GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Over a century ago, in the deserts spanning the Colorado plateau, prospectors armed with Geiger counters and dreams of riches dug deep for a new miracle metal, kicking off the atomic era's rush -- not for gold or silver, but for carnotite, a uranium-heavy mineral.
Some struck it rich and became icons of the new world of atomic science and self-made millionaires, but not everyone was so lucky.
Moab is home to one of the most famous tourist attractions in Utah, the Arches National Park. But did you know Moab was also a part of the rise and fall of uranium? It was a hotspot for uranium at its peak, and even after the uranium boom went bust, the town of Moab was able to survive.
"Well, after the demand for uranium died out, a lot of people actually left Moab, and we encountered what was called the bust. Nobody could survive, and businesses were closing, and they were leaving. Moab, the town, already had the infrastructure because uranium mining requires building a lot of mining roads, and there were a lot of ways to get here, and a lot of ways to explore the land surrounding Moab. The environment was incredibly stunning. You have canyonlands, you have arches, and we were already visiting those areas. And you also had a town built up not just from the uranium boom, but from the ranching area," says Tara Beresh, Director of Curation and Exhibits.
Moab wasn't the only uranium boom town on the plateau; it was just one of the lucky ones to thrive into the 21st century. Uravan, the town's name, is a combination of uranium and vanadium, and was officially founded in 1936 as a company town by the US Vanadium Corporation.
However, according to local author and historian Al Look, mining radioactive rocks from the cliffs surrounding what would later become the town of Uravan dates back to at least 1913. That's when carnotite was mined from the Uravan area and hauled to Paris for use in Nobel prize-winning work by pioneering physicist Marie Curie alongside her husband, Pierre.
Much of the uranium that was sourced or processed on the Colorado Plateau was used in a variety of military applications -- from radium used to paint glowing dials in World War 2 to the very core of the bomb that was detonated over Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.
While many small towns in eastern Utah and western Colorado benefited greatly from the uranium boom, others paid a heavy toll. Uravan began declining in the 1980s. The Mill and the town were shut down in 1984 after decades of radioactive contamination left the town and its buildings uninhabitable.
According to the Rimrocker Historical Society, the town became a superfund site in 1986, beginning its cleanup. The final two buildings were buried in 2007.
The town is far from lifeless. The former residents of Uravan still visit the site.