Investigating the Town Swallowed by a Copper Mine

A black-and-white photograph of a grocery store in Bingham Canyon, Utah. Early-to-mid 20th century. It's not just a photo of an old store. It's a piece of family history — and not just mine.

My husband's grandfather grew up in Bingham/Copperton and shopped at this grocery store as a kid. His memory is still sharp today at 93, and he's told us stories about what life was like there before the mine swallowed the town.

My closest friend of 26 years — her great-grandparents owned and operated the store. Her Yia Yia (Greek for grandma) was born upstairs.

My grandpa-in-law even remembers them. It's such a strange, beautiful coincidence that we both have roots in a place that's now gone, from so long ago. We didn't live near there — maybe 50 miles away. Yet we are all connected to it.

The grocery store closed around 1970–72.

I remember field trips to the Kennecott Copper Mine as a kid. I bought and cracked open my first geode there. I ate a warm ham and cheese sandwich from a sandwich bag on a big playground, mostly by myself. I nearly missed the bus — I'd never been on one before, and it was a sea of buses from the entire district.

My husband didn't go to my elementary school, but he was there that day. We crossed paths many times before we ever met. We even graduated from different high schools the same day, at the same place — only a few hours apart. We met about nine months later, and I didn't know about the grocery store or town connection until a few years ago.

Back to the mine — I could see the massive open pit from my house, around 50 miles away. It was always something to see it lit up at night. They'd blast, and sometimes we could hear it.

When my mom was finishing radiation therapy (three times a week) at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, we'd go up to the Starbucks on the top floor afterward and get a coffee. I could see the copper mine from there like it was only 10 miles away. It's that big — and it was much further.

Bingham Canyon is a former city and current locality in Salt Lake County, Utah, situated in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains, approximately 17 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

The Bingham Canyon Mine — also known as the Kennecott Copper Mine — is an open-pit operation that expanded significantly over time, eventually engulfing the original townsite, which was abandoned in 1972. The pit is approximately 2.48 miles (4 km) wide and more than 0.74 miles (1.2 km) deep — taller than two Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other.

County: Salt Lake

ZIP Code: 84006

Notable Landmark: Bingham Canyon Mine — world's largest open-pit copper mine

Nearby Communities: Copperton, Herriman, Kearns

On April 10, 2013, the Bingham Canyon Mine experienced one of the largest landslides in North American history. Seismometers picked up two major events, each lasting about 90 seconds and separated by 1.5 hours — equivalent in energy to a magnitude 5.1 and 4.9 earthquake. Unlike a typical earthquake, the seismic signal confirmed it was a massive slide of rock and earth, not tectonic plates shifting. The landslide even triggered 16 small traditional earthquakes in the days that followed.

Thanks to advanced warning systems, the mine was evacuated beforehand. No injuries were reported.

A smaller landslide occurred on May 31, 2021. Again, monitoring systems detected movement in advance, personnel were evacuated, and no one was hurt — confirming the ongoing geological activity in the pit walls.

This story is still being researched and documented. The full investigation is published on The Stoa at Frostmere.