Diversity in Bingham Canyon

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 T. Mori Market (Courtesy Rio Tinto Kennecott Groundbreakers Collection).

At the turn of the twentieth century, Bingham Canyon was the epicenter of activity. Thousands of people from around the world flocked to the Oquirrh Mountains to work at the mines, smelters, and railroads. Despite this large influx of people, however, the narrow and steep topography of Bingham Canyon resulted in cramped conditions. Boardinghouses, saloons, theatres, and dance halls crowded the narrow canyon bottom, and houses climbed up the hillsides. Different languages filled the air. Tensions were high and fights often broke out between residents. 

According to researcher Helen Zeese Papanikolas, the first immigrants to Bingham Canyon were Irish. The potato famine from 1845 to 1852 in Ireland forced between 20-25% of the country’s inhabitants to flee to other countries and regions, particularly the United States. Irish arriving in the Utah territory often found work in the mines in Bingham Canyon and by 1870, the population along Bingham Canyon was mostly Irish. Chinese immigrants lived in Bingham Canyon starting in 1872 (Papanikolas 2019). By 1880, the Irish started to leave Bingham for work elsewhere, but there was still a large population of immigrants from the British Isles remaining in Bingham Canyon (Papanikolas 2019).

Between 1880 and 1890, immigrants from Finland and Sweden started to arrive at Bingham in substantial numbers. Italian immigrants followed, and then immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans (Papanikolas 2019). It was during this time that the Chinese laborers and shopkeepers began leaving the area. This was due to immigration policies such as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the country, as well as violence against Chinese laborers and shopkeepers by European and American miners in the region (Ruddell 2017). Following the departures of Chinese immigrants/laborers, Japanese and Korean immigrants would find employment in Bingham working on the Bingham-Garfield Railroad in the following decade (Papanikolas 2019). 

 Unidentified children in front of home. (Courtesy Rio Tinto Kennecott Groundbreakers Collection).

By 1911, 1,210 of the nearly 4,600 employees in Bingham Canyon were Greek immigrants. As was common at the time, they worked under a padrone system, where each immigrant paid an intermediary labor agent for employment. Additionally, workers from Eastern and Southern Europe earned $1.50 to $1.75 per day, which was half of what American workers made (Calton n.d.). Greek workers went on strike in 1912 to oppose the padrone system and for better pay. 

The Strike of 1912 would inadvertently result in an increase in diversity at Bingham. That year, 65% of the Bingham Canyon population was foreign-born (Bailey 1988). During the strike, Utah Copper brought in strikebreakers from Mexico. The Greek strikers resented the strikebreakers, causing many Mexicans to leave soon after arriving (Mayer 1976). Of those that did stay, they became the target of harassment by authorities, often charged with “slacking” and vagrancy (Bingham Bulletin, 11 January 1918).

"Mexican Slackers," Bingham Bulletin 11 January 1918. 

World War I (WWI) saw the enlisting of people from diverse backgrounds. In 1918, the Bingham Press-Bulletin reported that Kil Seurk Kim, a Korean descendant who moved to Bingham from Hawaii, joined “Uncle Sam’s Army” (Bingham Press-Bulletin, 15 February 1918). Ninety Serbians enlisted for the military as well in the Spring of 1918 (Bingham Press-Bulletin, 22 March 1918). That same year, the commercial club hosted an event to boost Liberty Bond sales among Japanese immigrants. A visiting professor from Tokyo, Japan was the main speaker. He urged the Japanese immigrants of Bingham to support the war effort against Germany. “If liberty is a lasting heritage of American democracy, then loyalty is the eternal legacy of the Japanese nation” (Bingham Press-Bulletin 4 October 1918). 

While immigrants registered for the military during WWI, some others became the focus of increased suspicion. All Germans who were not American citizens in Bingham in 1918 were subject to a registration (Bingham Press-Bulletin, 8 February 1918). A Salt Lake City newspaper accused Finnish immigrants of supporting the international labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and of agitating for a protest in Bingham. An estimated 125 Finnish immigrants crowded into the Swedish-Finnish Temperance Hall to object to the allegations (Bingham Press-Bulletin, 10 May 1918). 

Bingham Press-Bulletin 15 February 1918.

According to a report in 1919 from the Mining and Scientific Press, Bingham had over seven hundred laborers in the mines and on the railroads (Rickard 1919). Utah Copper Mine had 1,800 employees: 600 of these were American while 1,200 were immigrants (Spendlove 1937). Immigrant groups included Greeks, Italians, Albanians, Japanese, Koreans, Armenians, Austrians, and Mexicans. Mining companies separated each labor gang by nationality, with one gang boss who spoke English leading the group of workers. 

Not only did immigrants work separately, but they also lived independently from each other as segregated living quarters kept the groups apart (Rickard 1919). Greek immigrants lived in Copperfield. Finnish, Swedish, Norwegians, and Irish immigrants lived in Carr Fork. French Canadians and Anglo-Americans lived in Frogtown (Papanikolas 2019). Idow was a Japanese enclave that was near the Greek community in Upper Bingham. The Greek and Japanese men often frequented the same saloons where they wrestled and gambled against each other. Cuprum was the Irish community near the Denver and Rio Grande depot and railyard (Bailey 1988). 1200 Serbians, Croatians, and Italians lived in Phoenix and Highland Boy (Bailey 1988).

Each immigrant group also shopped separately from the others. “Each nationality had its own stores and bakeries. The Greeks had four bakeries, five candy stores, and ten coffeehouses where until the middle of the nineteen-twenties dancers clinking castanets came from time to time and the famous Kharaghiozis puppets of Greece and Asia Minor delighted men…” (Papanikolas 2019). Additionally, the immigrants living in Bingham often fought and Bingham Canyon was a dangerous mining town for many groups. “The Greeks, Serbians, Austrians, and Italians feuded with each other and among themselves. Killings were not unusual” (Papanikolas 2019). 

Bingham schools had thirty-two different nationalities represented in 1918 (Bingham Bulletin 4 January 1918.

Between 1907 and 1931, eighty-eight immigrants from Jabaloyas, a small village in the Spanish province of Teruel, moved to Bingham Canyon to work in the mines. Many of these workers returned to Spain with stories of their experiences. For example, one immigrant from Jabaloyas, Joaquín Domingo Valero, alternated between working as a miner in Bingham and as a sheepherder in Idaho. In 1914, Valero earned $2.20 per day as a trackman for the Utah Copper Company before sheepherding in Idaho. During WWI, in 1917, authorities detained Marcelino Martínez Valero for four days at Ellis Island while en route to Bingham Canyon. From there, Valero was able to contact his brother, who arranged for him to travel to Utah by train. (Hervás 2019).

New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (Including Castle Garden and Ellis Island) Arrived January 15, 1918.

Despite their differences, the people of Bingham Canyon did celebrate holidays and events, although sometimes they did so separately. The Fourth of July was an especially popular national holiday. Games such as tug-of-war, foot and sack racing, and horse and dog racing were activities that saw participation by all. People took buggies and stage wagons to an area called “the flat” to play baseball, have picnics, and watch fireworks. Residents competed in mining contests of double jacking, where two miners drilled holes in rock using heavy hammers (Spendlove 1937). Greeks celebrated Saints’ Day with barbequed lamb and music. Serbians celebrated Lossovo Day, which commemorated the battle between the Serbians and the Turks in 1389. Serbians celebrated with barbequed pork, music, and dancing (Papanikolas 2019). 

For entertainment, the people of Bingham saw plays in the Opera House, which had a seating capacity of 600. Starting in 1906, the Bingham Theatre Company hosted plays at the Opera House weekly on Sundays due to the restrictions on burlesque shows in Salt Lake City on a day considered holy to the prominent Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Admission to the Opera House ranged from $0.25 to $1.50 per person (Spendlove 1937). 

Churches played a significant role in facilitating relationships between immigrant and American communities. Catholic priests held baseball and basketball programs through the Catholic Youth Organizations. Franciscan Sisters added to the work to increase interactions between immigrant and American youth. Ada Duhigg, a deaconess of the Methodist Church, had a community house where all immigrant families were welcome. The community house had a kindergarten and a gymnasium. The community house also conducted funeral services (Papanikolas 2019). 

Bingham Canyon continued to be a center of diversity throughout the early decades of the twentieth century. People left their homes and traveled thousands of miles to come together to Bingham Canyon. While there were conflicts between these groups, they also accomplished much in the mines by working together. These immigrants came to Bingham Canyon with unique cultures and traditions creating a vibrant mining community. 

Two men stand in front of a house (Courtesy Rio Tinto Kennecott Groundbreakers Collection)

Bingham Canyon continued to be a diverse place as the mine grew. World War II brought in a new flood of immigrants looking to work in the mines. In 1953, the mine’s newspaper, The Kennoscope, boasted that it employed twenty different ethnicities (Calton 2018). The town of Bingham Canyon was eventually unincorporated, and the last vestiges of the town were dismantled in 1972. The remaining residents were forced to move. 

The many different immigrant groups that lived and worked in Bingham Canyon continued to raise their families in Utah, despite the closure of the mining town. Towns such as nearby Magna became thriving enclaves for these various immigrant descendants. People came from all over the world to work in Bingham Canyon mines, leaving behind homes in Japan, Greece, Ireland, and elsewhere. These miners, smelter workers, and businesspeople extended a diverse legacy that helped build Utah into what it is today.