Uranium, a radioactive element, was first mined in the western United States in 1871 by Dr. Richard Pierce, who shipped 200 pounds of pitchblende to London from the Central City Mining District in Colorado -
The ore was researched for fabrication of steel alloys, chemical experimentation and as pigments for dyes, inks and stained glass -
In 1898 Pierre and Marie Curie and G. Bemont isolated the "miracle element" radium from pitchblende. That same year, uranium, vanadium and radium were found to exist in carnotite, a mineral containing colorful red and yellow ores that had been used as body paint by early Navajo and Ute Indians on the Colorado Plateau -
The discovery triggered a small prospecting boom in southeastern Utah, and radium mines in some counties became a major source of ore for the Curies -
Prior to World War I, radium mining dwindled but a new bonanza was identified in the tailings dumps of the mines -
When it was determined that the discarded vanadium added to molten steel would greatly increase the tensile strength and elasticity of the metal, Utah's vanadium industry flourished -
One of the dominant figures in the resultant boom was Howard Balsley of Moab, who sold carnotite ores to Vitro Chemical Corporation of Pittsburgh for medicaments and luminous paint -
With the end of World War II, the Atomic Energy Commission replaced the Manhattan Project and launched the first federally-sponsored mineral rush in history. The AEC constructed roads into the back country, promised $10,000 bonuses for new lodes of high-grade ore, guaranteed minimum prices and paid up to $50 per ton on 0.3 percent ore, constructed mills, helped with haulage expenses and posted geologic data on promising areas tracked by federal geologists using airborne scinillometers and other sophisticated radiation detection instruments -
The Four Corners area, where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet, suddenly teemed with prospectors in the greatest ore search since the gold fever days of the previous century. Amateurs and experts, alike, followed AEC guidelines and used radiation detectors called Geiger counters to test promising sandstone formations for uranium deposits -
Concentrating on exposed outcroppings along canyon rims, they searched primarily for the grayish Salt Wash member of the Morrison formation - When a likely claim was located, some used diamond drills to core test holes to determine if mineable ore was present -
In 1952 Charles Augustus Steen, an unemployed oil geologist from Texas, effectively proved there was significant uranium ore on the Colorado Plateau. Settling his wife and four young sons in a tarpaper shack, he took off alone to seek the precious mieral -
Unable to afford a geiger counter, he took a broken down drill rig into the back-country, ignored standard uranium-seeking technology, and used oil exploration geology to locate a rich mine of an area the AEC had deemed barren of ore -
What had been ridiculed as "Steen's Folly" resulted in the nation's first big uranium strike -
Steen's find triggered more -
Vernon Pick claimed the Delta Mine northwest of Hanksville, later selling it to international financier Floyd Odlum for nine million dollars and an airplane -
Pratt Seegmiller staked the lucrative Freedom and Prospector claims near Marysvale -
Joe Cooper and Fletcher Bronson discovered uranium in their played-out Happy Jack copper mine netted over $25 million -
Claims were filed in few Utah counties -
A center of activity, the once sleepy farming townbecame \known as "The Uranium Capitol of the World."
Utah alone had produced approximately nine million tons of ore valued at $25 million by the end of 1962 -
But then the industry almost came to a standstill -
The AEC, now holding ample reserves, announced - an eight-year limited program, and finally completely stopped buying uranium in 1970 -
Private industry triggered a brief second boom - when nuclear power plants came on line in the - mid-70s, but foreign competition, federal regulations and nuclear fears virtually put an end to domestic uranium mining -
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