Park City'

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Photograph courtesy Park City Museum, Pop Jenks Collection

"I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying all about the ground. I expected to see it glittering in the sun on the mountain summits," Mark Twain wrote of his prospecting attempts in Nevada. "I crawled about the ground, seizing and examining bits of stone, blowing dust from them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then peering at them with anxious hope. Of all the experiences of my life, this secret search among the hidden treasures of silver-land was the nearest to unmarred ecstasy."

The time it took to search for silver and the cost of extracting it from the ground coupled with today's low price of silver, explains why Park City's mines no longer operate. Or to quote Mark Twain, who quoted a Spanish proverb, "It takes a gold mine to run a silver one!"

However, between 1880 and 1920 when Park City mines were the most organized, productive and active, they produced more than 20 million tons of ore including lead, zinc, copper, silver, and a small amount of gold. These were the years of Park City's mining renaissance.

Date last updated

Wednesday April 30, 2003