Sulphurdale is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Beaver County,
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, United States. Sulphurdale was established in 1870, but mining did not begin in large scale until 1883. Homes, a school, a store and company offices were built in town. Despite the heavy mining activity, high quality sulfur was difficult to find. Production slowed in the 1940s and 1950s, and in 1966, the mine and mill shut down. By the end of the 1970s, Sulphurdale was abandoned.
History
The site that was to become Sulphurdale was surveyed by Charles Dickart, who discovered a large body of
sulfur
Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...
ore just south of
Cove Fort
Cove Fort is a fort, unincorporated community, and historical site located in Millard County, Utah. It was founded in 1867 by Ira Hinckley (the paternal grandfather of Gordon B. Hinckley) at the request of Brigham Young. One of its distincti ...
in 1870. Minimal work was done until 1883, when a
thermal plant was built to process the extracted sulfur. Steady production began in 1890. 1,000 tons of sulfur were produced annually for fifteen years. The mining company that operated the mines at Sulphurdale built 30 homes for the workers, a
school
A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...
house, a company
store, and company offices. For a time, the town was unofficially known as Morrissey, after the operator of the mines.
Twice every week,
freighters hauled 20 tons of sulfur to the Union Pacific loading docks at Black Rock.
Only the high grade ore was considered useful; the rest of the ore went unused.
Although the Sulphurdale mines were fully operational, very little sulfur was mined. A sulfur mill that was built in 1951 did not produce much high quality sulfur. Production began to slow down in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1961 the Sulphurdale Chemical Company built a mill and began commercial production in 1965; however, the company owner died in 1966 and the mill shut down.
After seventy years of activity, the mines at Sulphurdale were closed.
In 1985, a
geothermal Geothermal is related to energy and may refer to:
* Geothermal energy, useful energy generated and stored in the Earth
* Geothermal activity, the range of natural phenomena at or near the surface, associated with release of the Earth's internal he ...
power system was installed near Sulphurdale, and the power system is currently in operation, producing electricity for
Provo.
The hydrothermal system it exploits is one of the largest in the western United States, with temperature anomalies of up to per kilometer.
The schoolhouse and a couple of homes remain in the town proper.
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 dif ...
References
External links
{{Authority control
Ghost towns in Utah
Ghost towns in Beaver County, Utah