September 12, 2019
Stories are the heart of Mining Fest

The Tooele Mining Fest wants your help, and your stories. 

The festival will be held this Saturday in the old railroad depot of the Tooele Valley Museum. 

It is a reboot of an event held at the museum in the past called “Old Timers Day,” according to Stephanie Statz, Tooele Valley Museum and Historic Park coordinator. 

“We renamed the event because we wanted to get new generations of miners and their stories,” Statz said. “That’s really at the heart of this fest — stories from miners and their families to get what it was really like.” 

The museum will have a “share your memory” station set up to capture the stories, according to  Statz.

“We will have an oral recorder set up with some questions if people want to record their story of working in the mining industry,” she said. “If they bring photos we will scan them so we can have a copy to add to our collection so the collection can be as robust as possible. We want the museum be the center for Tooele mining history.” 

In addition to sharing photos and stories, Statz said she is also looking for other help from festival goers. 

“We will also have a table called “Who? What? Where and What else,” she said. “This is going to be a recurring tradition at these events.”  

The table will be full of scanned and printed photos from the museum’s collection. 

Statz said she hopes the public can help identity and verify who and what are in the photos. 

“I think it will also spark some fun conversations for people too,” Statz said.

The festival will run from 1 – 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14. The festival will also feature a talk from local author Emma Penrod about the Elton Tunnel at 1:15 p.m.  

Copies of Penrod’s book, “Tooele Valley Railroad,” will be available for purchase and she will be available to sign the book. The Tooele County Daughters of the Utah Pioneers’ book, “A History of Tooele County” will also be available for purchase.

The Tooele Valley Museum is located at 35 N. Broadway in Tooele City.

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Francie Aufdemorte

Photo Editor at Tooele Transcript Bulletin

Francie Aufdemorte is photo editor for the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin. A Tooele County native, she graduated from Tooele High School in 1989, and with a degree in English from the University of Utah in 2001. She next studied filmmaking at the New York Film Academy in 2005, from which she earned a certificate of completion. Her ties to community journalism begin in 2005 when she worked for the Magna Times for two years, handling everything from classified advertising to editing and proofing news stories. While there she also created and maintained a new website for the newspaper. In 2007, she opened a Salt Lake-based studio called Book Cliff Photography. As principle photographer, she worked both editorial and commercial assignments, including portraiture and weddings. As photo editor, Aufdemorte photographs news, features, sports and advertising for the Transcript-Bulletin and supplemental publications, while also managing and assigning the newspaper’s freelance photographers.

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