The Utah-Apex mine came into prominence 10 years earlier, when Raphael Lopez, one of the West's most notorious bad men, held off a posse of 600 men for several days and finally escaped.
Lopez was wanted for killing 4 men, three being members of the posse which was after him for the murder of a man in a Bingham saloon. Lopez killed two more possemen who attempted to smoke him out and finally escaped before deadly sulfur fumes released by the posse reached him.
