Leon Frazier, Provo, Utah, Uranium History Series

Page 52

LEON FRAZIER #2 an unpatented claim, you record your assessment work by filing your affidavit of assessment work in the county recorder's office in each of the counties where the claims are located. And, of course, if the claims are continuous, all of them, you can do the work on one claim and claim it for all of the claims if they're continuous. So you may do the work in Utah County, but part of the claims are over into Juab County, the next county over south. If you've done work in Utah County, you file in Utah County and in Juab County. And this is one of the problems you have to help people with on their assessment work, on the affidavit, and you do that on any kind of mining. It's no different from uranium, it's no different than silver, it's no different than gold. If you get your claim patented, then, of course, it goes on the tax rolls and you pay taxes on it instead of your annual assessment work. We have tremendous numbers of claims now that there patented back during the uranium boom when people had been paying the real property taxes on it. And so they come up for sale now after they've gone delinquent for four years in Utah. They'll sell them on the fifth year, you see, at public tax sales. But they do the same thing with other mining claims that haven't had their tax 21