Mercur, Utah

Mercur is a historical hard rock mining ghost town in Tooele County, Utah, United States.

A million dollars worth of silver bullion was shipped down the valley, but the ore quickly gave out, and Lewiston became a ghost town by 1880.

One of the Nebraska partners, Gilbert S. "Gill" Peyton, a former druggist, heard of the new but unperfected cyanide process and gave it a try.

Fearful of losing his and his relatives investment, he solved the difficulties of the new method on the ores, and by December 1891 proved that the cyanide process worked – the first such successful operation in the United States.

(Brown's niece married Dern's son George, who became a manager of Mercur Con, a successful mining engineer, and Utah governor, 1925-1933; he then served as Secretary of War under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1936).

In 1902, Joseph DeLamar sold the Golden Gate operation to the Derns and partners, who formed the Mercur Consolidated.

Brown became a Utah banker and promoter of horse racing while Peyton began working mines across the country and in Mexico.

Their success in both bringing church members out and possibly having some convert baptisms led to the organization of a ward in Mercur on July 1, 1900 with George W. Bryan as bishop.

Mercur supported a large Italian immigrant community; young men were attracted by the opportunity of high wages and the romance of the American "wild west".