In one article today it mentions the last public statistic on uranium production is 1941.
Some interesting things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining
Until World War II uranium mining was done primarily for the radium content.
. The Manhattan Project initially purchased uranium ore from the Belgian Congo
American uranium ores mined in Colorado were mixed ores of vanadium and uranium, but because of wartime secrecy, the Manhattan Project would publicly admit only to purchasing the vanadium, and did not pay the uranium miners for the uranium content. In a much later lawsuit, many miners were able to reclaim lost profits from the U.S. government.
Intensive exploration for uranium started after the end of World War II as a result of the military and civilian demand for uranium. There were three separate periods of uranium exploration or “booms.” These were from 1956 to 1960, 1967 to 1971, and from 1976 to 1982[citation
More on uranium. It was a pigment? (yellowcake)
http://www.handspiral.com/Uranium.htm
These pieces are very rare. I have a very limited supply of uranium oxide (U.), and I do not know if I will ever be able to get any more. While they are slightly radioactive, the uranium in these glazes is trapped in the glaze
http://science.howstuffworks.com/uranium-mining1.htm
the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which allowed uranium mining in the United States as long as the finished product ended up in government hands [source: Atomic Energy Commission].
“Uranium went from being a weed to a weapon,” said Michael Amundson, a historian, professor and expert on the Atomic Age. “Instead of serving as this useless pigment, it became a strategic element of the war.”
The comment by Enola Gay’s tailgunner “Sir, are we splitting atoms today?” shows that the concept was not totally unknown. And I recall Laurence’s article several years ago about a block of urnaium providing far greater energy than coal being used to power submarines and ships.