The canyon's 19th Century mines were relatively small, and it wasn't until the end of the century that very large-scale exploitation of the canyon's ore bodies began to develop with open-pit mining. In 1896, Samuel Newhouse and Thomas Weir acquired the Highland Boy Mine, which was rich in copper, silver and gold. Together they formed the Utah Consolidated Gold Mines, Ltd. with English investors. They then formed the Boston Consolidated Gold and Copper Co., Ltd., for development of low-grade copper ore adjacent to the Utah Copper Company site.