Thanksgiving is a time of harvest and gratitude, and while Tooele County started out with a fair amount of farming, the limitations both in amount of water and arable land would in all probably have permanently restricted the growth of the county had its primary function remained agricultural.

The outbreak of the Civil War and the persistent doubts of Utah’s loyalty to the nation in 1862 led to the stationing of General Patrick Connor and a regiment of California-Nevada volunteers in Salt Lake City.

Conner, hoping to open up mineral discoveries, permitted his soldiers to prospect the mountains in northern and central Utah.

Minerals were discovered in the vicinity of Bingham in the fall of 1863, but the first discovery on the west side of the Oquirrh Mountains took place the following year in Stockton.

A military post known as Camp Relief, subsequently to become the town of Stockton, was surveyed and organized in March of 1864. In April, mineral deposits were discovered by some members of Company 1, 2nd Cavalry, California Volunteers.

Assays proved rich in silver and the mining district was organized.

Ores in the adjacent Ophir district were discovered in 1865.

Treasure Hill in East Canyon “had long been a sacred spot where the Indians had gathered each year to hold councils and obtain metal for bullets” according to B.S. Butler in his academic article “The Ore Deposits of Utah.”

The soldiers under Connor’s command, attracted by these legends, located a cropping of lead ore at the St. Louis lode, now known as the Hidden Treasure mine.

Other locations followed, but very little was done until 1870 when the silver excitement in Little Cottonwood Canyon stimulated prospectors.

In the summer of 1870, A.W. Moore laid out the town of Ophir and a new mining district was organized.

The Camp Floyd mining district, adjoining the Ophir district, was first organized at the beginning of the silver excitement, but was abandoned until the process of cyanidation, used for extracting precious metals from their ores, of gold evolved in 1891.

The difficult gold ore of the district then proving amenable to treatment allowed for the reorganization of Camp Floyd in 1894.

All of these camps had fluctuating periods of prosperity but were influential in the railroad development of the county. The camps also provided a consistent market for agricultural products and for timber from the surrounding region.

Butler’s figures on mining production in the Stockton, Ophir, Camp Floyd, and North Tintic districts from 1870 to 1819 approximated $52,500,000.

Natalie Tripp: ntripp@tooeletranscript.com