat manufactured by Paul's former employer MSA. During his employment with MSA Paul was on the steering committee for the head protection product group, and he also worked on many of the plastic injection molds for the helmets and suspension components.

The visitor center had a 16-minute video, several scale models, numerous displays, and a couple of shorter videos explaining the mining, smelting and refining processes. Photos in several of the displays and in the 16-minute video confirmed that Kennecott employees do indeed wear V-Gard hard hats. 

Environmental concerns are a huge part of mining today. Tailings are the rock and impurities left over after copper is removed from the ore, and overburden is rock that lies on top of the copper ore. Areas where both the overburden and tailings are dumped must be reclaimed, and the visitor center has several displays showing how this is done.

Paul was interested in the mechanical side of things. The photo below shows Paul with one of the teeth from a bucket that is used to load ore. The buckets can scoop up to 98 tons in a single bite.

Paul also likes scale models that are well done and that have realistic detail. The next photo shows a scale model of the smelter.

We have visited at least two open-pit mines before (one copper and one coal), but this one was the most interesting and had the best observation area and visitor center. Information in the visitor center was not too technical and was easy to understand

From the mine, we headed to the opposite side of Salt Lake City to another canyon called Emigration Canyon. Emigration Canyon is where Brigham Young and the first band of Mormon pioneers first entered Salt Lake Valley. Look for out next post and we'll tell you all about it.