Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West

4 The Uranium Capital of the World I: Moab

I N A D D I T I O N T O T H E C O M P A N Y T O W N S of Uravan and Jeffrey City, the 1950s’ government-sponsored uranium boom brought sweeping changes to several independent small towns in the Rocky Mountain West. These communities, lacking corporate paternalism and control, were overrun by individuals responding to the government’s buying program, production bonuses, and exploration services. Like mining camps throughout history, western towns such as Grand Junction, Colorado, and Moab, Utah, became jumping-off points for explorations into the hinterlands. As the industry took off in the late 1940s, the old Utah vanadium towns of Monticello and Blanding flourished again along with Uravan, Naturita, and Durango, Colorado. The boom spread when new strikes were made near Grants, New Mexico, in 1950. Two years later Charlie Steen’s pitchblende discovery brought the rush to Moab. Strikes the following year in the Gas Hills region of central Wyoming began opening that sparsely populated area. Then in 1955, a discovery at Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico, brought another boom to Grants. 4 The Uranium Capital of the World I: Moab Chapter The Uranium Capital of the World I: Moab 54 The newcomers found these boomtowns unable to cope with the growing numbers of people. Like most small towns at the time, they were closer to horse and buggy days than to the atomic age. After a decade of depression followed by five years of war, many had experienced little civic improvement since the New Deal in the 1930s. Towns that had made improvements were deeply in debt with newly installed water, lighting, or sewer systems that were supposed to last another generation. At the center of the new boom were Grants and Moab. Although Moab had been home to a small uranium industry before World War II, neither community was ready for the changes that occurred because of government programs in the 1950s. As people inundated the towns, local government and infrastructure were quickly overstretched. Housing, utility, commercial, and educational facilities became inadequate. To survive, Grants and Moab were forced to construct trailer courts and new subdivisions, provide them with new sources of water and electricity, build new retail centers, reroute traffic , and build new schools. Grants and Moab not only met this challenge head-on but did it with flare, embracing the uranium boom by giving up their pastoral images of farming and ranching for an industrial portrait. Moab, once known as a garden spot, and Grants, the so-called Carrot Capital, soon vied for the same nickname of “Uranium Capital of the World.” Local entrepreneurs constructed Atomic Motels and Uranium Cafes. Beauty pageants dubbed their winners “Miss Uranium” or “Miss Atomic Age” before presenting them with prizes, including truckloads of atomic ore. In short, the uranium rush modernized these nineteenth-century towns, cloaking them in atomic attire while discarding the past for future promise. Generally, the impact of the uranium rush on the community followed a basic sequence. As the uncontrolled explosion of expectant capitalists— prospectors, construction workers, merchants, and government workers— overwhelmed the existing infrastructure, a lack of ready housing forced the arrivals to live in temporary accommodations such as motels, trailers, and even tents. If a big strike was not found, the rush pushed on to the next community. If a promising new discovery was made, the men soon sent for their families, exacerbating the boom problems. As the newly constructed trailer lots filled, landowners allowed newcomers to rent vacant lots and backyards, adding problems of sanitation and zoning. Schools reported new enrollment records, and utilities—such as power lines and water, sewer, and telephone systems—were quickly overrun. Local government officials had to act quickly and with great foresight to approve new tax hikes, seek federal aid, and pass bond issues. They were aided by the The Uranium Capital of the World I: Moab 55 uranium companies, which bought land and built their own subdivisions to house company workers. Like the Levittowns first coming into existence, these company suburbs often mark the first departure from the traditional grid town plat. As communities began to meet the demands of the boom and embrace the growing atomic industry, their increasing dependence on uranium marked their transition to a new phase: the yellowcake community. Heralded by such events as the completion of a refining mill, the leveling off of population, or the...