Mercur - A Utah Ghost Town - Mercur, Utah - Ghost Towns on Waymarking.com

The only thing left of the town of Mercur is an abandoned cememtery located atop a hillside along the road, and the Barrick Gold mine, presently undergoing reclamation and restoration.

"Mercur, formerly called Lewiston, was a town that refused to die. During the 1860s, a few hardy prospectors eked out an existence by mining in Lewiston Canyon. Results were meager. The thought was if there were a few good nuggets here and there, there must more and better deposits somewhere in the canyon. Persistence paid off as good deposits were found. Gradually, as the word spread, miners came to town to work the silver mines and soon a real boom developed. When the boom died in 1880, Lewiston died with it. Now came a rebirth. A lone prospector came to the deserted town looking for a deposit of gold. What he discovered was evidence of quicksilver, a vein of cinnabar. He named his claim by his word for mercury, Mercur. Assayed, the ore showed a good content of gold worth more than the mercury. Efforts to get the gold out of the rock proved to too expensive. The town, now named Mercur, died once again. Next came a group of men with financial resources dedicated to finding a way to extract the gold from the rock. They succeeded and Mercur rose again to be a boomtown. During the early part of 1896, a fire nearly destroyed the entire town. Mercur was soon rebuilt and was again destroyed by fire in 1902. Again rebuilt, the current boom lasted until 1913 when deposits seemed to be failing. By 1925, Mercur was once again a ghost town".

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Reason for Abandonment: Economic Date Abandoned: 01/01/1925 Related Web Page: [Web Link]

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