Diamond is a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
in eastern
Juab County
Juab County ( ) is a county in western Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 10,246. Its county seat and largest city is Nephi.
Juab County is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, United States.
The Diamond Cemetery is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
[
]
Description
The site of the former community is along the Diamond Gulch on the western slopes of the East Tintic Mountains
The East Tintic Mountains are a mountain range in central Juab, Utah, and Tooele counties in Utah, United States on the east margin of the Great Basin just west of the Wasatch Front about south-southeast of Salt Lake City. The community of Eurek ...
, northwest of Sunrise Peak, just east of the Tintic Valley, and about south of Eureka
Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying th ...
. There are multiple abandoned mines in the surrounding area, and it is considered part of (but south of the active area of) the Tintic Mining District.
The community received its name from the quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
crystals found in the area that were originally thought to be diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...
s.
History
Diamond was first settled 1870 following the discovery of the "diamonds" in the area. Soon after a post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
was established and saloons, stores, and even a school was built.[ Reference include several photographs of the Diamond Cemetery.] The population eventually grew to about 900, but after water was struck in the nearby mines the last residents moved away in 1890 and the town was abandoned. However, the post office apparently remained open until 1906. The community's last house was moved in 1923. All that remains are the mining tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
and a cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
.
Diamond Cemetery
The Diamond Cemetery is a small property that is the only remaining remnant of the former town of Diamond (one of the earliest mining camps
A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry.
Historic mining communities
Australia
* Ballarat, Victoria
* Bendig ...
in the Tintic Mining District. Very little of the original cemetery remains, but at least one grave
A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grave ...
site is still maintained and visited by the family of Amber Rose and possibly a new addition to the cemetery in 2014. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
March 14, 1979.[ With .]
See also
* List of ghost towns in Utah
This is an incomplete list of ghost towns in Utah, a state of the United States.
Classification
Barren site
* Sites no longer in existence
* Sites that have been destroyed
* Covered with water
* Reverted to pasture
* May have a few diffi ...
*
References
External links
A whimsical blog entry on the ghost town, with photos
{{authority control
Ghost towns in Utah
Ghost towns in Juab County, Utah
National Register of Historic Places in Juab County, Utah
Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah
Mining communities in Utah