The Iron Springs Mine, near Cedar City, Utah, became Utah Construction's first mining company, and remained profitable for some 40 years. IRON SPRINGS The impetus to mine began with Allen Christensen. "We had quite a bit of experience as earth movers and contractors for such companies as Kennecott, U.S. Steel, and Colorado Fuel & Iron," Littlefield explained. "Allen's idea was that we could mine on our own with our construction people. We could equip small mines with used equipment that came off construction jobs. By confining ourselves to that type of mine, he reasoned, we were not likely to offend some of our mining customers. It was a wonderful thing that we did go into the mining business, but that was the wrong way to approach it, as we found out.... "Utah had two ongoing mines when I started [in 1951]," he continued. "The first was an iron ore deposit near Cedar City, Utah, called the Iron Springs Mine. This mine was on the site of iron ore deposits that had been identified by Brigham Young.... Allen purchased it on behalf of the UCC," even as contract operations for U. S. Steel and Colorado Fuel & Iron continued nearby. The Geneva Steel Mill, built by Utah Construction for the federal government and acquired by U. S. Steel after World War II, purchased and processed the iron ore mined in Southern Utah. The company acquired its second mine in 1949 with the purchase of the Argonaut Mine on Vancouver Island in Canada. Between 19511957 Utah Construction shipped nearly six million tons of beneficiated iron ore from the Argonaut to Japanese steel companies. Yet operations at the Argonaut were so rife with problems that UCC directors flinched whenever they heard the word "mining" applied to company operations and balked at purchasing or developing other mines. "It was poor business to equip mines with used equipment purchased for another purpose," Littlefield explained. "We found out, to our dismay, that the construction personnel could move the dirt, but they weren't necessarily very skilled figuring out what dirt to move. We needed to hire some mining people, and we did."