a brief historical summary from modest beginnings in 1900 as a contractor utah construction & mining co has developed an international busi ness with diversified operations and in terests underlying this growth and diversification has been utah's earth moving abilities in a little more than 60 years an initial capital of 24 thou sand has been increased to a total stock holders equity of 63 million almost 75 of this growth was achieved during the last 10 years after dividend pay ments which totaled 20 million in this period six years after its founding utah was building 700 miles of western pacific railroad trackage including the famous 75-mile section through the feather river canyon in california's high si erra utah played a major role in the west's railroad construction with this work its dominant activity for the next two decades the 1920's however saw the company increasing its markets by undertaking a variety of heavy construc tion projects dams replaced railroads as a major activity and among the more prominent ones in which utah partici pated were boulder grand coulee and bonneville heavy construction gave way somewhat to industrial and building con struction particularly the large industrial complexes built in the post world war ii era such as u s steel's columbia ge neva plant and the atomic energy proc essing plant near st louis dredging and plant design capability were added so that today the company offers a sig nificant range of construction service a major step in diversification was taken in 1943 when utah began con tract mining operations this led the company to find and develop its own mineral properties and a decade later utah was the leading independent iron ore producer in the west it was also at this time in january 1953 that utah launched its overseas mining operations with the construction of the marcona mine in peru marcona an affiliate has continued to develop and now is one of the largest iron ore producers in south america in order to improve services and shipping costs another affiliate was formed to build and operate an ore fleet utah entered the uranium field in 1957 through its 60 interest in lucky me uranium corporation and performed mineral development work designed and built the uranium processing mill did the pre-mine stripping and operated the mine and mill lucky me merged with utah in 1960 coal entered the com pany's mining scene in 1950 at ozark arkansas although this mine concluded operations in 1961 plans toward open ing a new coal mine in new mexico were already completed this mine will sup ply energy under a long-term contract to arizona public service co backing up these current operations utah has im portant mineral deposits developed and available to meet market demands and its mineral development and geology department is continually searching on several continents for additional reserves another major element of utah's di versification land development began shortly after world war ii with the planning and construction of large scale housing developments combining ex perience in major housing and commer cial developments with its earth-moving capability utah moved into the current phase of its land activities the acquisi tion and development of strategically located land requiring varying degrees of reclamation today the company has sizeable residential and industrial prop erties under development for sale in the san francisco bay area and in southern california in the company's 62-year existence the last ten years have seen the most sig nificant growth in financial terms an nual earnings have increased three to five times over levels prior to this decade of the total increase in shareholders equity since 1900 75 was recorded since 1952 and on an adjusted share basis dividends rose to nearly five and one-half times the 1952 level to put it another way earnings per share over the past 10 years have grown at an average annual compound rate of 15 except for 1924 and 1931 the company has paid a dividend in each of the last 40 years