The story
Soldiers from Camp Douglas opened Ophir Canyon's silver in 1870 — the biblical name promised King Solomon riches — and the town rattled along for eighty years on silver, lead, and zinc, peaking over a thousand people in its 1870s heyday.
It never entirely emptied: a few dozen residents keep the canyon today, and the restored town hall, schoolhouse relics, and mining-camp cottages under the cottonwoods make Ophir the gentlest ghost-town visit near Salt Lake City.
What remains today
Town hall (small museum), historic cottages (occupied and not), mine portals and dumps up-canyon.
Questions from the field
- Does anyone live in Ophir?
- Yes — roughly two or three dozen residents. The town hall area is set up for visitors, with relocated historic buildings and mining relics.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Ophir — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Ophir's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 1431015
- — Tooele County records — Ophir district
- — Ophir town preservation committee