Exploring the Old Family Mines at Cottonwood

From the other side of the wash we spot a portal to an old mine shaft. It is sealed shut with bricks. Disappointed, we continue to walk along the wash and within a minute we find another opening. This portal is smaller in size and a low mound of earth lies below it.
 
I leave the girls on the bank and slosh through the stream to the other side. With water dripping from my shoes I climb up the bank and stop in front of the opening. A cold draft issues from within. I poke my head through the orifice and peer inside. This is definitely a shaft!
 
With a little coercion, I persuade my two girls (ages 13 and 15) to come explore the mine with me. They don't want to get their feet wet so I carry them, one at a time, on my back over the water. On our bellies we slide into the shaft and once inside we are all able to stand up.
 

Sealed portal near Cottonwood Creek.

We found this entrance to the mine.

The mine is dry and the rock all around appears to be solid. I place my finger over my lips, telling the girls to only whisper. I would hate to trigger any sort of collapse. (As it is, I feel a little guilty for taking my daughters into a potentially dangerous place.)
 
With flashlight in-hand we walk through a tunnel that runs perpendicular to the portal we just entered. Within a minute it comes to a "T" with the main body going to the right. On our left we can now see the back end of the bricked-up adit we had spotted earlier.
 
We follow the main shaft that now runs deeper into the hillside. Lying on the ground is a gallon-sized oil can that looks like it came from the 1960's, but within this cavern it has been preserved as if it were purchased yesterday.
 
Above us on the ceiling of the tunnel is the yellow outline of uranium. This is what the miners were looking for. They called them trees and I believe at one time they were real trees that lived on the outside. The miners here also excavated carnotite and vanadium.
 
Continuing deeper into the mine we come to another fork. The right-hand passage is a dead end. We turn left and come into a larger chamber. Several thick pillars of juniper look as if they are placed to support the tunnel. The shaft continues in deeper, but Jenna is becoming a little spooked, so we decide this is far enough. But before we leave, I decide it is necessary to turn off the flashlight and for a moment experience true darkness. I snuff our light and as expected it is pitch black.
 

Cottonwood Creek.

The mines in Cottonwood run deep in my family. In 1931, my great-grandfather, Seth Shumway, and his brothers Arah, Harris and Lee were the first to haul ore from this area. But they did not discover the minerals.
 
As the story goes, the minerals were discovered that same year by a sheepherder named Benitio Sanchez. Near one of the springs he found an outcropping with some interesting rocks. He took a sample to his employer, Tom Jones, hoping it contained gold or silver. Tom, in turn, took it to his neighbor, Arah Shumway, who had an interest in minerals and had worked in the mines with his brother. Arah determined it was carnotite, a combination of uranium, radium and vanadium.
 
Since it contained no gold or silver, neither Tom Jones nor Benito Sanchez had interest in it. But they gave a description to Arah of where it was found. The next day Arah and Harris walked from Blanding to Cottonwood (about seven miles) to search for the exact location. When they couldn't find it they returned to Blanding and consulted with Tom to refine their search. They returned again and this time found Benito's campsite and ten outcroppings of carnotite. That day they staked ten claims. The rest is history.
 
For the next several decades, at least three generations of Shumways, which included son-in-laws, friends and cousins, worked the mines at Cottonwood. The surrounding area became a second home to their families. Some became rich and others broke. It was a place of pleasant memories as well as tragedy.
 

Anasazi ruins on a ledge in Cottonwood.

Outside the mine we begin to explore the proximity. The creek is a good nine inches deep, which is higher than normal. The flow is not perennial and usually dries up by fall. But we've had a wet winter and are now reaping the benefits. Cottonwood trees grow from the banks, concealing any evidence of a mine from the main road.
 
Through a thicket of willows, out of reach on a clifftop, we find a stone dwelling. Built by the Anasazi over 800 years ago, it is much more ancient than the mines. Although it is still well intact, I'm sure it has been picked clean of artifacts considering that the Shumways worked next door. The Shumways have a notorious reputation in the field of antiquities collection, and I'm sure much of it was procured during their spare time while working the mines.
 
Nearby is a quaint little pond. It is hidden from view by a small hill and a thick growth of vegetation. Upon closer examination, Jenna discovers a sealed mine shaft at the far end of the pond. It is sealed off with brickwork, just like the other portal we found. It is partially submerged in water. More than likely, this shaft was a “wet mine,” one which continually seeps water and which often needs a pump to drain the seepage. If left unattended it can create a body of water.
 
On our way back to the vehicle we find an old wooden structure and a few other mining relics scattered about. We find a reclaimed shaft that goes directly into the ground at a diagonal slant. We don't have a lot of time to wander, but I wonder what we'd find if we had all day to look around?
 

Mining debris near Cottonwood Mill.

We are fortunate to have been able to drive to the mines on a good graveled road. That wasn't always the case. As stated earlier, Arah and Harris had to walk to get here. My great-uncle, Merwin Shumway, described how the first road was built into Cottonwood: “. . . we had no way to haul ore except a little old pickup. To get the pickup into the mines we had to build a road from above Cottonwood, down through the sagebrush flats and into the Cottonwood area where the mill was. We grubbed the brush and piled it aside just wide enough that our pickup could haul in the parts to build the mill. That was the first super highway in Cottonwood.”
 
This road later became maintained by the county and has been used by countless people to access the mines. When the weather was good my grandma Shumway would drive the family to Cottonwood and have a picnic lunch with my grandpa, Burdett. My mom recalls that Cottonwood was always her favorite destination. As a girl she and her sisters could stay entertained for hours playing in the sand and water. They caught polliwogs and collected rocks. Even I remember as a child going to Cottonwood for family outings and playing games up on the bench and watching what seemed like a raging river when I look over the bank toward the wash. Of course, by that time Grandpa was gone and the mining days of Cottonwood were long over.
 

Ruins of Cottonwood Mill #3.

We drive a short distance up the road and come to the ruins of the old mill. The girls and I get out and wander around. I've driven past here dozens of times, but this might be the first time I've stopped to explore.
 
Mostly what is left are the foundations of several buildings and scraps of debris. To my untrained eye I have no clue how to piece things together, nor do I know what they used to be. Many of the foundations appear to have had a greater function, with workings at the base that may be concrete conduits of some sort. There are also piles of ocher-colored brick and rusty wires and cables.
 

Scattered bricks at Cottonwood Mill.

The first mill on this site was built in 1937. Frank Garbutt, a movie producer from Los Angeles, financed the mill, and Howard Kimmerle, who had experimented with vanadium recovery methods, managed the project. “[The mill] was built on a slope above the creek to allow gravity-feed for the milling process. Ore was hauled up the ramp at the top of the building and dumped into the roaster. Leach and precipitation tanks were on the lower levels, and at the bottom was the fuser for creating the vanadium oxide product.”—Nearly a year after the mill was built, it burned to the ground as a result of the high temperatures used to roast the ore.
 
The mill was rebuilt in 1938. Kimmerle added a few frame houses, a blacksmith shop and a boarding house. Again, the mill burned down.
 
In 1943, Cottonwood Mill #3 was built on the same site. The ruins we walk through today are from this mill. The venture was short-lived as the owners had a large debt and the ore contained high contents of lime, which made the mill unprofitable.
 
As the mill was dismantled, my grandma and grandpa Shumway purchased one of the buildings to use as a home. They went out to Cottonwood and chose from several of the structures a long and narrow building. They had to cut it in half to haul it back to town where they reassembled it in an “L” shape. Friends and family helped put up wall paper and finish off the inside. It was an exciting new home for my grandparents and their new baby, Sandy.
 

L to R in back: Burdett, DeVar, Deloy Shumway.  Merwin Shumway, sitting. (DeVar Shumway photo)

On the other side of the hill from the old Cottonwood Mill site is the supposed location of the Springwater Mine. This is located on the east bank of Cottonwood and near the confluence with Brushy Basin Wash, which is almost always dry. A light amount of mining debris is scattered about the hillside.  
 
This area is hallowed to our family because it was here on December 14, 1964 that my grandpa, Burdett Shumway, was killed inside the mine.
 
The Springwater Mine is a very, very wet mine. On that day Burdett and his cousin, Cleon Shumway, were standing in two feet of water drilling holes and loading them with fuses and powder that had been prepared. One of the fuses must have been faulty, because the first round blew shortly after lighting it. Cleon was thrown twenty feet away and managed to crawl out of the mine badly injured. Burdett didn't make it and was trapped inside while twenty-three more rounds fired off. To put it mildly, it was a very sad day for everyone.
 
As to the exact location of the portal for the Springwater Mine, it depends on who you ask. I have heard that it has been reclaimed and also that it is still open. With my dad I have walked all over in that area and have not found a single portal. We did, however, find what appears to be the remnants of a reclaimed shaft that fits the description given by one of the old-timers who helped carry the body of my grandpa out of the mine.
 
As an interesting side-note, I found an article by LaVerne Tate, whose family has worked extensively in the Springwater Mine. She concludes with an intriguing comment: “The Springwater Mine has become a quiet pond in its natural environment, fed by the natural springs within the mine itself, disguising its real 'glory hole nature.'”
 
Now I'm wondering if the sealed off mine on the edge of a pond that we saw earlier is really that of the Springwater Mine? It is definitely a possibility to consider. ♠ 

Could this be a portal to the Springwater Mine?

Sources

Bennett, Lee A. “Uranium Mining in San Juan County, Utah: South Cottonwood Creek and Elk Ridge.” Blue Mountain Shadows, vol. 26, Feb. 2002, pp. 14–43.

Lacy, Toni. “Mining and Families: A Dynamite Mix.” Blue Mountain Shadows, vol. 25, Nov. 2001, pp. 41–49.

Tate, LaVerne. “The Springwater Mine.” Blue Mountain Shadows, vol. 25, Nov. 2001, pp. 71–74.

Wilcox, Janet. “Mining with the Shumways: A Closer Look at Cottonwood.” Blue Mountain Shadows, vol. 16, Nov. 1995, pp. 47–54.