During the early years of World War II, the United States Government sought to place strategic defense industries inland in case Japan invaded the West Coast, and the Utah coal reserves in the Book Cliffs became the logical source of metallurgical grade coal for steel making at the large Geneva Steel Mill built in Orem, Utah. The Geneva Coal Mine was developed in the Book Cliffs coal fields in 1942, and the Defense Plant Corporation oversaw construction and operation of both the steel mill and mine from 1942 to 1945. After the war, United States Steel Corporation purchased both facilities and operated them until the 1980's. The mine closed in 1982 and was later sold to the Kaiser Coal Company, which never opened or operated it. Over forty years of operation, the Geneva Coal Mine produced more than thirty million tons of coal, almost all of it for the Geneva Steel Mill, and during the war years it neared peak production of one million tons annually while employing nearly eight hundred people. Over time, mine employees welded their names onto large steel plates covering sumps and pits in the maintenance buildings, and those plates were preserved in tribute to the employees of the U.S. Steel Corporation's Geneva Coal Mine. In 1990, the Intermountain Power Agency acquired the mine and South Lease Coal Reserves from Kaiser Coal Company, and in 1990-91 it reclaimed major portions of the surface mining facilities.