A Shortcut Through Hell

          In the Spring of 1846 a group of families left Springfield Illinois to start a new life in California. However before reaching their destination this ill-fate group of emigrants known as the Donner Party suffered one of the most tragic and horrific episodes in the history of America's western migration.

          Although the Donner Party's story is a somewhat complex narrative and the details of their plight are not always agreed upon; it is generally agreed that the decision to deviate from the well traveled Oregon Trail and instead trek across Utah using an unproven shortcut known as Hasting Cutoff is what led to the Donner Party's failure to reach their final destination before winter set in leaving them stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains having to resorting to cannibalism to stay alive. 

Only The Dead Remain

As a discarded place from the past the ghost town of Kelton, located on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, is one of the many small towns upon Utah's landscape that have faded into inexistence; barely more than a memorial dot on a map. However Kelton was once far greater than the slightly altered desert landscape it has become.

The town of Kelton was founded over 150 years ago in April 1869, when the Central Pacific Railroad arrived at Kelton's location laying tracks in an effort to complete America's first transcontinental railroad. Kelton was originally establish, less than a month before the railroad's completion, as a tent city for the railroad's predominately Chinese work crew. 

Due to its ideal position along the Transcontinental Railroad Kelton quickly grew from its makeshift work camp beginnings into a prosperous rail-town. A post office was established less than six months after the arrival of the town's first residence and soon the town had all the trappings of any decent western rail-town including fine hotels, gambling halls, saloons, stores and homes.

For Kelton's first 15 years it thrived as a vital link between the Transcontinental Railroad and the resource rich American north-west. In the 1870s and early 1880s Wells Fargo ran a stage coach route between Kelton and several gold mines in Idaho and Montana. For a time this stage line even held the dubious honor of being the most robbed stage coach route in the American west.  However the very thing that gave Kelton life was also the destructive force that eventually stripped it of its ability to survive.    

 

As spur lines from the Transcontinental Railroad quickly began to be laid across the American west from locations that did not include Kelton the town's importance began to decline as evidenced by its stage coach service being discontinued in the mid-1880s.

At the turn of the Twentieth Century, almost 20 years after Kelton had lost its stage coach route a far more damaging hit to Kelton's survival came when the Transcontinental Railroad was rerouted across the Great Salt Lake. This new route cut several small rail-towns  north of the lake, including Kelton, from the transcontinental route. The new lake route also cut from the rail line its most famous and historic landmark, promontory summit, where 35 years previous to the rerouting, the golden spike had been driven to celebrate the completion of America's first transcontinental rail line.

Because Kelton no longer lay upon one of the western United States' most traveled rail routes it slipped into obscurity and irrelevance and although the tracks that had made history still ran through Kelton they were only used by local farmers and ranchers from that point on.

Although in decline, Kelton still managed to survive almost 40 years after being cut from the Transcontinental route and the town even made history during its decent. On March 12, 1934, Kelton experienced a 6.6 magnitude earth quake, the largest earth quake ever recorded in Utah.

Kelton's final demise came 73 years from it founding when in July of 1942, while the nation was in midst of World War II, the Southern Pacific Railroad dismantled the rail line that ran through Kelton to collect the badly needed steel for use in the war effort. With the rail line stripped from the town, little reason was left for the few remaining residences to stay and the town was quickly abandoned; several of the town's final residences took their houses with them.

Tintic Reduction

N 39° 57.459’   W 111° 51.309’

 

Abandoned for almost 100 years, the Tintic Standard Reduction Mill located on the west slope of Warm Springs Mountain in Utah County is just one of the many visible scars that dot the Tintic Mountains in Central Utah. These scars; the shaft, pits and abandoned structures, are the remnants left by the mining industry that once dominated the area but has now all but forsaken it. 

            The Tintic Standard Reduction Mill or Harold Mill as it was also referred to was built in 1920 the same year that Timothy Leary was born and prohibition became law in the United States. The mill was built to further process and reduce ore it received from another mill approximately 13 miles west near Eureka, Utah.

            The process the Tintic Standard Reduction Mill used to reduce the ore to its valuable base elements was an acid-brine chloridizing and leaching process which became outdated and unused within 5 years of the mills construction thus insuring the mill's abandonment by 1925

            Although the mill operated for less than 5 years from 1921 to 1925 this structure and its legacy still remain with us.  Not only does the foundation of this short live processing mill still dominate the surrounding landscape but there is also some evidence to suggest that the mill's use may explain the heavy elements that poison a spring near the site.

Tintic Standard Reduction Mill Map

Ancient Ions

One of nature's most useful compounds, few substances are as important to mankind as salt. This simple mix of sodium and chlorine is vital to the welfare of all living things, is used extensively in industry, is one of man's five elemental tastes, and even plays a sacred role in many religious rites.

 As its name suggests the Great Salt Lake is flush with salt, 4.5 billion tons flush according to the Utah Geological Survey. This massive deposit of salt makes the Great Salt Lake the saltiest lake within a 6,600 mile radius, the saltiest lake in the Western Hemisphere and one of the top 10 saltiest lakes in the world.

 

Most of the salt present in the Great Salt Lake is remnants of the lake's ancient ancestor Lake Bonneville; a massive prehistoric fresh water lake that once covered much of Utah's landscape. 

Over 14,000 years ago a large portion Lake Bonneville escaped through Red Rock Pass in Idaho leaving Utah with a much smaller lake.  This reduced lake started to shrink even further from evaporation due to changing climate conditions. The minerals in the receding lake, unable to escape through evaporation, were left behind to grow in concentration.  The lake continued to shrink and the minerals within it continued to concentrate until at last the desert landscape was left with our present day Great Salt Lake.

 

Although it may not be the lake's most lucrative asset, the ancient salt within the Great Salt Lake is still one of its most valuable resources.  Several companies are active upon the shores of the Great Salt Lake  harvesting between 1.5 and 2.5 million tons of salt annually from the lake.

Promontory Summit

 

Promontory Summit - N 41° 37.071’   112° 33.083’

  

Just 23 years after the Donner party passed through Utah on their way to meet their ill-fated end in California and 22 years after the Mormon pioneers  began to settle their new desert home; the Central and Union Pacific Railroads met in Utah's barren desert at Promontory Summit, 68 miles north-west of Salt Lake City, to drive the final spike in the track that linked the eastern and western United States by rail for the first time.

This enormous effort to run rail-line from the prairie lands of Iowa to the coastal state of California took 6 years to accomplish. Almost the entire work of grading and laying track was done through hard manual labor and black powder. Much of this hard work was performed by Chinese and Irish emigrants. 

The Central Pacific Railroad began work on the rail-line  in 1863 while Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States and the nation was engaged in its deadliest war.  They began laying  tracks  in Sacramento California at the western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad  and proceeded east over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, followed by the state of Nevada and then into Utah, arriving at Promontory Summit in 1869, six years after they started. The Central Pacific Railroad laid 690 miles of track over it six year effort.

Due to the labor and resource needs of the Civil War the Union Pacific Railroad wasn't able to start their endeavor until 1865; two years after the Central Pacific Railroad began. The Union Pacific Railroad started laying track at the eastern terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad in Council Bluffs Iowa and proceeded west across the Missouri River followed by Nebraska, the north-east corner of Colorado, the whole of Wyoming and finally the eastern half of Utah to Promontory Summit.  The Union Pacific Railroad arrived at Promontory Summit four years after they made their start, having laid 1087 miles of track.

The ceremonial driving of the Golden Spike, the last spike in the completed rail line was performed by Leland Stanford at 12:47 pm on May 10th, 1869. Stanford was also the individual who ceremoniously broke ground at the start of the Central Pacific Railroad’s tracks 6 years earlier in Sacramento California while he was serving as California's Governor.  22 years after driving The Golden Spike Stanford would found Stanford University which currently has possession of the spike. 

There doesn't appear to be an official count of how many people attended the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit but the effect the joined rail line had on the United States is immeasurable. The railroad allowed unprecedented access to the west and was invaluable to the growth, settlement and commerce of the young American nation. 

However, as is the case with almost any historically important event, the positive effects of the Transcontinental Railroad is a matter of perspective. The rapid expansion of the west that the rail-line provided came at a price, paid mostly by the Native Americans who lost much of their land and lifestyle to America's western migration. It seems almost a historical axiom that one groups progress is another groups pain.  

 

 It is interesting to note that almost exactly 100 years after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed another huge milestone in travel was reached. On July 20, 1969, exactly 100 years 71 days after Leland Stanford drove the spike that completed the Transcontinental Railroad, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the moon.

Promontory Summit Maps and Profile 

Mill B South Fork

           As the largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth largest terminal lake in the world, viewing the Great Salt Lake will frequently elicit the question, “Where did all this water come from?”  Often the answer involves tales of an ancient lake that dried up long ago leaving nothing but the salty leftovers that remain with us to this day.  Such an account although accurate is incomplete and tells nothing of the amazing story of the liquid infrastructure that today transports fluid life to this enormous desert lake.

            Today the Great Salt Lake is sustained by water that flows from some of Utah’s most outstanding locations. One such location is the Mill B South Fork located in the Wasatch Mountains of Salt Lake County. What this small drainage lacks in name it more than makes up for in landscape.

 

             Mill B South Fork is located in the Twin Peaks Wilderness Area of the Wasatch Mountains; this is an area of rugged terrain with narrow canyons and high peaks, the area’s typography originally being carved out by glaciers.  

            The water that flows from Mill B South Fork begins its journey at an elevation greater than 10,000 feet above sea level and falls more than a mile in elevation as it passes through 7 Utah cities with a combined population of over 400,000 people. This water also travels over 35 miles to reach its final destination Farmington Bay on the Great Salt Lake.
Mill B South Fork Maps

Garfield Smelter Stack

            Garfield Smelter Stack - N 40° 43.303’   W 112° 11.911’

            In November 1974 a landmark was completed at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains near the south shore of the Great Salt Lake that has stood record strong for over 37 years as Utah's tallest man-made structure. 

            At a height of 1,215 feet and a base diameter of 177 feet this landmark, designated as the Garfield Smelter Stack, is an impressive edifice especially considering that as Utah's tallest man-made structure it was built in just 84 days.

            Construction on the stack began on August 26, 1974 and two and a half months later on November 17,  26,317 cubic yards of concrete had been poured and reinforced with 900 tons of steel into a stack almost 3 times taller than any man-made structure that has ever existed in Utah.                 

            The cost to construct the stack in 1974 was 16.3 million dollars, which is equivalent to about 70 million dollars today. Also interesting to note is the fact that not only is The Garfield Stack the tallest free standing structure in Utah it is also the only operating smelter stack left in Utah.

            The Garfield Smelter Stack's record setting height is not just limited to comparisons within Utah, the stack is also the tallest freestanding structure in North America west of the Mississippi River. No building or freestanding structure in Houston, Seattle, San Francisco or even Los Angeles is equal in height to this stack located just 17 miles west of Salt Lake City.

            In fact Chicago, New York City and Toronto Canada are the only cities in North America with buildings taller than the Garfield Smelter Stack and at a height of 1,215 feet the Garfield Smelter Stack is only 35 feet shorter then the Empire State Building, the tallest building in New York City.

            The Garfield Smelter Stack is also the fourth tallest chimney in the world and in the western hemisphere only Homer City, Pennsylvania and Sudbury, Ontario Canada have stacks taller than the Garfield Smelter Stack.
The Garfield Smelter Stack Maps