Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:
"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
...
snip-------

Jeff (Who remembers visiting that big open pit copper mine in
Coppertown, Utah circa 1955.)


Well, Jeff (Who remembers visiting that big open pit copper mine in

Coppertown, Utah circa 1955.), I've been gone from Utah for ten years now,

but if you were to return to the same mine, you wouldn't recognize it. For
one, do you recall driving through a long tunnel, from Bingham Canyon to
Copperfield, the town on the other side of the tunnel? That's where the
observation point was when you go back far enough in time, for which '55
should qualify.

I do remember that tunnel, and also a "town", if you could call it that,
stretched out along a mile or more of road which had houses and shops on
both sides of it.

But, what I can't forget was stopping along that road to grab a Coke
with whatever college buddy I was driving across the country with, and
being immediately surrounded by very young native american kids begging
for handouts.

Being about 19 at the time, and I suppose having led what you'd consider
a sheltered existance around the cities of San Francisco and Boston, I'd
never experienced child beggars before or after that, here in the USA,
though I've sure seen plenty of them elsewhere in the world since then.
I'm always saddened by it, wherever it happens, though I understand that
it's just local industry in some places.

Not only is the tunnel no longer there, neither is the mountain. It has
all been mined and is now a much larger hole in the ground. It was that
way when I left Utah. I can't imagine what it must look like now.

Yes, that mountain reminded me of a volcano, with a spiral road with RR
tracks running around the inside. From the observation point we could
see the dust puffs from blasting going on here and there on the inside
walls, I remember it seemed like there was one of those explosions every
few minutes.


Bingham Canyon was one of the places that was a complete throwback in time.
Not much changed there, it just slowly died off and was destroyed by the
mine. Narrow street, just barely wide enough for one car to pass another,
I have fond memories of the place.

The town you mentioned, Copperton (not Coppertown), is actually a couple
miles outside of the mining district, and was, for the most part, the
company town. It still exists as far as I know. Everything else is long
gone.

But not forgotten by me...

During that same trip through Utah a large wooden water pipeline ran
alongside a road we were on, and I couldn't resist having my traveling
companion take this silly photo of me at a spot where some AH must have
taken a potshot at the pipe.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/temp/leaker.html

Thanks for the mammaries...

Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."