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Charles Steen

October 23, 2023

Charles Augustus Steen (December 1, 1919 – January 1, 2006) was a geologist who made and lost a fortune after discovering a rich uranium deposit in Utah during the uranium boom of the early 1950s.[1]

Charles A. Steen (1919-2006)

Early years Edit

Charlie Steen was born in 1919 in Caddo, Stephens County, Texas, the son of Charles A. and Rosalie Wilson Steen, and attended high school in Houston. As a teen Steen worked summers for a construction company that helped finance his education; this is the same company that his first stepfather Lisle had died working at.[2] He went on to study at John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephenville, Texas, where he met his wife Minnie Lee Holland, and in 1940 transferred to the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in geology in 1943.[1][3]

Ineligible for the draft because of his poor eyesight, Steen spent World War II working as a petroleum geologist in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia and Peru. Returning to Texas in 1945, he married Minnie Lee ("M.L."). He started graduate school at the University of Chicago but after a year returned to Houston to take a job doing field work for the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. However, within two years he had been fired for insubordination and had trouble getting a job as a geologist anywhere in the oil industry.[1]

The uranium boom Edit

 
Steen's camp at Yellow Cat (near Cisco, Utah) in 1950

While unemployed, Steen read in the December 1949 issue of The Engineering and Mining Journal that the United States federal government had issued incentives for domestic uranium prospectors. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission had the authority to withdraw lands from the private sector in order to examine them as possible sites for uranium mining. During World War II, the Manhattan Project had received most of its uranium from foreign sources in Canada and the Belgian Congo. However, it had also received some from vanadium miners in the American Southwest, where uranium was often a by-product of mining (before the atomic bomb uranium was not a valuable metal). There was a concern that the United States would not have enough domestic supply of uranium for its nuclear weapons program.[1]

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Atomic Energy Commission established itself as the only legal buyer of uranium in the U.S. and artificially manipulated prices to reflect their current uranium needs. By raising the price of uranium, they created an incentive for prospectors in the Four Corners region.[1]

Despite the fact that his three sons, Johnny, Andy and Charles Jr. were all less than four years old and his wife was expecting another child, Steen borrowed $1,000 from his mother and headed for the Colorado Plateau, determined to strike it rich.[4] After being in Colorado for several months, the Steens moved into a tarpaper shack in Cisco, Utah. Steen and his family were struggling to get by and were often hungry so Charlie made the decision to move his family to Tucson, Arizona. Steen worked as a carpenter in Tucson for about a year before he returned to his claims in Utah. He and his family once again packed up and headed to their claims. This final trip back to Utah would be the most detrimental for the family because Steen's wife contracted pneumonia, and her medical bills consumed the $350 remaining from the sale of Steen's trailer.[2]

Steen could not afford the standard radiation-detecting equipment used by uranium prospectors - the Geiger counter. Instead, he used a secondhand diamond drill rig and his geologic training for his prospecting. At the time, each prospector had his own idiosyncratic theory about where to find uranium. The uranium industry was composed primarily of individual prospectors and geologists who would attempt to find a large deposit and either mine it for themselves or mine it for a large company (such as Union Carbide) who would transport the ore from the mine to the uranium mill where it could be converted into yellowcake. Steen's theory on uranium deposits was that they would collect in anticlinal structures in the same manner as oil, which others on the Plateau dismissed as "Steen's Folly".[5][6]

Mi Vida uranium deposit Edit

 
Steen the day after the discovery at "Mi Vida"

On July 6, 1952, Steen hit it big but he didn't realize until three weeks later. He was drilling down through the layers of sandstone when his drill bit broke off at a depth of 197 feet, just 3 feet short of his goal. Finding this massive deposit of uranium ore only became apparent when he took a piece of the blackish core he found while drilling weeks earlier back to Cisco. He stopped to fill up his jeep and decided to have the core tested by a friend with a Geiger counter and they found that the piece made the Geiger counter needle fluctuate wildly. The high grade uranium deposit was located at Big Indian Wash of Lisbon Valley, southeast of Moab, Utah (38°11′24″N 109°15′36″W / 38.19000°N 109.26000°W / 38.19000; -109.26000). Sometimes recognized as one of the most important deposits of any kind found during the last century, the claim was named the "Mi Vida" mine (My Life) by Steen. The Mi Vida mine was one of the first big strikes of the uranium boom. Steen made millions off his claims, and provoked a "Uranium Rush" of prospectors into the Four Corners region, similar to the Gold Rush of the 1850s in California.[7]

 
Steen's $11 million Uranium Reduction Co. (Atlas Mill), Moab, Utah

In Moab, Steen built a $250,000 hilltop mansion to replace his tarpaper shack, with a swimming pool, greenhouse, and servants' quarters. As of 2022 the home he built still stands and has been transformed into a restaurant called The Sunset Grill, named because the structure looks over the valley towards the sunset in the west. He also formed a number of companies to continue his uranium work, including the Utex Exploration Company, the Moab Drilling Company, the Mi Vida Company, Big Indian Mines, Inc., and later the Uranium Reduction Company. He made his money well-known, inviting the entire population of Moab to annual parties in a local airport hangar, having his original worn prospecting boots bronzed, and flying to Salt Lake City in his private plane for weekly rumba lessons. He donated $50,000 towards a new hospital in Moab and gave land for churches and schools.[8]

Political involvement Edit

Steen was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1958, but quickly became disillusioned with politics. He resigned from office in 1961 and moved to a ranch near Reno, Nevada, building a 27,000 square foot (2,500 m2) mansion near the residence of the Comstock millionaire miner, Sandy Bowers. He sold the Utex Exploration Company and the Uranium Reduction Company in 1962.[9]

After the uranium rush Edit

By the late 1950s, the US government had enough uranium for its needs and had stopped supporting high prices of the ore, killing the market by 1960. Steen attempted to diversify his interests by investing in Arabian horse breeding, a marble quarry, an airplane factory, a pickle plant, and real estate. He met with financial losses and misfortune. In 1968 he filed for bankruptcy after the Internal Revenue Service seized his assets to pay back taxes. In 1971 he suffered a severe head injury working on a copper prospect.[3][9]

Death Edit

Long-suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Steen died on January 1, 2006, in Loveland, Colorado. Minnie Lee died on July 14, 1997. Their ashes were scattered at the Mi Vida mine site.[3][4]

Legacy Edit

Steen's legacy lives on through his four sons who were once the recipients of a $130 million fortune that their father lost after the decline of the uranium market in the late 1950s. Although Steen lost most of his fortune after the uranium crash due to poor money management and frivolous spending, he is still recognized for his Cold War contributions for supplying the United States with all of the uranium it needed for its weapons program. His story about finding the Mi Vida mine inspired two films and several books[citation needed] along with getting the small desert town of Moab, Utah, on the map as "The Uranium Capital of the World" and the "Richest Town in America". After Steen struck it rich, he requested that Congress allow him to build his own mill without government funding, resulting in the only major atomic facility to be privately funded.

On November 4, 2016, a historical marker commemorating the Lisbon Valley's uranium heritage and noting Charlie Steen's discovery was dedicated on the Anticline Overlook road off U.S. 191. The marker was funded entirely by private donations. Artist Michael Ford Dunton created an arch to frame the historical marker and the view to the location of the Mi Vida mine, seven miles east of the marker.[10]

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ a b c d e Steen, Mark (February–March 2002). ""My Old Man": The Uranium King. Part 1". Canyon Country Zephyr. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  2. ^ a b Harkavy, ward (1998). "Fallout in the Family". Westword.
  3. ^ a b c Church, Lisa J. (March 24, 2006). "'Uranium King' altered Moab 'forever'". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  4. ^ a b "End of an era: The Uranium King is Dead". The Moab Times-Independent. Mar 22, 2006. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  5. ^ "Steen, Charles A." Mining Hall of Fame Inductees Database. National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. 1996. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  6. ^ Steen, Mark (April–May 2002). ""My Old Man": The Uranium King. Part 2". Canyon Country Zephyr. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  7. ^ Buckley, Jensen. . San Juan Record. San Juan Record. Archived from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  8. ^ Steen, Mark (August–September 2002). ""My Old Man": The Uranium King. Part 4". Canyon Country Zephyr. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  9. ^ a b Nielsen, Russel (Oct 16, 1968). "Made fortune in uranium, prospector fights to keep it". The Milwaukee Journal. p. 1. Retrieved 17 Oct 2013.
  10. ^ Marcello, Molly (27 October 2016). "New historical marker installed near Lisbon Valley mine site commemorates region's complex uranium heritage". The Times-Independent. Moab, UT. Retrieved 22 November 2016.

[1]

Further reading Edit

  • Look, Al (1956). U-Boom. Bell.
  • The Mountain States. Time Life Books Inc. 1967. OCLC 1973746.
  • Taylor, Raymond W. and Samuel W. (1970). Uranium Fever or No Talk Under $1 Million. MacMillan. OCLC 73745.
  • Ringholz, Raye Carleson (1989). Uranium Frenzy: Boom and Bust on the Colorado Plateau. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. ISBN 0-393-02644-2.
  • Amundson, Michael (2002). Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 0-87081-662-4.
  • McCourt, Tom (2007). The Moab Story: From Cowpokes to Bike Spokes. Johnson Books Boulder. ISBN 978-1-55566-396-4.
  • Zoellner, Tom (2009). Uranium: War, Energy, And The Rock That Shaped The World. Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02064-5.
  • Steen, Charles A. (1952). Uranium Mining Operations of the Utex Exploration Co. in the Big Indian District. San Juan County, Utah. Information Circular 7669. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Washington D.C. :GPO.

External links Edit

  • Steen: A legend in his own time
  • Moab Historical Museum
  1. ^ . Archived from the original on 2016-09-24. Retrieved 2016-05-16.

October 23, 2023
charles, steen, charles, augustus, steen, december, 1919, january, 2006, geologist, made, lost, fortune, after, discovering, rich, uranium, deposit, utah, during, uranium, boom, early, 1950s, charles, steen, 1919, 2006, contents, early, years, uranium, boom, v. Charles Augustus Steen December 1 1919 January 1 2006 was a geologist who made and lost a fortune after discovering a rich uranium deposit in Utah during the uranium boom of the early 1950s 1 Charles A Steen 1919 2006 Contents 1 Early years 2 The uranium boom 3 Mi Vida uranium deposit 4 Political involvement 5 After the uranium rush 6 Death 7 Legacy 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External linksEarly years EditCharlie Steen was born in 1919 in Caddo Stephens County Texas the son of Charles A and Rosalie Wilson Steen and attended high school in Houston As a teen Steen worked summers for a construction company that helped finance his education this is the same company that his first stepfather Lisle had died working at 2 He went on to study at John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephenville Texas where he met his wife Minnie Lee Holland and in 1940 transferred to the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in geology in 1943 1 3 Ineligible for the draft because of his poor eyesight Steen spent World War II working as a petroleum geologist in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia and Peru Returning to Texas in 1945 he married Minnie Lee M L He started graduate school at the University of Chicago but after a year returned to Houston to take a job doing field work for the Standard Oil Company of Indiana However within two years he had been fired for insubordination and had trouble getting a job as a geologist anywhere in the oil industry 1 The uranium boom Edit nbsp Steen s camp at Yellow Cat near Cisco Utah in 1950While unemployed Steen read in the December 1949 issue of The Engineering and Mining Journal that the United States federal government had issued incentives for domestic uranium prospectors Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 the U S Atomic Energy Commission had the authority to withdraw lands from the private sector in order to examine them as possible sites for uranium mining During World War II the Manhattan Project had received most of its uranium from foreign sources in Canada and the Belgian Congo However it had also received some from vanadium miners in the American Southwest where uranium was often a by product of mining before the atomic bomb uranium was not a valuable metal There was a concern that the United States would not have enough domestic supply of uranium for its nuclear weapons program 1 In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Atomic Energy Commission established itself as the only legal buyer of uranium in the U S and artificially manipulated prices to reflect their current uranium needs By raising the price of uranium they created an incentive for prospectors in the Four Corners region 1 Despite the fact that his three sons Johnny Andy and Charles Jr were all less than four years old and his wife was expecting another child Steen borrowed 1 000 from his mother and headed for the Colorado Plateau determined to strike it rich 4 After being in Colorado for several months the Steens moved into a tarpaper shack in Cisco Utah Steen and his family were struggling to get by and were often hungry so Charlie made the decision to move his family to Tucson Arizona Steen worked as a carpenter in Tucson for about a year before he returned to his claims in Utah He and his family once again packed up and headed to their claims This final trip back to Utah would be the most detrimental for the family because Steen s wife contracted pneumonia and her medical bills consumed the 350 remaining from the sale of Steen s trailer 2 Steen could not afford the standard radiation detecting equipment used by uranium prospectors the Geiger counter Instead he used a secondhand diamond drill rig and his geologic training for his prospecting At the time each prospector had his own idiosyncratic theory about where to find uranium The uranium industry was composed primarily of individual prospectors and geologists who would attempt to find a large deposit and either mine it for themselves or mine it for a large company such as Union Carbide who would transport the ore from the mine to the uranium mill where it could be converted into yellowcake Steen s theory on uranium deposits was that they would collect in anticlinal structures in the same manner as oil which others on the Plateau dismissed as Steen s Folly 5 6 Mi Vida uranium deposit Edit nbsp Steen the day after the discovery at Mi Vida On July 6 1952 Steen hit it big but he didn t realize until three weeks later He was drilling down through the layers of sandstone when his drill bit broke off at a depth of 197 feet just 3 feet short of his goal Finding this massive deposit of uranium ore only became apparent when he took a piece of the blackish core he found while drilling weeks earlier back to Cisco He stopped to fill up his jeep and decided to have the core tested by a friend with a Geiger counter and they found that the piece made the Geiger counter needle fluctuate wildly The high grade uranium deposit was located at Big Indian Wash of Lisbon Valley southeast of Moab Utah 38 11 24 N 109 15 36 W 38 19000 N 109 26000 W 38 19000 109 26000 Sometimes recognized as one of the most important deposits of any kind found during the last century the claim was named the Mi Vida mine My Life by Steen The Mi Vida mine was one of the first big strikes of the uranium boom Steen made millions off his claims and provoked a Uranium Rush of prospectors into the Four Corners region similar to the Gold Rush of the 1850s in California 7 nbsp Steen s 11 million Uranium Reduction Co Atlas Mill Moab UtahIn Moab Steen built a 250 000 hilltop mansion to replace his tarpaper shack with a swimming pool greenhouse and servants quarters As of 2022 update the home he built still stands and has been transformed into a restaurant called The Sunset Grill named because the structure looks over the valley towards the sunset in the west He also formed a number of companies to continue his uranium work including the Utex Exploration Company the Moab Drilling Company the Mi Vida Company Big Indian Mines Inc and later the Uranium Reduction Company He made his money well known inviting the entire population of Moab to annual parties in a local airport hangar having his original worn prospecting boots bronzed and flying to Salt Lake City in his private plane for weekly rumba lessons He donated 50 000 towards a new hospital in Moab and gave land for churches and schools 8 Political involvement EditSteen was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1958 but quickly became disillusioned with politics He resigned from office in 1961 and moved to a ranch near Reno Nevada building a 27 000 square foot 2 500 m2 mansion near the residence of the Comstock millionaire miner Sandy Bowers He sold the Utex Exploration Company and the Uranium Reduction Company in 1962 9 After the uranium rush EditBy the late 1950s the US government had enough uranium for its needs and had stopped supporting high prices of the ore killing the market by 1960 Steen attempted to diversify his interests by investing in Arabian horse breeding a marble quarry an airplane factory a pickle plant and real estate He met with financial losses and misfortune In 1968 he filed for bankruptcy after the Internal Revenue Service seized his assets to pay back taxes In 1971 he suffered a severe head injury working on a copper prospect 3 9 Death EditLong suffering from Alzheimer s disease Steen died on January 1 2006 in Loveland Colorado Minnie Lee died on July 14 1997 Their ashes were scattered at the Mi Vida mine site 3 4 Legacy EditSteen s legacy lives on through his four sons who were once the recipients of a 130 million fortune that their father lost after the decline of the uranium market in the late 1950s Although Steen lost most of his fortune after the uranium crash due to poor money management and frivolous spending he is still recognized for his Cold War contributions for supplying the United States with all of the uranium it needed for its weapons program His story about finding the Mi Vida mine inspired two films and several books citation needed along with getting the small desert town of Moab Utah on the map as The Uranium Capital of the World and the Richest Town in America After Steen struck it rich he requested that Congress allow him to build his own mill without government funding resulting in the only major atomic facility to be privately funded On November 4 2016 a historical marker commemorating the Lisbon Valley s uranium heritage and noting Charlie Steen s discovery was dedicated on the Anticline Overlook road off U S 191 The marker was funded entirely by private donations Artist Michael Ford Dunton created an arch to frame the historical marker and the view to the location of the Mi Vida mine seven miles east of the marker 10 See also EditMoab uranium mill tailings pile Uranium mining in UtahReferences Edit a b c d e Steen Mark February March 2002 My Old Man The Uranium King Part 1 Canyon Country Zephyr Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 a b Harkavy ward 1998 Fallout in the Family Westword a b c Church Lisa J March 24 2006 Uranium King altered Moab forever The Salt Lake Tribune Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 a b End of an era The Uranium King is Dead The Moab Times Independent Mar 22 2006 Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 Steen Charles A Mining Hall of Fame Inductees Database National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum 1996 Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 Steen Mark April May 2002 My Old Man The Uranium King Part 2 Canyon Country Zephyr Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 Buckley Jensen Charles Steen The uranium king of san juan San Juan Record San Juan Record Archived from the original on 24 September 2016 Retrieved 16 May 2016 Steen Mark August September 2002 My Old Man The Uranium King Part 4 Canyon Country Zephyr Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 a b Nielsen Russel Oct 16 1968 Made fortune in uranium prospector fights to keep it The Milwaukee Journal p 1 Retrieved 17 Oct 2013 Marcello Molly 27 October 2016 New historical marker installed near Lisbon Valley mine site commemorates region s complex uranium heritage The Times Independent Moab UT Retrieved 22 November 2016 1 Further reading EditLook Al 1956 U Boom Bell The Mountain States Time Life Books Inc 1967 OCLC 1973746 Taylor Raymond W and Samuel W 1970 Uranium Fever or No Talk Under 1 Million MacMillan OCLC 73745 Ringholz Raye Carleson 1989 Uranium Frenzy Boom and Bust on the Colorado Plateau W W Norton amp Co Inc ISBN 0 393 02644 2 Amundson Michael 2002 Yellowcake Towns Uranium Mining Communities in the American West University Press of Colorado ISBN 0 87081 662 4 McCourt Tom 2007 The Moab Story From Cowpokes to Bike Spokes Johnson Books Boulder ISBN 978 1 55566 396 4 Zoellner Tom 2009 Uranium War Energy And The Rock That Shaped The World Viking ISBN 978 0 670 02064 5 Steen Charles A 1952 Uranium Mining Operations of the Utex Exploration Co in the Big Indian District San Juan County Utah Information Circular 7669 U S Department of the Interior U S Bureau of Mines Washington D C GPO External links EditSteen A legend in his own time National Mining Hall of Fame inductee bio Moab Historical Museum Charles Steen Charles Steen Uranium King of San Juan GIANTS OF SAN JUAN by Buckley Jensen Charlie Steen was an enigma He came into San Juan in the 1950 s dirt poor lived in a tar paper shack with his wife and four little boys and discovered t Archived from the original on 2016 09 24 Retrieved 2016 05 16 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Charles Steen amp oldid 1175856923, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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