Years later, doing research on Dawson City while making a film on the Yukon River, the Klondike, and the Trail of '98, and wishing I could have been one of the argonaughts that joined the trek north, it occurred to me that I, too, had been part of a history. We weren't looking for gold. The jeep replaced the donkey, the horse, and the dog sled. It sounds funny to say The Utah Uranium Rush, but that's what it was. The last of the great stampedes. I can say, "Back in '55 it was. I was there!"

The reason for all this excitement? Make that two reasons. The first being that the U.S. government, having panicked over the realization that most of the uranium needed to build bigger and better bombs was imported, instigated a program that rewarded a prospector $10,000 (in 1950's dollars) for making a valid find.

The second was a fellow named Charlie Steen. Less than a year before my arrival in Moab he had been living in a wind blasted one room shack, borrowing bacon, beans, and gasoline from Vernon Pick, the local grocer. With the discovery of what was to become the NewVita Mine, that produced an annual income of $3,000,000 each for Steen and his grubstake partner, this rags to riches story caused a sensation when spread across the country. Then with the announcement of the government incentive, men who had been waiting for the "one main chance in life" decided this was it. They came from every state, and many countries.