A Brief History of Park City Mills by Donovan Symonds and Sandra Morrison

Park City Museum and Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History will host a lecture called A Brief History of Park City Mills given by Donovan Symonds and Sandra Morrison on Wednesday, November 18, 2026 from 5-6 p.m. held at the Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive. More information can be found at www.parkcityhistory.org.

The story of Park City’s silver mines is also the story of its mills. As miners followed rich ore deeper underground, they encountered new geological challenges that required increasingly sophisticated methods of recovering silver. This presentation provides a brief history of Park City’s principal mills before focusing on the Silver King Mill, one of the district’s most significant ore-processing plants.

Using historical photographs, maps, diagrams, and the remains of the mill itself, we explore how changing ore types transformed milling technology—from early roasting, gravity concentration and mercury amalgamation to the adoption of froth flotation. The Silver King Mill serves as a window into the ingenuity of the engineers and miners who helped make Park City one of America’s great silver-producing districts, and whose legacy can still be seen in the landscape today.

Donovan is a retired mining consultant. He received his mining education in England at the Universities of Newcastle and Nottingham. He worked in the mining industries in Canada and the US and consulted on mining projects in over twenty countries. He moved to Park City in 1977. Donovan is a Park City Museum docent and helped start the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History Lecture Series.

When Sandra Morrison arrived in Park City in November 1983, it was snowing. The snow continued to fall for 40 days straight, which she assumed was normal for a ski resort town. Sandra purchased a Park City Ski Area season pass and thus began a life-long passion for skiing. However, Sandra didn’t just plummet into the deep powder, she also stumbled across Park City’s rich past at the historic Silver King mine. Fast-forward to 2023: Sandra spent two years crawling through, documenting, and photographing every remaining surface structure and feature of the legendary mine, crafting the nomination that secured its spot on the National Register of Historic Places. This presentation shares her results—minus the intervening 40-years of skiing.

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