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Show OMB No. 1024-0018. NPS Form United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section No. ~ Page I Utah Ore Sampling Company Mill, Murray, Salt Lake County, UT particles. Work at the sampling mill was dirty work and a cinder-block change house with shower facilities was built on site in 1937. As an independent sampler, the Utah Ore Sampling Company Mill was reportedly not affected by the economic vicissitudes that plagued the smelting industry. It is the only sampling company listed in the city directories in the 1930s. Though operating only one unit during the depression, Barney Evans reported the "company had been in continuous operation since it began in 1909 and never had to close down for want of ore or for labor trouble.,,13 During WW II all tungsten ore and concentrates purchased by the government agency in Salt Lake City were sampled through this plant. Additional shifts of eleven men were required to keep up. The sampling mill remained in operation for eight years after the closure of the ASARCO smelter in 1950. After the sampling operations closed in 1958, the mill property was sold to the J.J. Coan Company. It was later sold to the Spratling Investment Company in 1964. For a short time the mill buildings were leased by Utah Technical Industries Shop. The mill was vacant between 1967 and 1974 and suffered some vandalism, especially to the windows. Between 1975 and 1987, the All Minerals Corporation used the mill, primarily as a berite processing plant. The All Minerals Corporation installed some equipment in the building and made a few changes to the interior. In 1989, the property was deed to Ted and Bonnie Gunderson , heirs of Erma Spratling. The Gundersons sold the mill and its outbuildings to Bob Conrad in 1989. They sold the thaw house property to William Winger in 1990 and it currently used as a sheet metal business. Bob Conrad operates his business, Bob's Automotive Center, a parts and salvage yard, in and around the mill complex. He is the current occupant of the superintendent's house. In the 1980s, the EPA tested the site for potential toxic materials. Though the toxicity of the site has been assuaged, the current condition of the property is somewhat hazardous. There is some broken glass and metal, and the owner's highly prized collection of automobile parts fills every square foot of the interiors and yard . The mill is currently home to pigeons, raccoons and two guard dogs. The surviving buildings (Mill C and Mill 0 , the thaw house, the shop, the change house, the oil storage-coal shed, and the superintendent's house) range in condition from fair to poor, but all are structurally sound. (Mill D's concrete piers do not vibrate when a train rumbles by.) In 2002, architecture student, Connie Holt, who studied the mill as a potential adaptive reuse project, described the mill site in the following way: "The buildings are in disrepair and have few if any windows in tact and unbroken. The materials of the buildings are worn, even dilapidated. Yet there remains a sturdiness to the shapes and forms making up the compound of buildings--it seems a life still lingers there-that of a sleeping giant, capable of powerful feats as it once was."14 Independent of the smelters, the Utah are Sampling Company Mill was trusted to assay ores without prejudice. The significance of the property is found in the key roll the company played in the mining and smelting industry at the local, state, and to a lesser extant, the national and international levels. The Utah are Sampling Company Mill retains its historic integrity and is a contributing resource in Murray City, Utah. 13 14 Ibid. Connie Holt. |
