Silver King Coalition Mine Headframe Building
Rehabilitation and Restoration
Woodside Gulch, Park City Mountain Resort, Park City, UT
Silver King Coalition Mine Headframe Building
Original construction: 1926 (replacing the original wooden structure built in phases from the 1890s)
National Register: Silver King Coalition Mine Historic District, listed December 2024
The People Behind It
Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History (a committee of the Park City Museum)
Co-Chair: Don Roll, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History
Project Manager: Brian Buck
Owner: David Smith, TCFC PC LeaseCo
Contractor: Clark Martinez, The Xcavation Company, Inc.
Structural Engineer: Jonathan Richards, Calder Richards Consulting Engineers, LLC
Park City Mayor: Ryan Dickey, Park City Municipal Corporation
Park City Manager: Adam Lenhard
Chief Building Official: David Thacker, Park City Municipal Corporation
Acting City Manager: Jodi Emery, Park City Municipal Corporation
Planning Director: Rebecca Ward, Park City Municipal Corporation
President: Jennifer Wesselhoff, Park City Chamber Bureau
At a Glance
The Silver King Coalition Mine Headframe Building receives the Rehabilitation and Restoration award for bringing back from the edge of loss one of Utah's most significant industrial landmarks, a building that had stood vacant for nearly seven decades, appeared on Preservation Utah's 2024 Most Endangered Sites list, and was facing a genuine structural threat from a mine shaft collapsing beneath it. The Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History navigated an unusually complex web of ownership, easements, and approvals to make the work possible, then executed it during 16- to 20-week work seasons each summer on a site reachable only by three miles of dirt road. The original corrugated metal roof panels, mangled by a catastrophic snow collapse, were removed, set aside, and returned to the rebuilt structure with their historic patina intact. More than 1,600 window panes were removed, and the century-old putty was ground from their frames. The mine shaft was plugged, the masonry footings encased, and the building secured against the threats that had been accumulating since 1953. What had been a deteriorating landmark visible to thousands of ski resort visitors each season is now the anchor of a designated National Historic District and the centerpiece of a public heritage route launching in 2026, still standing, still itself, and now with a future.
The Story
High above Park City, at the top of Woodside Gulch in the Wasatch Mountains, the Silver King Coalition Mine Headframe Building was the centerpiece of Utah's most profitable mining camp, a 12,400-square-foot structure, 275 feet long and 50 feet wide, housing a 44-foot steel headframe above a shaft more than 1,325 feet deep. Around it operated a full community: eight boarding houses for more than a hundred men, an assay office, a superintendent's house, a miners' change house, a seven-story mill, a tramway loading station carrying ore down into Park City, coal bins, water tanks, an electrical substation, and even a pig farm. From 1892 to 1953, millions of dollars' worth of silver ore were extracted through that shaft, making fortunes that shaped the state.
The investors who profited from the Silver King are names woven into Utah's civic fabric. Thomas Kearns became Utah's second U.S. Senator and built the South Temple mansion that now serves as the Governor's Mansion. David Keith became president of the Salt Lake Tribune. Albion Emery's widow, Susannah, became internationally known as Utah's Silver Queen. John Judge founded a miners' hospital to treat silicosis that later became Judge Memorial Catholic High School. When the mine closed in 1953 as metal prices fell too low to sustain operations, the building was shuttered and left untouched. In December 2024, the 31-acre Silver King Coalition Mine Historic District, encompassing more than twenty surviving structures across the mountainside, was named to the National Register of Historic Places.
Preservation Work
The project ran from June 2021 to October 2025, guided throughout by a single principle: to return the building to a condition consistent with its appearance during active mining operations.
The most urgent work addressed a mine shaft that had settled into an unsafe crater seventeen feet deep, with soil sliding on three sides and exposing the ancient masonry footings of the headframe. Working with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining, the team plugged the shaft with polyurethane foam, encased the masonry footings, and installed an eighteen-inch concrete cap extending six feet around the shaft perimeter.
The record snowfall of 2022–23 collapsed the roof, damaging framing, windows, and interior components throughout. Original corrugated metal panels, many mangled by the snow, were carefully removed and set aside while the damaged structure beneath was rebuilt, then returned atop the new decking with their historic patina intact. More than 1,600 window panes were removed, and century-old petrified putty was ground from the metal frames. Rather than reglazing, custom dark steel security grids were installed inside to prevent unauthorized entry while preserving the building's exterior appearance. The 3,900 square feet of rotted wooden floor were replaced with a graded crushed-rock bed.
Securing the approvals and funding required assembling an unusually complex coalition. Historic Preservation Façade Easements held by Park City Municipal Corporation gave the city approval authority over all work. A 2016 memorandum of understanding between the city and Vail Resorts established that FOSMMH would raise the funds and manage the project on land owned by the LLC entities. Grants came from the Eccles Foundation, Park City Community Foundation, Promontory Foundation, McCarthy Family Foundation, and others. FOSMMH also founded The Miners Club for major donors and created public events to build community support.
Why It Matters
After four years of work, the Silver King Coalition Mine Headframe Building looks as it did when it was constructed in 1926. It now stands as the focal point of the designated National Historic District, forming an open-air museum of Park City's silver mining heritage visible to every visitor riding the Bonanza chairlift.
The building will anchor the Park City Historic Mine Route, launching in September 2026 a 7.8-mile loop connecting mining-era structures and landmarks across Park City's Main Street, Treasure Hill, and Empire Canyon, with a downloadable smartphone audio guide featuring 24 GPS-triggered stories and 24 interpretive signs. The goal is to connect visitors of all ages and abilities arriving by chairlift, foot, or bike to the immense scale and ambition of what was built and extracted here, and to demonstrate that preserving industrial heritage within active recreation landscapes creates something more lasting than either could achieve alone.