Bingham Canyon

Bingham Canyon was named for Erastus Bingham and his sons Sanford and Thomas, Utah pioneers of 1847, who in 1848 took up grazing land in this vicinity, first for private herds and later as a community enterprise. They built a small cabin at the mouth of the canyon, where Sanford, his bride Martha Ann Lewis, and Thomas, a member of the Mormon Battalion, made their home. An accidental discovery of mineral-bearing rock led to some prospecting with promising indications, but Brigham Young advised that producing food for the settlers and the thousands who were coming was more urgent than mining, so the Binghams abandoned prospecting with the intention of developing it later. In 1850, the Bingham family moved to Ogden, established Bingham's Fort for protection from hostile Indians, assisted in pioneering Weber County, and did not return to Bingham Canyon.

Utah · United States