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History of Bingham Canyon Town, Utah
Courtesy of Utah Place Names. (Links Added)

Bingham was a community in Bingham Canyon fifteen miles southwest of Salt lake City. It was disincorporated on November 2, 1971, with the expansion of the Bingham open-pit copper mine. Today the town has disappeared. Bingham was named after Sanford and Thomas Bingham, early Mormon stockmen who ran their cattle in the canyon from 1848 to 1850. A sawmill built at the mouth of the canyon supplied much of the timber used to build the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. It was General Connor's men from Fort Douglas who staked the first mining claim in the canyon. Gold, silver, lead and then copper were mined there. At its peak, Bingham was nearly seven miles long but less than a city block wide. Early name variants were Binghams Herd House, Binghams Gulch and later, after the town was established, Jinxtown. Fires and floods often swept through the canyon and avalanches were common during the winter. Despite all this danger, the population reached fifteen thousand at one Time.


John W. Van Cott



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