Interaction

Human and Environment Interaction in Uintah County

Early Human-Environment-Environment-Human interaction in Uintah included the trapping/farming of Minks, mines, ranching, and farms.

Picture of Ted Colton, owner of Colton Mink Farm in Vernal, Utah holding a mink in 1956

Colton Mink Farm in 1956.

In about 1888 Gilsonite was discovered in various parts of the county and on the eastern portion of the Uncompahgre and Uintah reservations. Miners quickly persuaded the federal government to withdraw 7,000 acres from the Uintah Reservation so that they could legally mine Gilsonite. This area, called "The Strip," for a time lacked any law and order.

Later on, the mining of Glisonite in Uintah became a huge business;

however, it was later criticized after the Bonanza Mine Explosion.

This explosion in Bonanza, UT on November 5, 1953 killed eight and injured three.

"Vernal, Utah -- A violent explosion, followed by fire, today trapped and killed at least eight men in an open pit mine..."

""I started to run as pieces of burning timber and gilsonite fell all around me," Orman Stephens said. The fire, he reported, was so violent that it singed the backs of men running "quite a ways" from the mine."

"The explosion, at 8:10 a.m., aroused the entire mining community, along the Utah - Colorado border, "and pretty soon fire trucks and ambulances started coming in from all over.""

1954

W.G. Bush, Owner of Bush Drilling Company, had trucks and equipment which he used to do uranium exploration, drill cores, and drill for water wells in the Uintah Basin.

In 1861 a group sent by Brigham Young to explore the area declared it a “waste and valueless.” Then in 1873 a group of people entered the Ashley valley to raise livestock, an industry that has become very important to the area.

Dick Brewer, Harry Tomlinson, Johny Mock and Rube Squire Branding Cattle in Uintah Basin

Cattle Roundup in Uintah County

Cattle in Vernal

Back then farming consisted of corn, alfalfa and other crops.

1904 farm scene in Vernal

Alfalfa

Today, farming and ranching in Uintah is pretty much the same, with animals ranging from Milk cows to Beef Cows to Sheep and Lambs, and crops ranging from Alfalfa to Hay to Corn and Grain.