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Frisco

The story of the Horn Silver Mine, one of the great producers in Utah and American mining history, reads like pulp fiction: Two prospectors casually discover a rich ore body, a bankrupt financier promotes the venture, the boomtown of Frisco becomes one of the wildest mining camps in the West with a murder or two every evening, a tough lawman who shoots on sight begins to clean up the town, after producing millions the huge mine collapses, and Frisco becomes another ghost town.

It all started in September 1875 when prospectors James Ryan and Samuel Hawkes, who were working a galena mine in the San Francisco Mining District of Beaver County, tested a huge outcropping they passed each day. They found a solid ore body and immediately staked a claim to it. The two men decided to sell the claim rather than work it, fearing perhaps that the ore body was not as large as it appeared. By the late 1870s the new owners had extracted 25,000 tons of ore with a high silver content. The town of Frisco had sprouted up near the mine, some 17 miles west of Milford. But developing a mine in that remote area, some 175 miles from the nearest railhead, required more financial muscle than was locally available.

Enter Jay Cooke, the financial genius who had come up with the idea of selling federal bonds to pay for the Civil War. In 1870 he was reportedly the richest man in America and the nation's leading banker. By 1873 he was broke. The Franco-Prussian War and the Panic of 1873 had dealt a fatal blow to his promotion of bonds to construct the Northern Pacific Railroad. Even his mansion near Philadelphia had been taken by creditors. Cooke had never been interested in mining investments, but a friend convinced him to take a look at the Horn Silver Mine in far-off Utah. Following a complicated series of events "Cooke induced the owners to bond the property to him in consideration of his promise to give them railroad connections." Cooke did not have a dime to put into the venture, but he still had his genius for organizing and promoting. He was able to convince the mine owners and the LDS church to each provide a quarter of the capital needed. The remaining half was guaranteed by Wall Street financier Jay Gould. Within a few years Cooke was again rich, selling his shares in the Horn for an estimated $1 million. Exit Jay Cooke.

By 1879 the United States Annual Mining Review and Stock Ledger was calling the Horn "unquestionably the richest silver mine in the world now being worked." Frisco fairly buzzed with activity. Two smelters processed ore from the mine, and the company had developed a number of other needed facilities, including charcoal kilns, an iron reflux mine, a telegraph line to Beaver, and several stores in Frisco. Still, smelting on site was difficult and expensive due to the scarcity of fuel, water, and iron ore. With the completion of the Utah Southern Railroad Extension to Frisco on June 23, 1880, ore could be shipped to the Francklyn smelter near Murray, Utah, for processing. During its peak years some 150 tons of ore a day were sent to the Salt Lake Valley for smelting. By 1885 the Horn had produced more than $13 million and paid its shareholders $4 million in dividends. Some of its ore averaged 70 to 200 ounces of silver per ton.

Oases of pleasure and dens of iniquity A tenderfoot once observed that Wyatt Earp's most vivid recollections of his days as a frontier lawman involved people who were entering, occupying or leaving saloons. Earp replied tartly, "We had no YM.C.A.'s." There were good reasons why the watchful eye of the law was needed in the saloons of the West. Beyond their primary function as purveyors of drink, many of them provided facilities for gambling and for consorting with fast women - activities that frequently sparked gunplay. But the saloon was also a social club, an art gallery of sorts and a haven of relaxation and repartee. One standard joke stemmed from the ritual that called for customers to pour their own drinks from a bottle into a shot glass. If the customer spilled a single drop, the bartender was likely to inquire, "Do you want a towel?" implying that the drinker had wasted enough whiskey to take a bath in it. Some saloons dispensed rotgut but others, notably in rich mining towns, were stocked with the finest liquors and wines, and could supply almost any mixed drink known to man. At the better establishments Buffalo Bill Cody had no trouble getting his favoriie, a Stone Fence: a shot of rye and a twist of lemon in a glass of cider. Bartenders often were hired not just for their mixing skills but for their ability to handle rowdies. Yet beneath a stern exterior many abarkeep concealed a sentimental heart. "Don't forget to write to mother," read a sign in a Montana saloon. "She is thinking of you. We furnish paper and envelopes free, and have the best whiskey in town."

The town of Frisco quickly became a center of vice and crime. Like many a boomtown in the West its streets were lined with saloons (21 according to one count), gambling dens, and houses of prostitution. During her heyday, her population grew to about 6000. One writer called it "Dodge City, Tombstone, Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled into one," noting that murders occurred so often that city officials contracted to have a wagon pick up the bodies and take them to boothill for burial. Eventually Frisco's reputation had become so tarnished that Marshal James Pearson from Pioche, Nevada, was hired to clean up the town and told he had a free hand in doing what had to be done to bring law to the town. He allegedly told the lawless elements that he did not intend to make arrests and build no jail. There would be no bail or appeal from his order. Outlaws had two choices ... get out or get shot, he planned to shoot on sight anyone he saw breaking the law. Apparently some did not take him seriously, he supposedly killed six outlaws on his first night in town. He still had to convince a few, but most got the idea and left for easier pickings.

Then, on the morning of February 12, 1885, after the night shift had come to the surface, the day crew was told to wait because tremors were shaking the ground, and the Horn had experienced several cave-ins previously. Within minutes a massive cave-in closed the main shaft and collapsed tunnels down to the seventh level, shutting off the richest part of the mine. The cave-in was felt as far away as Milford where some windows were reportedly broken. Rain and snow had recently soaked the ground and added tremendous weight to the supporting timbers in the tunnels below. Additionally, the operators, in their hurry to take wealth from the mine as quickly as possible, had not adequately timbered the maze of tunnels. Fortunately, the cave-in occurred between shifts and no one was killed.

In less than a year the Horn was producing again on a limited scale. By 1891 quarterly dividends averaged $50,000, and the "Horn was still one of eight leading silver mines in the United States which, collectively, had produced more than half of the nation's total silver production value." The Horn had recovered and continued to produce varying amounts of silver and other metals for a succession of owners for another six or seven decades. But the cave-in had doomed infamous Frisco, once home to several thousand residents and a thriving place of commerce—some of which was even legal.

Miriam B. Murphy. Utah History To Go: When The Fabulous Horn Silver Mine Caved In. History Blazer. January 1996.

Fairfield

Fairfield (Frogtown) in Utah County, prospered and declined with the opening and closing of nearby Camp Floyd. Established in 1858, its mission was to establish a military route to California and to investigate the Gunnison Massacre, it was named for the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd and commanded by Albert S. Johnston. It was the first military installation built in present-day Utah and formed the state's third largest community. The quiet streets of Fairfield hold the secrets of 3,500 troops, nearly one-third of the entire U.S. Army at that time, who were brought to Camp Floyd to suppress the rumored rebellion in Utah.

Used as a strategy by both the Northern and Southern States, Camp Floyd and the Utah War were an attempt to divert the nation’s attention from the issue of states rights and slavery, to the Mormon problem and polygamy. Believing that the Mormons were rebelling against the laws of the United States, President James Buchanan dispatched the U.S. Army to Utah.

Buchanan believed that Democrats and Republicans, northerners and southerners, could unite in an attempt to restore order to Utah, and he could thus divert attention from the crisis over slavery and tensions between the north and south. They saw this as an opportunity to divert northern attention from slavery to polygamy, and to divert union troops to the west. They also saw the potential to deplete the U.S. Treasury of millions of dollars by giving government contracts for the move, to southern businessmen and to turn the west from northern sympathies, by creating support for southern state’s rights. The names of those who participated in the Utah campaign, read like a "who’s who” in Civil War Generals. Rosters include names like Johnston, Beauregard, Buford, Reynolds, Bee, Heath, Lander, and others.

No rebellion or war ever took place in Utah because of this event. In 1858, the Army pumped nearly $200,000 into the local economy to build Camp Floyd. Camp followers soon increased the population of Camp Floyd and Fairfield to 7,000. In 1861 the tensions of the north and south finally resulted in civil war. The troops were ordered back east for the emergency. Almost all of the buildings erected by the Army were dismantled or demolished. Some $4,000,000 of Army surplus was sold for a few cents on the dollar. Today, all that remains is the Commissary Building, which serves as a Camp Floyd museum, and the cemetery.

Across the street from the Camp Floyd Commissary is the Stagecoach Inn, a two-story adobe and frame hotel built by John Carson in 1858. Stagecoach Inn was the first stop south of Salt Lake City on the Overland Stage Route. Because of its proximity to old Camp Floyd, the clientele naturally included large numbers of armed personnel. It was one of the few respectable establishments in this frontier town. It was operated by the Carson family until 1947 and lodged such visitors as Mark Twain, Porter Rockwell, Bill Hickman and Sir Richard Burton. Seventeen saloons and other entertainment locations catered to the needs of a military population.

At the time of the Pony Express, Camp Floyd provided troops for protection against Indian attacks and served to keep the trail open for the Pony Express, stage lines, and other travelers. The Pony Express Station was a small adobe building that stood several hundred feet northeast of John Carson's Inn. Though the Pony Express station has long since disappeared.

William A. Hickman was one of the more colorful figures in Utah history. A one-time lawyer, U.S. Marshall, and army scout, "Wild Bill” Hickman had a notorious reputation. After being baptized into the LDS Church, he served as Brigham Young’s personal bodyguard. He is best known for his harassment of U.S. troops during the "Utah War” and also his involvement with Porter Rockwell in a Mormon vigilante group.

Bill married ten women, including Brigham Young’s Indian foster daughter, Margaret, as his seventh wife. A cabin was built for Margaret in Fairfield only a few blocks away from Carson’s Stagecoach Inn. Margaret, a member of the Utah Shoshone tribe, assisted Hickman in negotiating several peace agreements with neighboring tribes. Reportedly, she was present when he met with Chief Washaki and the Wind River Shoshones.

Outlaw Tales of Utah: True Stories of Utah's Most Famous Rustlers, Robbers, and Bandits From rustlers and robbers to crimes of passion and the wannabe outlaws who couldn't quite pull it off, the Outlaw Tales series offers entertainment and an unusual look at history. Notorious Butch Cassidy, The Sundance Kid, Kid Curry, Gunplay Maxwell, and members of the Wild Bunch Gang all spent time hanging out, hiding out, and calling out in the Beehive State. "Outlaw Tales of Utah uncovers their astonishing true stories, as well as those of equally raucous but lesser known outlaws and crimes from Utah history.

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