William Braden and E.W. Nash of New York City, the Braden Copper Company had started mining there in 1906. In Utah, the Bingham and Garfield Railway opened in 1911 to transport local ore, replacing the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's line. In 1936, Kennecott acquired all the assets of the Utah Copper Company. During World War II, Bingham set new world records for copper mining and produced about 30% of the copper used by the Allies. During the war, many women worked for the first time in the mines, mills, and smelters, replacing the men who had gone to war. On September 9, 1949 three Kennecott company officers were killed in an airplane bombing in Quebec. They were the retiring president E.T. Stannard; his designated successor, Arthur D. Storke; and R.J. Parker, a vice-president. They were incidental to what became known as the Albert Guay Affair, innocent bystanders killed in a private revenge. Guay had shipped a timed-explosive device in the luggage of his wife on this flight. When it exploded, she and all the other passengers and crew on the plane were killed. Charles Cox, formerly head of Carnegie-Illinois Steel, was hired shortly after to fill the executive vacuum at Kennecott. Guay and his two accomplices, Marguerite Pitre and Généreux Ruest, were all convicted of murder and executed for the bombing. By 1961, Kennecott's copper mines in the United States included four large open pits in Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. As the mine in Utah expanded, it subsumed the land on which the City of Bingham Canyon was built, and the city was disincorporated in 1971. In 1981, after a worldwide fall in copper prices, Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO) acquired Kennecott. Production was interrupted from 1985 to 1987. In 1986, Asarco purchased the Ray mine in Arizona from Kennecott. In 1987, British Petroleum acquired SOHIO, and Kennecott became part of BP Minerals America. In 1989, Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) purchased mining assets from BP. Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation was formed by Rio Tinto in 1989 as a new mining company under the laws of the State of Utah. Current Operations Today, the second-largest copper producer in the US, Kennecott Utah Copper provides about 8% of the US annual copper consumption of 1,700,000 tonnes. Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation in the world. It is one of the top producing copper mines in the world