Cold Soldiers
The miners in the Paradox and Gypsum Valley areas were unaware that they were soldiers in the Cold War.
During the early 20th century, this area was mined for Radium (a rare radioactive metal used for X-rays, cancer treatments and nuclear experiments) and Vanadium (a super-hard metal used to harden steel). Another radioactive metal, Uranium, is present in these same rocks, but was tossed aside as waste by the miners of the day. The mines were in serious decline by the early 1940's.
Then, closemouthed G-men showed up in the area in 1942, wanting all the Uranium they could get their hands on. The miners were more than willing to oblige, because the US Government was paying top dollar. Suddenly, the mines and the jobs they provided were viable again! Little did they know that their work was leading to the creation of the Atomic bomb with the Manhattan Project. The road to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was leading straight through their back yard!
Also, little did they know, they would become the victims of a deadly gas called Radon, emitted from the natural breakdown of radioactive elements in the mines. Most of them died from lung cancer and other lung diseases.
In the late 1960's and early '70's, the bottom dropped out of the Uranium market because richer deposits were discovered in Africa that were much cheaper to mine. The Three-Mile-Island and Chernobyl nuclear disasters led to decreased demand for Uranium. To make matters still worse, the world's richest Uranium deposit was discovered in Canada in the early 1990's. The ore is over 30% Uranium, and will have to be mined by robots because of the extreme radioactivity. Compare that with the maximum 1% to 2% Uranium found in ores from the Paradox area.
This may all seem to be such a sad story, but the miners were grateful for their high paying jobs. And I thank them for helping to defend our country! They can be proud to be Cold Soldiers! The story of these mines and miners is not over yet……………
Stone Canyon