You stand before The Judge Mining and Smelting Office Building, the only remaining concrete office building from Park City’s mining era. Can you see the letters J, M and S on the facade?
Just to the left of the building is the Judge Tunnel, where you see the small train tracks emerging from the darkness. This tunnel was driven 6,600 feet from this location high up the canyon to the Anchor Mine in 1887. Walk over to the tunnel and gaze through the gate into the tunnel itself. Feel the cool breeze that blows out of the tunnel.
The contract to build the tunnel was awarded to John J. Daly, perhaps in part because he owned a minority interest in The Anchor Mine. Another very solid reason for this decision was that the tunnel was to be driven through two other properties controlled by Daly: The Daly Mine and the Daly West Mine. That way, if Daly found any ore along the way, it would be his to extract.
The mining business in that era was rife with lawsuits caused by one company drawing ore from another company’s claims. Since all of the work was done deep underground, perhaps the mine owners figured they could just get away with it. They often did.
While Daly drove the tunnel to its contracted goal of a location well beneath the Anchor Mine Shaft by 1889, it took another two years to connect the shaft to the drain tunnel. Soon after the successful draining of the Anchor Mine, engineers at the Daly West discovered that ore had been taken from their ground by the Anchor miners.
A lawsuit was raised and eventually settled for $12,000, nearly five hundred thousand in 2026 dollars. Then, in fine Park City tradition, John Daly formed the Daly-Judge Mining Company and bought out the owners of the Anchor Mine.
One other subject worthy of note: The local Empire Pass Master Owners Association, with financial assistance from Park City Municipal, restored the roof of this building in 2021.
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