If you walk through the center of Salt Lake’s Liberty Park,
you’ll find an old mill between the pond and Tracy Aviary; the oldest standing
industrial building in Utah. It was a grist mill and a saw mill, meaning logs
were made into boards here, and grain into meal. It was built by Isaac Chase in
1852. Four years earlier, while digging the millrace (the channel that delivers
water to turn the mill wheel), his pick struck a buried coin. Isaac believed
himself to be one of the first white men in the area, and he also believed all
the Native Americans to be descendants of Book of Mormon peoples (he was wrong
on both counts), so he called it a “Nephite copper coin.” The coin’s size and
markings show it was minted in India in 1817. How it came to be 10 feet underground
in Salt Lake 31 years later is a mystery. If only coins could talk!
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