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Coal Mining in Colorado

Added by yongli on 02/16/2021 - 13:06, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 22:39
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coal mining was the most important industry in Colorado. Coal mines served as the crucibles of empire, churning out the fuel needed to power the railroads, precious-metal mines , and smelters that helped develop the region. They were also...

Cokedale Historic District

Added by yongli on 12/11/2017 - 15:27, last changed on 01/31/2021 - 16:44
Nestled along Reilly Creek about eight miles west of Trinidad in Las Animas County , the Cokedale Historic District represents an excellent example of an early twentieth-century coal camp in the Raton Basin coalfield. In 1906 the American Smelting and Refining Company started construction in the...

Colorado Fuel & Iron

Added by yongli on 09/29/2016 - 16:45, last changed on 01/31/2021 - 16:42
The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a coal and steel company based in Denver and Pueblo . Most of its coal mines were located in southern Colorado. Its only steel mill was located in Pueblo. The firm came into existence as a result of a merger between the Colorado Coal and Iron...

Colorado’s New Energy Economy

Added by yongli on 02/06/2017 - 16:14, last changed on 01/26/2023 - 17:41
The term New Energy Economy refers to the transition of a state’s energy economy from one based purely on fossil fuels to one that includes a higher percentage of renewable energy sources. State-level energy policies have been the primary force moving the United States toward a greener economy, and...

Crested Butte

Added by yongli on 05/19/2017 - 16:36, last changed on 02/16/2023 - 20:42

Crested Butte

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Founded in 1878, Crested Butte is a former coal-mining town turned ski resort nestled in the Elk Mountains of northern Gunnison County . The town lies about twenty-eight miles north of the county seat of Gunnison and about the same distance south of Aspen . At nearly 9,000 feet of elevation and...

Fremont County

Added by yongli on 01/31/2017 - 10:47, last changed on 01/26/2023 - 09:34
Fremont County is located in south-central Colorado, bordered by Park and Teller Counties to the north, El Paso County to the east, Pueblo County to the southeast, Custer County to the south, and Saguache and Chaffee Counties to the north. Fremont County comprises 1,533 square miles with an...

Hastings Mine Explosion

Added by yongli on 02/16/2021 - 13:21, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 09:43
The Hastings Mine Explosion was the deadliest mining disaster in Colorado history. Caused by the misguided striking of a match in the Hastings coal mine north of Trinidad on April 27, 1917, the blast killed 121 coal miners; one other worker died of overexertion while trying to recover the bodies...

Jokerville Mine Explosion

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 13:35, last changed on 11/01/2022 - 20:41
On January 24, 1884, the Jokerville Mine outside of Crested Butte was full of methane gas and exploded, killing fifty-nine workers. As the third-deadliest mine disaster in Colorado history, the Jokerville explosion demonstrated the dangers of coal mining, even as coal was an essential industry for...

Ludlow Massacre

Added by yongli on 09/29/2016 - 16:39, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:54
The Ludlow Massacre began on the morning of April 20, 1914, when a battle broke out between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners at their tent colony outside of Ludlow in Las Animas County . Nobody knows who fired the first shot, but the incident is remembered as a massacre because...

United Mine Workers of America

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 14:09, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 09:43
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed in 1890 to fight for better pay and working conditions for the nation’s coal miners. In Colorado the union was most active in the early twentieth century, with thousands of members joining strikes in the southern coalfields of Fremont , Huerfano ,...

Vulcan Mine Explosions

Added by yongli on 02/08/2021 - 15:47, last changed on 10/25/2022 - 19:40
Between 1896 and 1918, the Vulcan Mine in Garfield County exploded three times, killing a total of eighty-five workers. The successive blasts prompted action from labor unions and politicians to make coal mines safer. At the site of the Vulcan Mine today, there remains an active underground coal...

Western Slope

Added by yongli on 01/23/2017 - 16:14, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 06:40
“A Fantasy land,” “a mystique,” “a state of mind”—these are only some of the expressions used to describe the Western Slope of Colorado, commonly defined as the roughly one-third of the state that lies west of the Continental Divide . The serpentine divide forms the region’s eastern boundary,...
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