The first blog post of the year brings you a card from a bona fida lost place, Bingham Canyon Utah.
The card is not dated but is though to be from the 1920s.
Bingham Canyon Utah was once a busy little town which attracted a workforce from all over the world. So what happened to turn it into a ghost town?
The Beginnings
As with a couple of the other North America towns featured here, Bingham County was a mining town . It's named after Thomas and Sanford Bingham the brothers who founded the town in 1848. Initially the area was farmland until gold and silver ores were discovered there in the 1860s, the building of a railway a decade later, plus a switch to mining copper helped expand the mines and consequently the town grew too.
The Boom
The early 20th century saw the Bingham Canyon continue to grow, at its peak in the 1910s the town stretched for about 7 miles and the ethnically diverse population numbered around 15,000. It was considered a true melting pot with communities from all over Europe making up the workforce of the mine. 90% of which was born outside of the USA.
The Decline
Bingham county faced two problems. The first being that the geography of the place made urban development difficult. Other townships were set up and the population of Bingham Canyon began to move out.
Ironically, it was the success of the mine itself which caused the biggest problem for the town. As it became more successful and expansive it encroached on the residential settlement also mechanisation rather than human resources were increasingly used meaning fewer jobs and fewer reasons to stay in the area. This downward its 31 inhabitants voted in favour of disincorporation.
A year later the remaining buildings were razed.
Today
Bingham Canyon Mine is still in operation. In fact it is the largest man-made excavation in the world and is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history it also National Historic Monument Status.
All land once occupied by Bingham Canyon has been consumed by the mine and no trace of the town exists today making it a genuine lost place.
