The story
Frisco erupted around the Horn Silver Mine, for a time the richest silver producer on earth, and by the early 1880s held perhaps 4,000 people and a reputation as Utah's most violent town — twenty-odd saloons and a marshal remembered for shooting first.
In February 1885 the great mine caved in on itself — miraculously between shifts — and the ore, and the town, never fully recovered; mining sputtered until about 1920. What survives is uncommonly photogenic: five charcoal kilns like giant beehives, cemetery, headframes, and rubble rows along the highway shoulder of the San Francisco Mountains.
What remains today
Five well-preserved charcoal kilns (a listed landmark), mine head structures, cemetery, and foundations, right off UT-21.
From the archives
Frisco Charcoal Kilns, State Route 21 (Frisco), Milford, Beaver County, UT
Frisco Charcoal Kilns, Smelter, State Route 21 (Frisco), Milford, Beaver County, UT
Frisco Charcoal Kilns, Kiln No. 3, State Route 21 (Frisco), Milford, Beaver County, UT
Frisco Charcoal Kilns, Kiln No. 4, State Route 21 (Frisco), Milford, Beaver County, UT
Source: Library of Congress digital collections.
Questions from the field
- What are the beehive structures at Frisco?
- Charcoal kilns — they baked wood into the charcoal that fed the smelters. Frisco's five are among the best-preserved in the West and are a National Register site.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
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Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 1435559
- — NRHP — Frisco charcoal kilns
- — Utah Geological Survey — San Francisco district