Governor Clyde

Correspondence of Governor Clyde and his personal staff, with state agencies, federal officials, governors, the public and friends and family, regarding those activities that the governor handled directly.

On 11 July 1870 miners in the St. John precinct of Tooele County met to organize the Shambip Mining District. Boundaries for the district extended from the school house, where they met, north to the summit of the dividing ridge of the Grantsville Pass, west across the mountains between Rush and Skull Valleys, south following the base of the Skull Valley side to a point east of Look Out Station, then east to a point east of the old Faust Station. According to established precedent, which was later validated when Congress passed a federal mining law, mineral deposits in the public domain were free and open to exploration, and locators of the same had exclusive right of possession. In local areas miners organized mining districts and elected district recorders to oversee mining operations and keep records of claims. (See Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations, of the United States of America, vol. 17, 1872, chap. 152). The 1870s was a boom period for silver mining in the Tooele County area.