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used to reduce the ore to its valuable base elements was an acid-brine chloridizing and leaching process which became outdated and unused within 5 years of the mills construction thus insuring the mill's abandonment by 1925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