Ophir Heck’s Sake! and The Faith of Angels Movie

  The recently released movie, “Faith of Angels” shares the miraculous story of Josh Dennis, who in 1989 was rescued after being lost for five days in an abandoned mine near Ophir in Tooele County.

  Several years ago, Ophir historian John Skinner shared his part of the story about finding Josh after hope was almost lost. The movie gives the experience and feelings of Josh and his family, the sheriff and search and rescue teams, as well as Skinner and his promptings.

  Skinner isn’t one to put himself in the limelight. But, he graciously spent several hours with me when I was doing a story on the boom-and-bust history of Ophir, a topic dear to Skinner’s heart. (He even shared some records of my own ancestors who helped settle this once-rowdy mining town.)

  The rugged Ophir Canyon in Tooele County is pretty quiet these days, and the handful of people who still live there prefer it that way. But beneath those surrounding mountains lie miles of long-abandoned mine tunnels.

  In the 1870s, Ophir boasted around 3,500 residents, 11 saloons, four hotels, and a daily stagecoach. From 1870 to the final mine closure in 1971, the Ophir Mining District produced an estimated $25 million worth of silver, lead, copper, zinc and gold. It also helped mint several of the country’s most wealthy men.

  “Ophir was important to Utah, and to the nation,” said John Skinner, who followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father into working at the Ophir Hills Mine. He was one of the last employees when it closed for good in 1971.

  “I want to make sure that its history is passed down to posterity before it all disappears,” he said.  

  For years, Skinner has collected mining maps, old photos, documents, newspaper clippings, artifacts, and his own handwritten pages telling the story of Ophir and surrounding ghost towns such as Mercur, Jacob City and Silverado.  

  In 1989, Skinner’s knowledge of the area’s old mines turned him into a hero when 10-year-old Joshua Dennis of Kearns went missing for five days in the abandoned Hidden Treasure Mine.

   During a Boy Scout outing, Josh gave his scoutmaster father his flashlight to escort another boy out of the mine. Josh was supposed to join another group of boys, but lost them in the dark. He eventually ended up on the ledge of a stope — a cavity where ore has been mined out—six feet wide and 25 feet deep.

  Josh sat down and prayed that someone would find him.

  Search teams spent five days combing through the maze of shafts, chutes, and tunnels that wound about eight miles into the mountain. Skinner tried to join the search, since his grandfather had been the mining superintendent, and Skinner had his old maps. Growing up, one of his favorite pastimes was exploring the old mines in the area. He felt strong promptings about three specific ideas of where the boy might be.

  But officials dismissed his offer, deeming it unsafe for anyone but professional search-and-rescue teams to be in the mine.  

  Since he was barred from getting into the Hidden Treasure’s entrance, he tried going into the Buckhorn Mine, as he knew it connected to the Hidden Treasure. But, that turned out to be too risky.  

  “When I got into the middle tunnel and started climbing the ladder, I discovered the rungs were rotted away,” he said. Knowing he could easily fall, he gave up on that idea.

  On the fifth day, he drove up to the search site again, and talked to members of the Utah Power and Light rescue team. It seemed unlikely that Josh could have survived for five days without food and water., and there was talk of stopping the search and permanently sealing the mine. He persuaded team members Ray Guymon and Gary Christensen to give him a headlamp and go back in one last time.

  “I took off, and Guymon and Christensen followed. All along the tunnels were different colored ribbons posted every place that was already searched,” said Skinner. “Then we got to the Resolute Stope, and I’m shining my light back and forth as we were talking and calling out. Gary Christensen said he heard something. We listened and heard a cry. We climbed a little way up and hollered his name, and there he was. When Gary picked Josh up in his arms, we all broke down and cried.”

  Those waiting outside the mine said it was only about 25 minutes before Skinner was leading the group back out to the amazed authorities.

  Josh’s miraculous rescue made national and international news, with kudos from U.S. President George H.W. Bush, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint President Gordon B. Hinckley.

  Skinner has stayed in touch with Josh.

“When he came back out here, I took him four-wheeling. And wouldn’t you know it, he wanted to go back and see the mine,” Skinner said.

Dennis served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is an illustrator for Church publications. According to a current bio, he has also served as a bishop and stake president.

   Today, Ophir has less than two dozen permanent residents. Weather-beaten remains of mining shacks and rusted rail cars share space with modern-day homes and summer cabins.

  You’ll also find the Ophir Historic District, where residents and descendants of early mining families collected some of the town’s old buildings. Lovingly furnished with family antiques, they honor Ophir’s mining glory days. When the town disincorporated in 2016, the Tooele County School District took over the city property, including the Historic District.

OPHIR’S MINING HISTORY

  Ophir’s mining history began during the Civil War, with Col. Patrick E. Connor, known as the “Father of Utah Mining.” He came to Utah in 1862 as commander of the Third California Volunteers, charged with protecting the overland mail route, and keeping an eye on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ak.a. “The Mormons.”

Connor encouraged his soldiers to prospect the area, figuring that a gold or silver rush would attract outsiders and break church president Brigham Young’s hold on the territory.

  In Rush Valley (southwest of the city of Tooele), the men noticed silver bullets and trinkets carried by the native Goshute tribe, who gathered pine nuts in the canyons, according to Tooele County’s Ophir History Project. Realizing silver ore must be nearby, they were led to what became the Treasure Hill Mine.

  Connor named the town of Stockton, Utah after his home in Stockton, Calif., and built a smelter there to process ore.

  In 1870, prospectors about 10 miles south of Stockton formed their own mining district, calling it “Ophir” for the gold mines mentioned in the Bible during King Solomon’s reign. But the area yielded more silver, lead, and zinc than gold. (The Mercur area, several miles to the south, ended up being the big gold-producer.)

  When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, it was possible to transport large amounts of ore across the country. But to get it from Ophir to the rail station in Corinne, Box Elder County, the was ore hauled to the edge of the Great Salt Lake (known as Lake Point), then loaded on barges and ferried north to Corinne in Box Elder County.

EARLY SETTLERS

  Skinner’s polygamous Mormon ancestors were among the area’s first permanent settlers. Ormus Ephraim Bates moved his family to a rach in Rush Valley. One of his sons discovered a vein of rich, high-grade “horn” silver ore on Ophir’s Lion Hill, named for the mountain lions that roamed there.

  “When they discovered high grade silver on Lion Hill, the mining boom took off,” Skinner said.

   By 1871, more than 2,500 mining claims were staked around Ophir, with names such as Treasure Hill, Silverado and Silver Chief.  One mine, the Shamrock, yielded the richest deposit of horn silver in the West — earning $27,000 per ton.

  Skinner’s great-grandfather, George Davie, immigrated to Utah after his family joined the Mormon Church. George’s father died before they could sail for America, and his mother died during the trip. George was taken in and raised by a Smith family in Erda before seeking his fortune in Ophir and marrying Ormus’s daughter, Lucelia Bates.

Another miner, Patsy Vario, immigrated from Italy, found his way to Ophir and raised his family there. I wrote about him in this separate story.

   Alfred Shelby Lineback was one of the earliest settlers. He came to Utah with Connor’s  Army and stayed there after his 1865 discharge. Born in Kentucky, he and his wife, Gulielma, were living in Iowa when he joined the Army in 1862. (Lineback is one of my ancestors, and I appreciated John Skinner’s records on his military service. Some of our relatives believe that he came to Utah with Johnston’s Army, but that would have placed him in Utah in 1857-8, which doesn’t seem likely given Skinner’s documents.)

   Lineback worked as a rancher, miner and stonemason. In 1874, he built the Lawrence Brothers & Co. store, now on the National Historic Register as one of Ophir’s oldest buildings.

  “Lineback was an interesting guy. He raised tobacco on his farm, and he also obtained a U.S. patent for a steam engine design,” said Skinner.

  Mining was a hazardous job. Alfred Lineback’s son, Fred, and Hyrum Hickman were asphyxiated by poisonous gas while working in a shaft near the Baltic Mine. 

  Skinner’s grandfather, James Young, the mining superintendent and town marshal, was one of the many miners who suffered from silicosis. Mechanical drills created clouds of silica dust that lodged in lungs and air passages, causing silicosis or “miner’s consumption.”

   Life outside the mines could prove just as risky. In 1871, Joseph Flax was shot and killed on the street by George Mellon, after the two quarreled over a knife that Flax was carrying.

  In 1883, William Kelly was killed by a Mr. Wyman, after an argument in Frank’s Saloon. “Kelly called Wyman a whining SOB,” Skinner said. “Wyman left and came back with a Winchester .30-30 rifle, and shot Kelly through the heart. But Wyman’s dad was a big attorney in Salt Lake and got him off.”

MINTING MILLIONAIRES

Several prominent men spent time in Ophir mines. Orrin Porter Rockwell, former bodyguard to Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and deputy marshal of Salt Lake City, had a mining claim on Lion Hill. After silver was discovered, he sold it to the Walker Brothers — four brothers who founded Walker Bank.

  Enos Andrew Wall was involved in Ophir and Mercur mines before making his fortune with the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine. His elegant mansion on Salt Lake City’s South Temple became LDS Business College and then the University of Utah’s Thomas S. Monson Center.

  Marcus Daly came to Ophir as an agent for the Walker Brothers. He ended up buying Montana’s Anaconda copper mine in Montana, which gave him the title of “Copper King.”

  W.A. Clark, owner of the Ophir Hill Mine, was another “Copper King” and U.S. senator from Montana.

  The mining industry attracted workers from many parts of the world. . Betty Johnson Sagers, born in Ophir in 1930, told her children she learned how to cook from the Greek and Italian immigrants. When she married and moved to the farming town of St. John in Tooele County, she deemed the meat-and-potatoes cooking there “boring,” said her son, Jerry Sagers.

  Skinner grew up exploring the old mines.  

  “It was just like walking into the past,” he said. “You’d find a shirt hanging on a nail, old lunch buckets, candle holders, carbide lamps and bottles, and there were no elements to destroy anything.”

  He hired on at the Ophir Hills Mine the day after his high school graduation in 1964, and worked there until it closed in December of 1971.

  “I enjoyed it,” he said. “It was good physical labor, but it paid well.”

Skinner’s hardest experience came in October 1971, when a friend, Stanley Holtzman, was killed in a cave-in. “I’d just taken his waste out with the motor, and when I came back in, that’s when we found that they’d been caved on back there.”

  Holtzman’s partner managed to crawl out with a fractured leg, but it took a couple of hours of digging to uncover Holtzman’s lifeless body.

  The mine closed a few months later, “Not because of the cave-in, but because the International Smelter near Tooele closed, and there was nowhere to ship the ore,” Skinner said.  

  The Tooele smelter, operating since 1910, shut down due to aging equipment and decreasing profits. According to a 1971 Deseret News article, the area mines closed because they couldn’t afford to ship ores to the nearest smelters in Texas, Montana or Idaho.

And so, the 101-year chapter of mining in Ophir came to an end.