Lark, Utah
Lark | |
|---|---|
  Lark Location of Lark within the State of Utah  Lark Lark (the United States) | |
| Coordinates: 40°31′30″N 112°05′47″W / 40.52500°N 112.09639°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Utah |
| County | Salt Lake |
| Founded | 1866 |
| Abandoned | 1978 |
| Named for | A prospector named Lark |
| Elevation | 5,541 ft (1,689 m) |
| GNIS feature ID | 1437617[1] |
Lark is a ghost town located 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Herriman in the Oquirrh Mountains of southwest Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. Lark was the location of several copper mines.
History
The discovery of gold in Bingham Canyon in 1863 brought a rush of prospectors, two of whom were named Dalton and Lark. Settlements with these names grew up around the two mining claims, but Dalton was later merged into Lark.[2] The town of Lark was officially established January 3, 1866.[3]
The town had enough Latter-day Saint residents by 1918 to be made a ward, but by 1923, the ward was reduced to a branch. It had 234 members in 1930.[4]
By 1929, Lark was a company town of the United States Smelting and Refining Company, which expanded the town through the 1940s and 1950s. At its peak, the population exceeded 800. Then the nearby non-copper mines began to close, and the town went into decline. The last silver, zinc, and lead mine closed about 1971. In 1972, Kennecott Copper bought the land, and in 1977, they announced foreclosure. The company wanted the land to dump large quantities of overburden from nearby Bingham Canyon Mine. The population was 591, and Kennecott helped move people and some homes, even preparing a subdivision in nearby Copperton.[2] By 1978, Lark was dismantled.[3]
Lark's most famous citizen was Vina Fay Wray, more well known as Ann Darrow in the 1933 movie King Kong. As a child Wray lived in two locations in Salt Lake City, and also in Lark, before her family moved to Los Angeles. Born in 1907, in Cardston, Alberta, Canada, she died in 2004 in Manhattan, New York. She was scheduled to say the famous last words in the Jack Black remake of King Kong that debuted in 2005. Those words in effect were, "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast". She died before she could record that line.
See also
References
- ^ a b U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lark
- ^ a b Carr, Stephen L. (1986) [June 1972]. The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns (3rd ed.). Salt Lake City, Utah: Western Epics. p. 159. ISBN 0-914740-30-X.
- ^ a b Van Cott, John W. (1990). Utah Place Names. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press. p. 222. ISBN 0-87480-345-4.
- ^ Jenson, Andrew. Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1941) p.414.
External links
Media related to Lark, Utah at Wikimedia Commons
Municipalities and communities of Salt Lake County, Utah, United States | ||
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| Cities |  | |
| Towns | ||
| Metro townships | ||
| CDPs | ||
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Ghost towns | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |