The five-year restoration of the historic Silver King Coaltion Mine's Headframe Building is set to be honored with an award Thursday and a public celebration Friday.
The silver mine was built in 1891 and closed in 1953 when metal prices dropped below profitable levels, according to the Park City Museum. Its main building, the Headframe Building, then sat untouched for seven decades.
Deterioration
With the construction of the Bonanza lift in the 1990s near the mine, the shaft beneath the Headframe building was partially filled in with earth. However, over the next three decades, the shaft became less stable.
Heavy snowfall in the 2022-2023 winter season caused further pressure on the site and the shaft began collapsing.
"We needed to get that shaft stabilized so it wouldn't collapse any further. Luckily, we were able to team with the state of Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. And they were tremendous to help us get that shaft stabilized and closed permanently. That allowed us to go and preserve the rest of the building. It would have been unwise to spend our donors’money to try to repair the building itself if there was a potential for the shaft to collapse and take the whole thing with it," Brian Buck, the restoration project's manager, told "Local News Hour" Wednesday.
RELATED: $1.6M Silver King Coalition Mine project wins Preservation Utah award
The shaft was quickly filled with an environmentally approved polyurethane foam.
Buck said the foam was poured down the shaft in a liquid form, which expanded to attach to the walls of the shaft as a stiff, cork-like substance. Engineers topped the solidified foam with crushed rock and finally, an 18-inch-thick concrete slab.
Restoration
While the state funded the shaft closure, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History paid for the Headframe building's restoration. The group's co-founder, Sally Elliott, said the building was historically important.
“The Silver King was probably the most financially successful mine, and it gave us some of our greatest characters: Tom Kearns, David Keith and John Judge and Jim Ivers,” she said. “It's really provided us with wonderful human-interest stories that we love to tell our hikers and bikers and history lovers.”
Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History is set to receive the Cindy Matsumoto Historical Preservation award at Thursday’s Park City Council meeting.
Park City Municipal will also host a historic preservation celebration at the McPolin Barn from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday.
The event is open to the public and invites community members to connect with those who worked on the project and celebrate the city's heritage.
The event will include music from DJ Silver King, refreshments and tours.
Free parking and a shuttle to the farm will be available from the North Marsac lot at City Hall and the Munchkin Road lot from 3:30 to 7 p.m. A bike valet will also be available on site.
Community members planning to attend the event are encouraged to RSVP here.
