Simplot Minerals
and Chemical Group

The J.R. Simplot Company is a pioneer in Idaho mining operations. Throughout its history, the company has mined gold, phosphate, silica, barite, iron, fluorspar, manganese, monzalite and uranium.

Today, the company operates the Smoky Canyon, Idaho phosphate mine near Afton, Wyoming; the Silica Sand Mine near Overton, Nevada, and has a partnership with Farmland Industries in a large phosphate mine near Vernal, Utah.

Simplot got its phosphate mining start in 1944 with a large phosphate deposit on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation north of Pocatello, Idaho and developed an open-pit mine. Naming the mine after his only daughter, Gay, the Gay mine would provide raw phosphate rock for the Simplot fertilizer operations in Pocatello for over 50 years.

With reserves at the company's Gay mine running short, Simplot developed the Smoky Canyon mine in the mid-1980s. The mine has since been reclaimed, as shown by the above photo. Located in the rugged mountains 90 miles southeast of Pocatello, the company developed a 67 mile slurry line to transport raw phosphate rock to Conda, Idaho, where it was dried and loaded onto rail cars for transport into Pocatello. In 1992, the company closed the Gay mine and extended the slurry pipeline from Conda to Pocatello. The 87 mile pipeline delivers over a million tons of raw phosphate rock to the Pocatello fertilizer plant annually.

The company's open-pit silica sand operation in Overton, Nevada supplies purified silica sand to glass manufacturers on the west coast.

In 1993, the company formed a partnership with Farmland Industries to purchase the phosphate operations from Chevron. Under the name of SF Phosphates, the company owns a large phosphate deposit and mine near Vernal, Utah. The phosphate ore is transported to the Rock Springs, Wyoming manufacturing plant via a 93 mile slurry pipeline.