The Happy Jack Deal

Back in 1946, young Joe Cooper and his" father-in-law, Fletcher Bronson, of Monticello, Utah, paid $1,000 for 500 acres of copper-mining property in southwestern Utah. They soon regretted the investment: the copper ore was so heavily contaminated with uranium that nobody wanted to process it. Then the atomic age got into swing, and Cooper and the Bronson family forgot all about copper. Their Happy Jack mine never had a waste dump, because every pound of rock dug up was commercial-grade ore. Last week Cooper, now 45, and the Bronsons decided that the mine was too big for them to develop with their limited resources. They sold the Happy Jack to Barlu Oil Corp. for a price, based on the mine's production, that may eventually net them $30 million.

Barlu is owned by Oilman Phillis N. ("Pete") Wiggins Jr. and his two sons. Cooper and the Bronsons chose Barlu from a long line-up of clamoring customers. Under the deal, Barlu will make a down payment of $10 million, plus payments spread over ten years based on the value of Happy Jack production, up to a maximum total of $30 million.

Barlu is backed by a syndicate of New York, Denver and California interests, including Lewis Douglas, former Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, and New York's Foley Bros., one of the world's biggest metallurgical plant builders, now putting up an $8,000,000 uranium reduction mill at Moab, Utah for Charles Steen, uranium millionaire (TIME, June 27). Foley will operate the Happy Jack for Barlu, and build a big mill where, under present plans, uranium processing will be carried two steps farther than private industry has ever gone before: from uranium oxide concentrate to uranium salts, and then to metal. Says Foley's Executive Vice President M. S. Sullivan: "We have a pretty big group here, more than required for just the Happy Jack deal. We have hopes of getting into bigger things."

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