San Juan County (Utah). County Recorder Mining location notices (lode claims), 1900-1951.

The San Juan County recorder kept a separate set of books in which to record location notices for lode claims. Federal mining law outlined that the first step toward ownership of mineral deposits in the public domain was the discovery of a potentially productive site and recording a claim or notice of location. (see Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations, of the United States of America, vol. XVII, chap. 152, also Revised Statutes of the United States, chap. 6, title 32). Lode location notices are defined in terms of identified sections of veins or lodes of quartz or other rock bearing gold, silver or other precious metals. By federal law, lode claims could not exceed 1500 feet along the lode. Each claim in these books serves as notification that the undersigned locator has complied with United States and local laws and is entitled to a certain specifically named claim. Each notice identifies the names of locators, names and describes the claim, and provides dates of locationand filing. Most of the notices in these books do not identify a mining district, nor do they indicate the locator's objective. However, occasionally stated objectives were copper and uranium. A proliferation of notices recorded 1948-1951 can be attributed to uranium development which became important in San Juan County after World War II.