Utah is not a location that would intuitively be associated with the Irish, but there were a wide range of interactions going all the way back to the early 1860s. Colonel Patrick Edward O’Connor from Killarney is the man who started most of it. When he was sent to the Utah Territory by Secretary of War Stanton in 1862, bringing his Stockton Blues and experienced miners with him, he encouraged exploration for metals in the surrounding mountains. Those explorations bore fruit with gold, silver, copper and lead discoveries in the Wasatch range to the east and the Oquirrahs to the west. It was there that O’Connor himself registered the first claim in what became the great Bingham Canyon copper mine in 1864.
Bingham Canyon is still running; it is North America’s second biggest copper mine and you can visit it thanks to a very nice tour provided by owner Rio Tinto. It is about a 40 minute drive from the SLC airport, it costs $6, and takes about 90 minutes. It is better to buy tickets in advance (look up Rio Tinto Kennecott Copper Experience) and it runs April thru October. A bus takes you from the parking lot to the rim of the Canyon, where you can view the open pit operations, get a sense of the scope and size of the mining equipment. And it is very timely, since copper is a key metal for the new energy transition.
The next interesting location to visit would be the Cathedral of the Madeline on east South Temple St in Salt Lake City. This beautiful structure was built between 1899 and 1909 under the leadership of Tipperary born Lawrence Scanlon, the first bishop of Salt Lake City. The stained glass and high altar are exceptional and the unique organ was built in Bray by Kenneth Jones and Associates. Further east on S Temple are the mansions of many of those who funded the church including those of mining partners Thomas Kearns and David Keith.
A ten minute drive east and north is Salt Lake’s impressive Calvary cemetery where many of the early Catholic elite of the area were buried. It is located on an elevated bench with a beautiful view down over the Salt Lake metro area. Among the graves are those of Thomas Hyland and his wife Ellen (McDonald).
It was on this bench that Patrick O’Connor sited Camp Douglas in 1862 to keep an eye on Bringham Young. O’Connor is buried in Ft Douglas and it has a nice military Museum. The University of Utah, with the impressive Eccles Stadium where the winter olympics opening ceremonies were held is nearby.
Daly-West Headframe Park City
Miners Hospital Building in Park City
Park City, which was a silver mining town from 1868 to the 1950s, is located a few miles south of Interstate 80 about 25 minutes east of downtown SLC. Today, like the Colorado mining towns of Aspen, Breckenridge and Telluride, it is an upscale ski resort. But there is a difference as the mining heritage is very respected here. In part, that was because a mining company owned most of the land before it converted to skiing, but there is also a very active Friends of Ski Mountain Mining Heritage group. It has a charming 19th century historic district, a museum with a wonderful model of a silver mine, St Marys, the first Catholic Church in Utah and a number of visible and visitable headframes and old mining structures.
Old St Marys in Park City
The Irish were probably outnumbered by the Cornish here, but a number did very well. Michael Judge, who cut the (still functioning) Judge water drainage tunnel and make money in the Daly-Judge mine was from Sligo. Irish American John Daly and Irish Canadian Thomas Kearns were super successful, as well as having reputations for treating their miners well. That was very necessary, as along with the high mine fatalities of the era, silicosis was a great killer of young men. The Western Federation of Miners built a hospital there in 1904.
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