ALUNITE

Alunite (Piute) was formerly a small mining community fifteen miles south of Marysvale on the eastern slope of Deer Trail Mountain. the area was settled in 1914 after Tom Gillan, a local prospector, discovered the mineral alunite. The mines were shut down after World War I when a need for the alunite subsided. Today the mines are a center for the production of alunite and its byproducts, for which the community was originally named. The old settlement of Alunite was never reestablished and is a ghost town site.

John W. Van Cott