Bingham Canyon began in August 1848 when Sanford and Thomas Bingham, two young Mormon pioneers, settled in the narrow canyon to herd cattle. Within a few years, the area supplied timber for local saw mills, and much of the timber used to build the Salt Lake Tabernacle came from the canyon. In 1850 the Bingham brothers took samples of assayed ore to Brigham Young, who advised them not to begin mining then. After the discovery of silver- and gold-containing ore in the fall of 1863, the West Mountain mining district, embracing the entire Oquirrh Range, was organized. Fewer than one hundred people lived there in 1868, but by 1880 the population had grown to 1,022. About 1893 Col. Enos A. Wall located ground containing millions of pounds of copper, and the Utah Copper Company began large-scale mining operations in 1904. The town was incorporated as a city on February 29, 1904. Its history included people of many nations, including Greeks, Italians, Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, British, and Australians. The prosperous Bingham Mine led the nation in copper production, but the prosperity that built the town also hastened its death. The land where the town stood became part of the Kennecott Copper Open Pit Mine. The 1970 census recorded that the population of Bingham Canyon, once a roaring mining town of 15,000, had dwindled to thirty-one people, and on November 22, 1971, a special proposition to disincorporate the town passed. After 123 years, Bingham Canyon was dead.