The Kennecott Smokestack: Just outside of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and visible from downtown Salt Lake City. At 1,215 ft. high (370.4 meters), it's the tallest freestanding structure west of the Mississippi. This is symbolic of the West because we like to tear up mountains and extract their resources. It's what made us successful. Anyway, people used to think that you needed a much higher percentage of ore in the earth in order to make a mine profitable, but then the Bingham Canyon Mine pioneered the technique of open pit mining and large scale smelting and now a mountain top is gone. Even though this is a copper mine, the sheer bulk in what is smelted from this giant operation has produced way more gold and silver than any mine in Utah (which is saying something). Back before the mine was giant it supplied 1/3 of all the copper to the Allies during WWII. If you contrast the SLC metro's uber smokestack to the 1,149 foot Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, that pretty much gives you an idea of just how radically different the two economies are.
Kennecott Smelter by
dmitriyk, on Flickr
Bingham Canyon Mine? - SLC UT by
BJGREFE <-- Thanks IT Department, on Flickr
Kennecott Copper by
arbyreed, on Flickr
In this image you can see the smokestack in the distance from downtown.
Salt Lake skyline from the University Medical Center by
CountyLemonade, on Flickr
This image is just for fun; I like this angle of downtown Salt Lake City better.
Skyline with a Trax train by
CountyLemonade, on Flickr