Phil Roberts, A New History of Wyoming
Chapter 9 (part 1): History of Coal in Wyoming
Even before there were cowboys in the “Cowboy State” there was coal.
While records do not indicate that coal was burned by the Indians, early trappers apparently found coal on the surface of the ground in many places and used it for fuel.
No reference to coal in Wyoming appeared in print until John C. Fremont made the following entry in his journal in August 1843: “Coal made its appearance occasionally in the hills during the afternoon, and was displayed in rabbit burrows in a kind of gap, through which we passed over some high hills, and we descended to make our encampment on the same stream where we found but very poor grass.”
The area “in a kind of gap” to which Fremont refers became the site of the coal mining camp of Cumberland (south of Kemmerer) some 60 years after Fremont’s visit.
Nine years after Fremont’s expedition, Capt. Howard H. Stansbury was sent by the army to survey a possible route across the mountains. Stansbury noticed the coal, too. “A short distance north of the road, and on the north bank of the creek, a bed of bituminous coal was discovered, between two nearly vertical dikes of light-grey coarse-grit sandstone…The outcrop was about eight feet wide by four feet thick, and was only visible against the south side of the north dike….Specimens of it, although much weathered, burned in the campfire with a clear, bright flame.”
The area Stansbury referred to is the mineral-rich Rock Springs vicinity. In fact, Rock Springs probably was established near the spot Stansbury referred to in his journal.
The first recorded mention of coal in what is now the Powder River Basin (now Wyoming’s richest coal fields) was made by Prof. F. W. Hayden in his notes taken while exploring the area with Col. W. F. Raynolds in 1859. Hayden wrote: “The whole region from the Platte to Pumpkin Butte is covered with the true lignite beds, in many places disturbed to some extent….There are numerous beds of lignite more or less pure.”
As the Union Pacific moved west toward Promontory Point, coal mines opened to supply the locomotives. The first mining town was Carbon, now a ghost town southwest of Medicine Bow. Almost 6,500 tons of coal were produced in the Carbon mines in their first year—1868. The mines at Carbon operated until 1900 when mining operations were finally moved to Hanna, ten miles to the northwest.
The second mine along the Union Pacific railroad line was opened the same year, even before the railroad tracks arrived, at Rock Springs. In its first year, only 300 tons were produced although it became one of the largest mines in terms of production in the territorial period.
Almy was the third coal mining community established along the UP. Now a ghost town in Uinta County, Almy once was headquarters for four mines employing as many as 2,000 miners.
Coal powered the locomotives of the Union Pacific until diesel engines replaced steam locomotives in the middle 20th century. Mines like those in Hanna, established in 1900, kept the railroad supplied. Other areas of the state experienced coal discoveries after the railroad was completed. In fact, it is estimated that coal underlies about 40 percent of the land area of Wyoming.
In 1887 Mike Gladhough discovered coal in the Newcastle area. An early settler, he reported his find to J. B. Weston who interested a contracting company in the discovery. Frank Mondell began the formal prospect for the coal in March 1887, and two years later, when the railroad arrived, the first coal from the mining camp of Cambria was shipped east. Although Weston had a county named for him and Mondell served as Wyoming’s representative in Congress for almost three decades, the mines at Cambria closed without ceremony in March 1928. Soon, the community became a ghost town.
In 1894 James E. Foote opened a coal mine at Diamondville (Lincoln County). At the height, Foote's company, the Diamond Coal and Coke Company, operated four mines in the area. The last one closed in 1942. The Kemmerer Coal Company was organized in 1897 by P. J. Quealy, Mahlon Kemmerer and his son John Kemmerer. The three men were also founders of the town of Kemmerer, incorporated in 1899.
Several coal mines operated in Sheridan County early in the 20th century. The town of Dietz sprang up in 1899. Other "company towns" in Sheridan County included Kleeburn, Kooi, Monarch, and Acme.
Gebo (Hot Springs County) came into being in 1906 and by 1912, more than 350 men were employed in the mines there. In the first years of the mine, the management became involved in a controversy over improper coal filings on public land. By the time the trouble was corrected by a new federal coal leasing law in 1920, the company had paid thousands in legal fees, court costs and fines. By 1926, however, Gebo’s mines finally reached their peak with some 650 miners employed there. Within a decade, the mine was closed and the people moved away.
Like the rest of mineral-rich Wyoming, some of the old coal mining towns made a revival in the mid-1970s. Mining companies returned to open new mines or reopen existing ones. In many cases, particularly in southern Wyoming, these new "booms" were short-lived. By the late 1980s, many of those mines were closed once again and the towns nearby suffering from the economic "bust."
While far fewer miners are employed in today’s Wyoming coal mines than a century ago, the production levels far exceed those thousands of tons per year produced by miners wielding little more than picks and shovels in territorial days. Wyoming's annual coal production in 2006 was 446 million tons. In fact, the state has led the nation in coal production since the late 1980s.
Coal probably will continue to furnish a substantial portion of the nation's electricity needs. An estimated 20 percent of electricity generated in America comes from coal-fired power plants burning Wyoming coal. A challenge will come with problems of global warming because coal-fired power plants contribute substantially to CO2 emissions. Recently, the University of Wyoming established a School of Energy Resources. One challenge for researchers in the coal technology section of the new school will be finding new ways to provide for sequestration of the emissions so that coal might continue to serve the country's energy needs without contributing to global warming. Already, there is promise in utilizing emissions in enhanced oil recovery. If the various efforts are successful, Wyoming likely will be the main player in coal production well through this century and beyond.