According to this story, Buddy Cowger lost the use of his legs due to cyanide poisoning. That didn’t stop him from driving the backroads of Utah in search of Uranium. He was a friend of Charlie Steen, a famous Uranium hunter out of Moab.
According to this story, Buddy Cowger lost the use of his legs due to cyanide poisoning. That didn’t stop him from driving the backroads of Utah in search of Uranium. He was a friend of Charlie Steen, a famous Uranium hunter out of Moab.
Credit for posting this rare magazine cover with a CJ-2A on it goes to: http://national-radiation-instrument-catalog.com/new_page_14.htm
The hunt for Uranium during the late 1940s and into the 1950s in the American West was a big deal. It’s also the last great mineral rush with-in the continental United States. Uranium’s grand paradox, as author Tom Zoellner puts it, is that “[t]he stability of our world rests on a substance that is unstable at the core.”
So large was the hunt for Uranium, the May 23, 1955, issue of Life Magazine noted that more man-hours had been spent hunting for Uranium between 1952 and 1955 than were spent seeking all other metals in history, at least according to the Atomic Energy Commission. Having spent considerable time thumbing through decades of mine related information prior to the 1900s, I find this claim dubious, but maybe someone can explain how this could be?
Still, the uranium boom captivated the imagination of the public. Uranium Fever was written and sung by Eliot Britt in 1955 and included jeep references. This great site shows how the search affected popular magazines of the time. In the Life Magazine article referenced above (pg 26), the author included a list of ultimate gear for prospecting. At the very top of the list was a brand-new four-wheel jeep for only $1,685, along with equipment and a map of the best places to hunt:
Blaine spotted this great article on ‘hunting’ uranium in Utah. I’m sure there were many jeep used to explore southern Utah while chasing uranium, but finding pictures hasn’t been easy. This article written by Brett Huelen and published in the Canyon County Zephyr contains several jeep photos, along with some great stories from his time living in Southern Utah.
UPDATE: **SOLD** Was on ebay.
I haven’t seen the movie Uranium Boom, but it received a rating of 6.5 stars at IMDb. There are a couple items from the movie on eBay.
This picture shows star Patricia Medina in a jeep.
Here’s the poster with the jeep:View all the information on eBay
Here are some original pictures: View all the information on eBay
This is another story about a jeep from the Gus and the Model Garage series published in Popular Science Monthly. This particular article was published in June of 1955. In this story Gus learns about the oil float in the old Willys motors.