Jones Mine, Scofield

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER UTAH,4-SCOF,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Scofield, Carbon County, Utah 1/4 Section 33, Township 12 South, Range 7 East Quad: Scofield Bate of Construction: Primary construction of the mine complex was in The mine was probably opened previously in the as a truck and wagon mine with little surface evidence of mining activity.

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER UTAH,4-SCOF,1-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

John A. Senulis Senco-Phenix Salt Lake City, Utah Jones Mine HAER No. UT-43 (Page 2)

History

Coal has always been an important commodity in Utah. Brigham Young extolled the value of coal over wood and wrote to the New York Herald in the soliciting capital for its removal and use in manufacturing. In the Territorial Legislature offered a reward of for anyone locating abundant sources of coal that could be shipped to Salt Lake City (Utah Mining Association: Goal was first discovered in Coalville in James Gunnison, on an exploratory mapping mission for the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, discovered coal in Castle Valley (Doelling and Smith: Even though coal was readily available, it was very difficult to transport to populated Salt Lake City. Packing by mule or by wagon, when roads were available, was a costly and time-consuming effort.

The Fairview Coke and Coal Company opened a seam in Huntington Canyon in but poor transportation facilities caused the company's failure in (Doelling and Smith: The true development of the coal industry in Utah coincides with the development of the railroad industry. In the Union Pacific Railroad, in need of coal for operation, opened mines in Green River and Rock Springs, Wyoming, and in in Coalville, Utah. The Union Pacific Railroad, which generally followed the route of modern-day Interstates 80 and 84 into Ogden, Utah, had easy access from its mines to the urban market to Salt Lake Valley.

With a competing railroad from other coal sources, this created an immediate monopoly on the coal supply for Salt Lake City, which persisted for a decade (Union Pacific Coal Company: Pleasant Valley, in central Utah where the Jones Mine is located, was the scene of some early and ambitious coal development undertakings in the Coal was first discovered in a canyon at the southern end of the valley in John Nelson and Abram Taylor supposedly spent the winter of in this canyon to protect the claim, hence, the name Winter Quarters (Zehnder, In the Pleasant Valley Coal Company was founded by Milan Packard and Myron Crandall, who began work in Winter Quarters that same year (Zehnder, As with the Fairview Company, transportation was their biggest problem.

Coal was taken by wagon to Springville and Provo, where it sold for four to five dollars a ton. The round trip took four days and could not be made in the winter (Denver and Rio Grande Western Magazine, In Springville merchants and the residents of Pleasant Valley obtained a large supply of dry goods from a bankrupt eastern company. They used these dry goods in lieu Jones Mine HAEE No. UT-43 (Page 3) of cash to finance the construction of a narrow gauge rail road from Tucker in Spanish Pork Canyon to Pleasant Valley. The road was called the "Calico Road" (Denver and Rio Grande Western Magazine, In an attempt to break the coal monopoly held in Salt Lake City t>y the Union Pacific, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad "began a line from Denver to Salt Lake City.

Originally scheduled to run through Castle Valley and Salina Canyon, the company revised the route of the railroad to take advantage of the ooal resources of the Wasatch Plateau (McElprang et al, During the time the main line was under construction, the Denver and Rio Grande Western built a narrow gauge line up Fish Creek Canyon from Colton, a small junction on the main line, to Pleasant Valley that had double the capacity of the Calico Road, The main line was completed in the same year that Winter Quarters Mine was acquired "by Utah Fuels, a subsidiary of the Denver and Rio Grande.

The route from Colton was upgraded to standard size in While Union Pacific was concentrating on developing its Wyoming coal resources, Utah Fuels acquired the Sunnyside and Castlegate Mines, thereby gaining the monopoly once held by Union Pacific. In 190O, Utah Fuels was the leading producer of coal in Utah, and Carbon County was clearly the center of production (Alexander, The period of witnesses a flurry of development in Pleasant Valley, with the railroad and mining activities sharing center stage with a number of immigrants who came to Pleasant Valley for the lush grazing pastures. The town of Scofield, at the southern end of the valley, was founded at this time.

In an attempt to gain back some of the business lost to the Denver and Rio Grande, the Union Pacific Coal Company bought the Pleasant Valley Mine on the east side of Pleasant Valley from the Utah Central Coal Company in The Union Pacific found that hauling the coal from the new mine, renamed the Union Pacific No. 1, to be an expensive proposition, as they had to use the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The excessive costs kept production down to 6O0 tons of screened coal per day (Union Pacific History, The company leased its interest to the Scofield Coal Company in Pleasant Valley was rocked with disaster on May 1, 19O0, when an explosion and fire occurred in the No. 4 Entry of the Winter Quarters mine.

Two hundred miners lost their lives in what was probably a preventable accident (Dilley, The tragedy had a profound effect upon Pleasant Valley and the surrounding area. Much has "been written on the disaster, and the mine owner, Utah Fuels Company, even commissioned a book on the subject (Dilley, Jones Mine HAER No. UT-43 (Page 4) Because of its more open location, Soofield "became the main center of population, and the first public school was located there in As with all coal areas, Scofield had its economic ups and downs.

The "boom caused by the stimulus of World War I was followed by the decline of the which saw the closing of the Winter Quarters in The introduction of natural gas to Utah in caused great competition for the coal industry, as natural gas gained in use in "both commercial and domestic applications. The following decade of the Depression saw only further decline. During the Depression, small mining operations known as "truck and wagon mines" became prominent. The name "truck and wagon" referred to mines that had very little surface evidence of use.

Miners would fill individual orders for certain amounts of coal without going through the formal process of opening a mine; therefore, royalties and owner fees could be avoided (Heiner, A variation on this theme would be to obtain the rights to a mine, to take a mortgage on the coal, to mine what was needed for a profit, and then cease payments to the hank. The miner profitted from the unused mortgage money because the mine was never developed, and also profitted from the coal he took out by the truck and wagon method. World War II saw a renewed interest in coal production, because large amounts of energy were needed to mobilise an industrial country at war. Scofield did not profit from this boom as much as the Clear Creek mines because the Scofield coal deposits were of inferior quality.

The Korean War era brought new interest to the Scofield area and witnessed the major period of activity at the Jones Mine. During this time, the surface owner of the property was the Jones family. The Jones Mine The exact origin of the Jones Mine are obscure as is the exact source of the Jones Mine name. A former superintendent of the Winter Quarters Mine, Stan Harvey, believes that the site may have been worked in the late by E. K. Olsen. Another mine promoter, Claude Heiner, believes Olsen worked in the Kinney and Blue Seal mines to the north. Spieker did not show a mine at the Jones Mine site, but did show the Kinney and Blue Seal mined 3/4 of a mile north of the Jones Mine site, as a result of his fieldwork in Most likely, the Jones Mine is of a later date.

The only actual reference is Doelling who, on his maps and in his text, refers to the Jones Mine as abandoned in the location that is discussed in this history. Doelling indicates no dates or references and discusses only problemmatic opinions on its use. The known history of the Jones Mine begins in when John Marshall and Dan McAlpine began working the mine in hopes of tapping into the Jones Mine HAER No. UT-43 (Page 5) beds of the Union Pacific Mine to the south. In when they opened the mine, the drift extended less than 500 feet, and had all the appearances of a truck and wagon mine.

It is possible, and indeed likely, that an obscure reference to the Jones brothers of Western Fuel removing 4 048 tons of coal in could be both the date of opening and the source of the name (Heiner, The name is further clouded by another Jones family that acquired surface rights to much of the area in (Carbon County Clerk's Office, What is certain is that Marshall and McAlpine did most of the construction at the mine. They began to extend the mine, constructed the angle drift for the air return and nearly reached the beds of the old Union Pacific Mine, They are also responsible for the two hoppers and the frame building on the site (Heiner, The thirty-foot thick beds of the old Union Pacific No. 1 mine were not to be found to the north.

The seam splits with layers of sandstone and shale (Spieker, The mine was abandoned in because the seam split into three divergent layers with the Jones Mine in the lower seam. This reduced considerably the amount of accessible coal. Another cause for abandonment was the fear of hitting the old Union Pacific Mine seam which was believed to "be on fire (Heiner, There was no further activity at the Jones Mine, although when the Columbine Mine opened to the north in I960, there was some thought of using the Jones Mine for its air return drift. These plans were materialized, and the Columbine Mine was closed in because it could not meet the new standards of the Federal Mine Safety Act. This brought to an end significant mining activity in the area immediately east of Scofield.

Bibliography

Alexander, Thomas G. "From Dearth to Deluge, Utah's Coal Industry," Utah Historical Quarterly. Volume 31, Salt Lake City. Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter Pay Saints, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Jones Mine HAER So. UT-43 (Page 6) Denver and Rio Grande Western Magazine "Development of Coal Mining in Carbon County," Denver and Rio Grande Western Magazine, May Denver. Dilley, J. M. History of the Scofield Mine Disaster. Skelton Publishing Company, Provo, Utah. Doelling, H. H. Central Utah Coal Fields: Book Cliffs. Utah Geological and Mineralogical Survey, Salt Lake City. Doelling, H. H, and M. R. Smith Overview of Utah Coal Fields: In Gurgel, Klaus editor. "Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium on the Geology of Rocky Mountain Coal".

Bulletin Utah Department of NaturAl Resources, Utah Geological and Mineral Survey. Harvey, Joe Personal Communication, July Harvey, Stan Personal Communication, July Heiner, Claude Personal Communication, July McElprang, Stella et al Castle Valley. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Emery County Chapter, Salt Lake City. Spieker, Edmund The Wasatch Plateau Coal Field, Utah; U. S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Bulletin No. 819 Washington, D. C. Union Pacific Coal Company History of the Union Pacific Coal Company Mines, The Colonial Press, Omaha. Utah Mining Association Utah's Mining Industry. Utah Mining Association. Salt Lake City. Zehnder, Chuck Coal Dumps and Ghost Towns: A Guide to Carbon County. Castle Press, Price, Utah. Jones Mine HAER No.

UT-43 (Page 7) DESCRIPTION OF FEATURES AT THE JONES MINE SITE SCOFIELD, UTAH General Information I Sources The material used in the feature descriptions was taken from the following data sources: 1. Notes and dimensions taken by Allen D. Roberts during on-site investigation conducted on June 27, 2. Photographs taken "by John A. Senulis during on-site investigation conducted on June 27t 5, Site descriptions prepared by Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. 4. Topographical map entitled Scofield Mine Reclamation Project, prepared "by Dames and Moore, Salt Lake City, for the Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. 5. Sheets of measured architectural features prepared by Allen D. Roberts during the month of July II.

Format Each of the five features has been described, using a four-step process as follows: A. Probable use (or name). B. Construction material. C. Dimensions. D. Additional information. Feature Descriptions Feature No. 1 A. Entry portal. B. Stone and timber framing with metal corrugated roof. The portal is collapsed and the collapsed material forms a berm, blocking access. Jones Mine HASR No. (Page 8) C. The entry portal is approximately 8 feet wide and 3 feet high, opening into a large cavernous room, off of which are two drifts. D. The portal was for a one-entry coal mine. Feature No. 2 A. Ventilation portal. B. Masonry construction with a concrete reinforced fan opening. C. The masonry structure is approximately 10 feet wide, 20 feet long and 7 feet high. D.

The structure has evidence of subsidence damage to the east. Feature No. 3 A. Wood-frame building, possibly a control house. B. Building is constructed of wood frame with wooden floor and tin roof. Evidence of plaster and lathe interior finish. C. Building is approximately 10 feet long, 10 feet high, and 10 feet long. D. Possible control center associated with hopper structure No. 4. Feature No. 4 A. Metal clad hopper. B. Hopper is constructed of wood with steel I-beam reinforcement. C. Hopper is approximately 10 feet wide, 15 feet long, and 15 feet high. D. Hopper is probably at the end of conveyor line from the main portal of feature No. 1. Feature No. 5 A. Large wooden hopper. B.

The hopper is constructed of wood with a timber framing and is held above by a series of timber columns established in concrete footings. C. The hopper is approximately 50 feet long, 15 feet high and 15 feet wide. It is supported approximately 12 feet above grade by 12-inch timbers. D. The hopper is leaning towards the west and is kept from collapsing by two 1/2 inch metal cables.