Consolidated Fuel Company
Southern Utah Railroad
This page was last updated on January 21, 2019.
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Overview
The original mine in Miller Creek Canyon at Hiawatha, later known as East Hiawatha or Old Hiawatha.
In 1907 coal was found in Miller Creek Canyon, the site of present day Hiawatha. This led to the organization of the Consolidated Fuel Company to develop 1,700 acres of land which included those same coal deposits. (Eastern Utah Advocate, October 24, 1907)
Timeline
October 15, 1907
Ten separate parcels of land, each a quarter section containing 160 acres (total of 1,600 acres), were sold to the Consolidated company on October 15, 1907. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Records Book 3-A, pp. 436-445, 614-616)
October 16, 1907
The Consolidated Fuel Company was incorporated on October 16, 1907. The corporation was involuntarily dissolved on October 5, 1927. (Utah corporation, index number 6618)
Just six weeks earlier, on August 31, 1907, the same people also organized the Southern Utah Railroad to haul their coal from their new Miller Creek mine twenty‑three miles north to Price, where the new railroad would connect with the Denver & Rio Grande. (Utah corporation, index number 6549)
October 17, 1907
The following comes from the October 17, 1907 issue of the Salt Lake Herald newspaper:
To Develop Coal Lands -- Consolidated Fuel Company Incorporated, With Extensive Holdings in Carbon County.
The Consolidated Fuel company, a new Salt Lake concern, filed articles of incorporation with the county clerk. The company has a capital stock of $2,500,000 with shares at a par value of $2.50 each. Of the total number of shares 514,400 have been set aside as treasury stock. The company owns various coal properties in Carbon county, which it proposes to develop.
The officers are: J. H. R. Franklin, president; John DeGrey Dixon, vice president; Jesse R. Shreck, secretary; Frederick W. Francis, treasurer. These, with Clarence H. Post, George S. Payne. J. E. McKnight, C. T. Lemley and L. P. Elliott, form the directorate.
An abstract of a statement given out by the incorporators is given below.
"The company owns 1,700 acres of coal lands, located in the Miller Creek district, seventeen miles south and west of Price, Utah. The company also owns all the water of the three forks of Miller creek, having purchased the property known as Miller ranch. The company has also acquired the right of way of the Southern Utah railway, recently incorporated, running from this company's property to the D. & R. G. railway near Price, Utah.
"The bottom vein is twenty feet thick, the second vein is eight feet thick, the third vein is thirty-one feet thick, two other veins, one ten feet thick and one twelve feet thick.
"It is the purpose of the company to immediately open up four large mines, each with a capacity of 2,500 tons daily, and to erect 500 coke ovens and construct a spur to the D. & R. G. railway. By next fall this company's output should equal the entire present output of the several mines now operating in Carbon county. Electrical equipment will be installed throughout. Twenty-five cottages will be erected for the accommodation of miners."
(Similar story carried in Eastern Utah Advocate, October 24, 1907)
November 23, 1907
A. A. Sweet of Consolidated Fuel stated that contracts for the building of its railroads would be awarded within 10 days. The line was already surveyed, and bids had been received. Miners had been hired to open up the coal mine. The N. S. Nelson ranch on Miller Creek had been purchased, along with its water rights, and ownership had "lately" passed to the new company. (Emery County Progress, November 23, 1907)
Work began on developing the mine in Miller Creek as soon as the coal company was organized in October 1907. In February 1908, work was halted and the coal stockpiled until the railroad reached the mine. (Zehnder, Chuck. A Guide To Carbon County Coal Camps And Ghost Towns, page 34)
October 24, 1907
The Consolidated Fuel company had filed its articles of incorporation with the secretary of state "last week." The company owned 1700 acres of coal lands located on Miller Creek
November 26, 1908
The development of the mine of Consolidated Fuel was progressing well, with the rails for the mine trackage having been delivered. The destination for the Southern Utah Railroad beyond those first southern seven miles from the mine are as yet unknown. (Eastern Utah Advocate, November 26, 1908)
December 10, 1908
The three largest entries for coal lands, up to that time, were made at the U. S. Land Office by Charles Croft, John Heiner, Arthur Tribe, and Charles Heiner, all at Miller Creek. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, December 10, 1908, p. 1)
June 19, 1909
The Consolidated Fuel Company purchased an "improved electric stationary " Box Car Loader with a 50 H.P. 440 volts, 60 cycle motor from the Ottumwa Box Car Loader Company of Ottumwa, Iowa. The purchase price was $2,750.00 and the loader was to be delivered on or before September 1, 1909. The Loader company agreed to furnish a competent mechanic, at the coal company's expense, to oversee the installation of the loader. The coal company was to furnish the foundation, steam and electrical connections and any changes to the tracks, chutes, and tipple necessary for the satisfactory operation of the loader. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Records Book 3-B, p. 65)
September 9, 1909
"Hiawatha is the name selected for the post office at Miller Creek. Coal produced there will also bear the same name, the trade mark of the Consolidated Fuel company being an Indian head. Miller Creek will soon, therefore, lose its identity." (Eastern Utah Advocate, September 9, 1909)
September 10, 1909
"The Hiawatha Mercantile Company is the name that was selected for the Consolidated Fuel Company's store at Miller Creek coal mine and a petition has been forwarded to Washington asking that the post office be established there to be called Hiawatha." (Carbon County News, September 10, 1909)
September 16, 1909
"The Southern Utah railroad has filed suit in the district court at Price against B. R. McDonald and the state board of land commissioners to condemn a right of way through three hundred and twenty acres of about two miles this side of where the Consolidated Fuel company will establish its townsite of Hiawatha (Miller Creek)." (Eastern Utah Advocate, September 16, 1909)
September 19, 1909
"A new town will be built near the Consolidated Fuel mine which will be called Hiawatha. There will be a town of about 300 before the first of the year and this will likely be increased to 500 early in 1910. The company will have an output daily of between 2000 and 3000 tons There are now fourteen men working in the mines besides scores on the railroad. Robert Howard is superintendent of the mine and expects to ship coal by the middle of November." (Salt Lake Herald Republican, September 19, 1909)
November 30, 1909
The Southern Utah Railroad purchased the entire flow of Miller Creek from William H. Sweet, secretary of the company. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Records Book 3-B, p. 59)
Construction and finishing work on the new railroad continued during November and December 1909. (Eastern Utah Advocate, January 13, 1910, "First coal out of Hiawatha")
January 1, 1910
A later account said that the first train of Hiawatha coal was shipped on January 1, 1910. (Eastern Utah Advocate, March 24, 1910)
February 17, 1910
By mid February the Southern Utah Railroad was shipping ten cars (about 300 tons) per day from the Hiawatha mine. (Eastern Utah Advocate, February 17, 1910)
March 24, 1910
By early March, the mine was shipping twelve cars a day. The Hiawatha mine was, in March 1910, the only mine in Utah to be equipped with electric shaker screens, providing a clean coal, free from dust and slack. (Eastern Utah Advocate, March 24, 1910, "One Of Carbon County's Greatest Coal Camps",
with photograph of Southern Utah number 100, courtesy of Lima)
March 24, 1910
"Among those connected with the company are F. A. Sweet, B. F. Bauer, A. A. Sweet, L. H. Curtis, F. W. Francis, W. H. Sweet, C. T. Lemley, E. D. Miller, C. M. Sweet, W. J. Burton, C. W. Reece, and J. H. R. Franklin." (Eastern Utah Advocate, March 24, 1910)
The Hiawatha mine of the Consolidated Fuel Company held two principle coal veins, called "measures". The main measure was eighteen feet thick and was worked from two openings which faced each other across Miller Creek canyon, level with the upper terminal of the tramway. A second measure, located about twenty feet above the lower measure, was six and a half feet thick and contained coal of superior coking quality. (Higgins: Consolidated, p. 18)
Hiawatha No. 1 was on the south side and Hiawatha No. 2 was on the north side. (Higgins: Hiawatha, p. 15-18)
The two mines together (Miller Creek and Cedar Creek) had a capacity of 2,000 tons per day. Twelve-ton Goodman electric locomotives were used to move the loaded mine cars along the main haulage way within the mines out to the surface at the upper terminal of the 10,500 foot long gravity tramway, with one locomotive assigned to each of the two mines. The in-mine gathering was done with five-ton Goodman locomotives. The mine cars each had a capacity of three and a half tons and were assembled into twenty car trains, called "trips", which were lowered by way of the two-mile gravity tramway to the rail car loading tipple at East Hiawatha. The tramway was controlled by a brake and a winding engine at the upper terminal, but was operated by gravity. The controlling mechanism was located at the upper terminal and consisted of a General Electric 82-horsepower induction motor connected to two tandem and coupled six-inch drums (one for lowering and the other for raising), the speed being controlled by a clutch. The trips of cars were connected to their respective drums by two miles of one-inch cable. The lowering of twenty loaded cars raised a similar train of twenty empty mine cars back to the mine. The two inside rails of Consolidated Fuel's double track mine-to-tipple tramway were set at standard gauge to allow the operation of Southern Utah's Shay locomotive to the mine when the necessity arose. (Higgins: Consolidated, pp. 18,19)
(NOTE: A photo accompanying this article shows that the double tracks of the gravity tramway were laid used long, single length ties, giving credence to the claim that the inside rails of the tramway were standard gauge to allow the Shay to get to the mine, although the gauge looks much wider than the two tramway tracks, which would have had a gauge of either forty or forty-two inches.)
The wooden tipple was fully modern in construction and design, using equipment furnished by Link-Belt of Chicago. Five different grades of coal were shipped in rail cars from the East Hiawatha tipple: regular lump (eight-inch minus); domestic lump (six-inch minus); nut or egg coal; and slack coal. The fifth grade was "especially large lump", with lumps weighing as much as a hundred pounds, and used mainly for storage purposes. Also at East Hiawatha was the company's electric power plant which generated power for the mine's hoisting, pumping, hauling and lighting, and for the coal grading screens at the tipple. The power plant used slack and waste coal from the mine as fuel. The Hiawatha mine was a success from the start. (Higgins: Consolidated, p. 19)
In 1910 the mine produced 152,000 tons of coal. (Higgins: Consolidated, p. 20, approximately 3,800 forty-ton car loads, or about 12 cars per day for a 300 day year.)
Within a year of May 1911, plans called for the increase of the then-current 2,000 tons per day to 4,000 or 5,000 tons per day. To accommodate this increase, plans also called for a new, steel tipple to be constructed at East Hiawatha. Expansion plans also called for the construction of coke ovens, to allow the use of the reserve of coking coal, which had been tested against coking coal from Pennsylvania and found to be superior. (Higgins: Hiawatha, p. 18)
The mine to tipple gravity tramway had a grade of nine percent, and was shown as the beginning two mile portion of the Southern Utah Railroad. (condensed profile of the Southern Utah Railroad)
August 11, 1910
Business was good for the two coal companies. To show off the success, on Sunday August 7, 1910, Fred Sweet accompanied noted Salt Lake photographer Harry Shipler out on the railroad line and at the Miller Creek mine, where Shipler took twenty-five views that would be used in the promotion of the coal companies' products. (Eastern Utah Advocate, August 11, 1910)
December 1, 1910
By December 1910, Consolidated Fuel was producing 1,200 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, December 1, 1910, p. 1)
March 30, 1911
Consolidated Fuel purchased an additional 1,500 acres of coal lands in March 1911, bringing its holdings up to over 3,000 acres. (Salt Lake Mining Review, March 30, 1911, p. 32)
May 1, 1911
On the financial side, the Consolidated Fuel Company and the Southern Utah Railroad Company arranged for a $600,000.00 mortgage with Utah Savings & Trust Company of Salt Lake City. Utah Savings attempted to sell bonds in the equivalent amount but was unsuccessful. The mortgage was released on August 28, 1911. The cost of constructing the improvements at the mine, together with the railroad had been $750,000.00, half of which had been from a earlier mortgage. (Carbon County Mortgages Book 4-C, pp. 123-137,185-189) (Pages 125 and 126 contain a complete description of the property and improvements subject to the mortgage, of both the coal company and the railroad.)
August 3, 1911
A special Southern Utah Railroad stockholders meeting was held to get Consolidated Fuel to extend its credit to the Southern Utah to allow the railroad to extend its line to Salina Canyon. (Eastern Utah Advocate, August 3, 1911)
September 1, 1911
Another mortgage was filed between the coal company, the railroad, and Continental & Commercial Trust & Savings Company of Illinois on September 1, 1911. The description of the property of the Southern Utah at the time of the mortgage shows four locomotives: numbers 50, 100, 102, and 104. Consolidated Fuel owned all of the stock of the Southern Utah Railroad at the time of the mortgage. (Carbon County Mortgages Book 4-C, pp. 205-243) The mortgage was released by Continental on October 11, 1923. (Carbon County Mortgages Book 4-J, p. 201)
July 13, 1913
In mid July 1913, the Consolidated Fuel Company bought all of the coal land holdings of the American Steel & Fuel Company in Miller Creek Canyon, near Hiawatha. (Eastern Utah Advocate, July 13, 1913)
American Steel & Fuel had purchased that property from Charles T. Lemley. The property consisted of the Southeast Quarter of Section 18, Township 15 South, Range 8 East. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Records Book 3-B, page 64) (C. T. Lemley was shown as "being connected" with the Consolidated Fuel Company in early 1910.)
July 20, 1912
"Consolidated Fuel Co. -- The United
States Smelting, Refining & Mining Co.
paid $1,200,000 for control of the Consolidated
Fuel Co.'s properties, comprising
6000 acres in Emery County, together
with the Hiawatha townsite and a half
interest In the Southern Utah Railroad
connecting the mine with the Rio Grande
R.R. at Price. Eight hundred thousand
of the 1,500,000 shares were purchased at
$1.50 per share. This mine Is considered
one of the greatest bituminous coal
properties In the West, producing 2200
tons dally, which will be increased to
3000 tons, commencing Oct. 1 of the present
year." (Coal Age, July 20, 1912, page 105)
March 19, 1915
"Mammoth Coal Merger -- Four Big Utah Mines to be Consolidated -- Salt Lake City -- It is reported here that four large Utah coal companies will be merged on April 1 into one company, to be known as the United States Fuel Company, with a total capitalization of $10,000,000. The companies whose holdings are to be taken over by the big new company are the Castle Valley Coal company, the Consolidated Fuel company, the Black Hawk Coal company and the Panther Coal company. These four companies are the owners of extensive tracts of coal lands and producing coal mines in Carbon and Emery counties." (Carbon County News, March 19, 1915)
March 30, 1915
United States Fuel Company was incorporated in Nevada on March 30, 1915. (Nevada Secretary of State, entity C208-1915; revoked in December 1991, reinstated in February 1992, still active as of July 2013, offices in Memphis, Tennessee)
January 3, 1916
The property of Consolidated Fuel Company was conveyed to United States Fuel Company on January 3, 1916. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Records Book 3-D, pages 254-259)
The Utah Company was incorporated in Maine on March 26, 1912, as a holding company subsidiary of USSR&M. The Utah Company was shown in 1916 as holding 100 percent of the following companies, except as noted.
- Utah Railway Co., incorporated in Utah on January 24, 1912 (100 percent)
- Castle Valley Coal Co., incorporated in Wyoming on July 12, 1909 (52.19 percent)
- Consolidated Coal Co., incorporated in Utah on October 16, 1907 (100 percent)
- Black Hawk Coal Co., incorporated in Nevada on February 13, 1911 (100 percent)
- Panther Coal Co., incorporated in Nevada on July 27, 1912 (100 percent)
- (Poors Manual of Industrials, 1916, page 1237)
January 3, 1916
United States Fuel Company filed articles of incorporation with Utah secretary of state. Capitalized for $10 million, with incorporators being E. L. Carpenter, Moroni Heiner, E. R. Gibson, G. E. Forrester and H. R. Mcmillan. the company was to take over the interests of Consolidated Fuel Company, Castle Valley Coal Company, Black Hawk Coal Company, Utah Coal Sales Company, and a number of smaller coal mines in Emery and Carbon counties. United States Fuel Company was organized in Nevada. (News Advocate, January 7, 1916, page 1, "Monday")
Southern Utah Railroad
Southern Utah Railroad -- Information about the Southern Utah Railroad and its line between Price and Hiawatha, taken over by Utah Railway in 1917.
More Information
Castle Valley Coal Company -- Information about the parent company of Castle Valley Railroad
Black Hawk Coal Company -- Information about the Black Hawk Coal Co. mine at Black Hawk, later known as Hiawatha or King Mine, sold to United States Fuel Company, served by Utah Railway.
Panther Coal Company -- Information about the Panther Coal Company and its mine near Castle Gate, served by Utah Railway; opened in 1912, closed in 1937.
United States Fuel -- Information about the mines of United States Fuel Company, the merger of Consolidated Fuel, Castle Valley Coal and Black Hawk Coal companies, served by Utah Railway after 1914.
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