AGENCY: Monumental Mining District (Utah). Recorder

SERIES: 24041
TITLE: Mining location notices
DATES: 1896.
ARRANGEMENT: Chronological by date.

DESCRIPTION: In the 1890s miners flocked to San Juan County in search of gold which had been discovered in traces in the sandbars of the rivers and in the sandstone. Location notices were recorded in accordance with federal law, which decreed that mineral deposits in the public domain were free and open to exploration, and locators of the same had exclusive right of possession (see Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations, of the United States of America, vol. XVII, chap. 152). Federal law authorized the organization of mining districts to oversee local mining operations and to record claims. Each Monumental District location notice provides a description of the claim and the boundaries thereof, tells the name of the claim and the names of locators, and gives the date of location. Each notice is signed by A.L. Riplee, district recorder. All location notices included in the Monumental Mining District's location notices book are placer claims along the San Juan and Colorado Rivers, and all were recorded between January and April 1896. The Monumental book also includes a few notices of mill site water rights along the San Juan River.

RETENTION

DISPOSITION

RETENTION AND DISPOSITION AUTHORIZATION

These records are in Archives' permanent custody.

FORMAT MANAGEMENT

Microfilm master: Retain in State Archives permanently with authority to weed.

Microfilm duplicate: Retain in State Archives permanently with authority to weed.

Paper: Retain in Office permanently.

Microfilm duplicate: Retain in Office permanently.

APPRAISAL

Historical

Mining location notices contain valuable information about speculating for placer gold along the banks of the Colorado and San Juan Rivers.

PRIMARY DESIGNATION

Public

---