"Lucky Strike. During the uranium rush, prospectors Frank Blackburn, Ervin Olsen, Elden Bryan, and Thomas Worthen located valuable uranium ore deposits at Green Vein mesa and Reds Canyon. “They leased the Green Vein claims but elected to develop the ‘Lucky Strike’ claims in Reds Canyon themselves” (Geary 1996:331), filing an official Notice of Location on December 8, 1949.

In 1950, the mine was described by Owen McClenahan:

'They had a big open pit mine with a compressor and a wheel barrow for machinery. A large truck was backed into a bank, and they loaded the truck with the wheelbarrow. The ledge at that time was 30 feet high with two black bands 24 inches thick running parallel and equally spaced. The very top of the rock formation had a band of yellow uranium and a band of rose-red cobalt bloom...They were able to ship it all, but they had to break it up so there was no rock over five or six inches. The men were over 60 years of age, and they were all doing their own mining. ... Two men were breaking the ore with sledge hammers, one was loading the truck, and the other was doing the drilling and loading the holes. Ervin Olsen’s son was trucking the ore to the mill. For a long time their ore ran over 1% at the mill. (Geary 1996:332)'"

See: https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/PUB/MINES/AMR/A015/917/SanRafaelOralHistoryReport4-16-2012.pdf