In the early 20th century, a mining boom swept through Western Colorado and Eastern Utah in search of vanadium, a valuable element used to reinforce steel. Uravan began as a single mill and quickly boomed once the U.S. Vanadium Corporation discovered rich deposits in the surrounding valley. But vanadium became overshadowed by another element found as a byproduct of its extraction: uranium, which quickly gained value as work on atomic science gripped the world in the 1930s and ’40s. “Uravan” is a portmanteau of these two elements. Ore was mined…
