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KENNECOTT COPPER MINE — A new exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts features work from artists around the world who’ve attempted to capture the grandeur of the Bingham Copper Mine in paintings and photographs.
“Creation and Erasure: Art of the Bingham Copper Mine” has special meaning for one Utah man, who grew up calling the mine his playground.
Dinkyville, Frogtown, Freeman Gulch, Greek Camp and Highland Boy are all colorful names for the communities that once existed in Bingham Canyon.
“There was about 40, 50 different nationalities up there. Hardly any of them spoke English. My friends, I couldn't tell what they were until I would hear their mom calling them in different languages,” said Manuel Duran, a former resident of Bingham Canyon. “You would pass from house to house and you would know what kind of people lived there because of the kitchens."
Duran’s father worked as an explosives expert.
“He’s a powder monkey,” he said. “They would clear the holes and then they would put more dynamite in.”
It was a dangerous job, but one that fascinated Duran.
“I would go up there with my dad and watch him do this,” he said. “Spend time with him up there, learn a little about dynamite.”
Duran reminisces about the time he nearly blew himself up while playing a game of war with some of his friends.
“We’d throw it against each other, and boom! I threw one and it didn’t go off. … I walked up to it and it blew,” he said. “I don’t know how long it took me before I came to, and all the kids were grabbing me.”
As Duran looked over the photographs in the exibit, he reminisced about the town, the mine and his many escapades.
It was a good place to live. People would help each other, they were great people.
–Manuel Duran
“The roads were so narrow that only one car could go up and down,” he said. “I could hear those machines all day and all night.”
Life in Bingham may have been fun, but also a challenge.
“That was one thing about Kennecott, they'd have strikes all the time and they could never get caught up,” Duran said. “My shoes, my dad use to sole them with the tires. He'd cut pieces of the tires and put them there.”
During those times, Duran also found ways of helping his family by selling ore to the tourists.
“We used to go up and take them from the ore cars, and then we made smaller ones out of them and sold them for a quarter apiece,” he said. “I made about $300 one summer. I always gave my mom the money. She used it to buy me and my siblings clothes for school.”
Looking over the exhibit, one can gain an appreciation for the deep, rich history in the artwork and photographs that show the people, the communities and the whole spectrum of the mine changing over time.
“It was a good place to live. People would help each other, they were great people,” said Duran. “I just look at the places and see more or less where I lived, where Bingham was. The areas I used to walk compared to the mine and that now. I don't recognize any place. All of them are gone.”
