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Strike Gold With a Converted Church and Miniature Mining Town in Eureka, UT

The town of Eureka, UT, was founded in the 1870s, when silver, gold, and copper ores were discovered. The historic mining town about 75 miles south of Salt Lake City boomed for decades.

In 1903, the city’s first building went up—a church of Latter-day Saints—on South Main Street. That building, now converted into a home/event space, and a tiny mining town alongside it are up for sale for $540,000.

“It was the first building they built in the town as a community,” says listing agent Mony Ty. “It was a church, it was a meetinghouse. In the 1980s, a new church was built elsewhere and this property was abandoned.”

Not long after that, the property was purchased by Ferrel Thomas. Over the years, he converted it into a family getaway for his kids. Thomas, who has an architecture background, worked with his kids to create a miniature throwback world where the children could let their old-timey imaginations run wild.

“The mining area has been a lifetime of fun and building,” Thomas says. “We bought out here in 1980. Every year, I’ve enjoyed building and fixing things up.”

Back then, he lived in nearby Orem, but wanted his three children to experience the freedom of living in a small town. The property is “its own miniature mining town,” he says, and includes a miner’s home as well as a rough-cut, board-and-batten storefront. There’s also a mine cart track and trolley leading to a miniature mining cave.

The miner’s house “was built in the 1980s but mimicked what the miner’s house would look like,” says Ty. “It’s quite an elaborate playhouse.”

The church, with its colorful stained-glass windows and open spaces, has been completely renovated and is now offered up as a space for events. Inside, you’ll find a large kitchen, bathroom with showers, a basketball court, banquet area, and two sleeping lofts.

There’s also an office in the building behind the church. In all, the buildings sit on a half-acre, measure 9,564 square feet, and have three bedrooms and seven baths.

Down the street is a mining museum. Eureka is also on the way to the Little Sahara Sand Dunes and has a motorcycle museum in the works. In 1979 the town was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

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