Utah's importance as a mining state since the arrival of white men there spawned many stories of adventure, romance, tragedy, bitterness, poverty, sudden wealth, and more stories of lost mines and buried treasures—some among the best doc­umented in the United States. Gold, silver, copper, galena, zinc, alunite and other minerals in abundance gave every county in Utah at least one mine, and the state 135 mining districts.

By Thomas Penfield