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Pleasant Valley Mines

Index For This Page

This page was last updated on October 18, 2012.

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(This is a work in progress; research continues.)

Overview

Coal production of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company approximately doubled in five year intervals: in 1882 it mined about 87,500 tons; in 1888, 164,500 tons; in 1893, 315,214 tons; in 1898, 555,000 tons. Production for 1900 was 1,082,000 tons. Coke production showed similar growth: in 1889 (the first year), it produced 760 tons of coke; in 1894, 16,000 tons; and in 1900, 35,200 tons. The projected production for 1901 was about 55,000 tons of coke. (Higgins: Industries, p. 19)

Railroad Service To Pleasant Valley Mines

The following mile posts are from the 1892 RGW timetable:

The following mile posts are from the 1926 D&RG timetable:

D&RG's Scofield Branch shipped about 1,400 tons of coal per day in early 1917. (Coal Index: News Advocate, January 18, 1917, p. 5)

In a 1919 letter to the Public Service Commission of Utah, D&RG stated that the coal mines served by their railroad included, with distances from Colton: Scofield (formerly the Union Pacific Mine), 17 miles; Winter Quarters, 17.5 miles; Utah Mine, 17.7 miles; and Clear Creek, 21.1 miles. (letter from D&RG to Public Service Commission of Utah, January 17, 1919)

Surveyors were at work in mid May 1922 on the new line in Pleasant Valley to clear the valley for a new dam. (Coal Index: The Sun, May 19, 1922, p. 1)

Construction of the dam began in June 1924. (Coal Index: The Sun, June 13, 1924, p. 1)

In 1925 the Denver & Rio Grande Western's Scofield Branch was relocated to allow construction of Horseley dam and associated reservoir, owned by Price River Conservancy District. The Horseley dam was replaced in 1947 by Scofield Dam, which was under construction by the federal Bureau of Reclamation beginning in 1943. The Horseley dam was an earthen design and had always leaked. The owners never filled the Horseley reservoir to its designed capacity for fear that it would fail. When the Scofield dam was completed in 1946, the Army Corps of Engineers stated that the Horseley dam had never properly compacted itself over the preceding twenty-five years. (Madsen, pp. 13,14)

(LeMassena: Rio Grande, page 145, states that the first reservoir was known as the Scofield Reservoir.)

In addition to the steady stream of coal traffic coming off the branch, in 1938 a small number of sheep was handled at Scofield. The summer grazing of sheep was an important local industry. In 1938 the operating coal mines included the Clear Creek Mine of Utah Fuel (the heaviest producer), and the Glenn Coal Company, both at Clear Creek, the Klean Heat Coal Company, Money Coal Company, and the Scofield Coal Company, all at Scofield. The Winter Quarters mine of Utah Fuel had discontinued operations in 1933. The ton-miles on the branch, including coal, mail, express, and a small amount of miscellaneous traffic, diminished from a ten-year high in 1928 of 2,426 ton-miles to 1,005 ton-miles in 1932, to 888 ton-miles in 1937. (D&RGW: 1938)

Winter Quarters Mine

The Winter Quarters mine was opened in the spring of 1875 by George Matson, of Springville, along with Phil Beard and John Nelson. These three men arrived in Pleasant Valley, laid out the Pleasant Valley township, assessed the mine claim, and drove the first hundred feet of tunnel for the Winter Quarters mine. In an article in the August 23, 1928 issue of the Sun Advocate, Matson stated that he helped dig the first load of coal to come out of the Pleasant Valley area. That first load of coal was sacked at the mine, hauled by mule down the hillside, and loaded into wagons. The wagons were hauled by mules to Springville by Milan Packard and Myron Crandall. The name Winter Quarters came from the fact that John Nelson and Abram Taylor "wintered" there during the winter of 1875-1876, holding the mining claims for the owners. During 1877 Peter Moran and a group of miners from San Pete Valley settled the town and began to continuously work the mine, with formal work beginning in June 1877. These miners were caught by an early winter storm that fall and were forced to stay at the mine through the winter. They stayed until their supplies ran out in February 1878 and then left the area, walking to Tucker. Once the Castle Gate mines were opened in 1888, the coal from Winter Quarters was used by the railroad for its locomotives. (Zehnder, p. 4)

In 1880 the Winter Quarters mine was owned by the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, but the mine was leased to Bishop Williams. At the same time, the same company began development of the Mud Creek mine, an action that was protested by Williams, arguing that another mine in the area was not needed because his mine would be able to furnish all demand. (Watts: First Mine, pp. 36,37)

In 1880 the Winter Quarters mine was leased to David Williams, the Mormon bishop in Winter Quarters. (Powell, Next Time We Strike, p. 20)

The Winter Quarters mine was shown as the "Williams Mine" in the 1884 measurement of side tracks done by the D&RGW's Utah division engineer. (D&RGW: 1884 side tracks)

In 1885, Pleasant Valley Coal Company, under the new management of W. G. Sharp, took over the operation of the Winter Quarters mine and shut down the Mud Creek mine. (Watts: First Mine, p. 38)

During late 1901 the Winter Quarters mine, located about one and a half miles above Scofield, was producing 1,200 tons per day from the No. 1 opening, and about 400 tons daily from the No. 4 opening. The No. 5 opening was still being developed. The No. 1 mine was first worked in 1879, but was not vigorously worked until about 1895. After that time the yearly output was about 350,000 tons per year. In the No. 4 mine, an electric hoist was used to drop the loaded mine cars out of the mine workings, through a rock tunnel to the mine opening. The loaded cars were then eased down a 1,500 foot gravity tramway from the mine opening to the tipple, with the loaded cars lifting empties back to the mine opening. (Higgins: Industries, p. 19)

In January 1908 Utah Fuel forced all of the workers in its Winter Quarters mine to live in the company-owned town of Winter Quarters. Some were living in the private-land town of Scofield. Those who had not yet moved to Winter Quarters by January 31st were told to "get their time and settle up." The Scofield (former Union Pacific Mine) and Winter Quarters mines were working three days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, January 30, 1908, p. 6)

During March 1908, the mines at Winter Quarters and Clear Creek were producing about 2,000 tons per day, working three days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, March 26, 1908, p. 8)

In April 1909 the Winter Quarters and Clear Creek mines were producing 1,800 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, April 15, 1909, p. 1)

During late 1909 the first steel loading tipple in the state was erected at Utah Fuel's Winter Quarters mine. (Watts: Carbon County, p. 404)

The Winter Quarters mine and the Clear Creek mine planned to increase the production to four days per week. The Sunnyside mine had never been lower than six days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, June 11, 1914, p. 2)

The Winter Quarters mine produced 379,000 tons of coal during 1909 (or about 7,580 fifty-ton car loads, about 25 cars per day for a 300 day working year), making it the third largest producer in the state. The coal is slightly higher in moisture and ash than other coals, but was regarded as good domestic and steam coal, and was very extensively used by the D&RG for its locomotives. (Harrington, p. 21)

(PHOTOGRAPHS: A photo of the Winter Quarters tipple was in Coal Age, Volume 2, number 22, November 30, 1912, p. 747.)

The coal mined at Winter Quarters was of inferior quality, compared to Castle Gate coal. The low quality of the coal made it hard to market, and because the mine was owned by the Denver & Rio Grande railroad, the railroad began using the coal for its locomotives. Production decreased after 1920, due mostly to the long underground haulage, which increased operating costs so that the coal was even too expensive for the railroad to continue using. In 1928 the original Winter Quarters mine was closed. (Madsen, p. 55)

(United States Fuel: Thirty Years, page 6, says that the Winter Quarters Mine was opened in 1884, and abandoned a few years later.)

In March 1925 the Clear Creek and Winter Quarters mines were leased to the Littlejohn Brothers and Bishop T. J. Parmley to keep them open. (Coal Index: The Sun, March 20, 1925, p. 1)

The abandonment of the Winter Quarters Branch was announced, for the purposes of a public hearing, on April 6, 1933. (Coal Index: Sun-Advocate, April 6, 1933, p. 6)

On April 28, 1933 the Denver & Rio Grande Western received ICC approval to abandon the 1.7 mile Winter Quarters Spur, from the Scofield wye to Winter Quarters, including 1.3 miles of yard tracks at Winter Quarters. Utah Fuel Company had closed their mine at Winter Quarters in 1928 and they removed all of the machinery in September 1930. (193 ICC 21)

Union Pacific Mine

(Also known as the Scofield Mine)

Located north and east of the town of Scofield, served by a spur of D&RGW along the east side of its original Utah & Pleasant Valley track. The spur remained in place after the branch itself was moved in 1925 to make way for Scofield reservoir.

Union Pacific lost its coal monopoly over northern Utah when Rio Grande tracks reached Salt Lake. Union Pacific was supplying coal from its Wyoming mines and from the mines near Coalville. The completion of the Denver & Rio Grande Western allowed that new company to furnish coal from the Pleasant Valley mines. To combat the Rio Grande, the Union Pacific began exploring for its own coal in the Pleasant Valley region. In 1882 the Utah Central Coal Company, controlled by the Utah Central Railway, which itself was controlled by the Union Pacific, began development of what was called the Union Pacific mine, near Winter Quarters. (Watts: First Mine, p. 38)

To transport the coal from their newly acquired coal mine, on October 10, 1881, Union Pacific interests organized the Utah Central Railway, Pleasant Valley Branch, to build a railroad line from Spanish Fork to the Pleasant Valley coal lands, with Sidney Dillion, UP's president in New York City, owning more than ten times the shares as the other organizers. Just three months later, on January 20, 1882, the Utah Central Railway amended their articles of incorporation to include a branch line from Spanish Fork to the coal lands in Pleasant Valley. The amendment was formally filed with the Territory of Utah until February 13, 1882. Apparently the new railroad never got beyond the planning stages. (Utah corporation, index number 579)

By March 1882, the planning for the Utah Central Pleasant Valley Branch had been suspended indefinitely. (Reeder, p. 383, from Salt Lake Herald, March 26, 1882)

The coal property at the Union Pacific mine was first discovered by a Mr. Hatch of Springville in 1876. The property was almost opposite that of the Winter Quarters mine west of Scofield. By June 1877, a Mr. Pugsley of Salt Lake City had acquired the mine. He worked the mine with about five or six miners and shipped the coal to Utah valley by wagon. The coal mine was purchased by the Utah Central Coal Company in 1881. That company opened a twenty-foot seam of coal. In 1884 Utah's first coal mine related deaths occurred here, on January 1, 1884. The wooden tipple caught fire, setting fire to the coal inside the mine. As a result of this fire the mine opening was closed and permanently sealed. In 1885 a second opening was developed and mining continued. The Utah Central Coal Company was sold to the Union Pacific Coal Company in November 1890, including the townsite of Scofield. Homesteaders had settled in Scofield and Union Pacific went to court to establish their ownership of the townsite. The homesteaders won. The Union Pacific mine was always subject to the freight rates of a competing railroad, the D&RG. Union Pacific Coal Company found it to be more economical to furnish coal from its Wyoming mines rather than from the Scofield mine, subsequently the Union Pacific mine at Scofield was usually operated at a very low rate of production. (Cunningham: Tours, p. 9)

The coal seam opened by the Utah Central Coal Company at Scofield was twenty-eight feet thick, and called the Pleasant Valley Seam. On January 1, 1884 the tipple caught fire, burned down, and set the coal in the mine on fire. The original No. 1 opening was permanently closed. In the early spring of 1884 additional property was purchased and another, second, Pleasant Valley No. 1 mine was opened nearby to continue working the Pleasant Valley Seam. W. G. Sharp was superintendent from 1887 to 1892. The coal from the Scofield mine was used by Union Pacific to supply engine coal for its Utah Division. On October 1, 1891, UP applied to the RGW for a reduced rate, from $1.25 to $1.00 per ton, to ship its coal from Scofield to Salt Lake City. RGW declined and UP began getting its Utah Division engine coal from its Rock Springs, Wyoming mine. With that change, the Scofield mine was only "worked to take care of the commercial trade." The demand for commercial coal went down with the "financial panic of 1897", and the mine was closed and sealed. (Union Pacific Coal Company, pp. 124,125)

The Union Pacific Coal Company was incorporated in Utah on November 23, 1891. The corporation was "withdrawn" on May 4, 1944. (Utah corporation, index number 1011)

The Union Pacific Coal Company was incorporated in September 1890. (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 123, "…November 1890, the Coal Company had been incorporated but two months.")

Scofield was more of an agricultural town than a coal town. The earliest settlers in the open part of the valley came in 1879 and 1880 for the grazing for their cattle. By 1882, there were 800 residents. Scofield became a formal, organized town in 1893. The town had wider streets, blocks clearly laid out, and more importantly, room to expand. The pleasant surroundings made the town the preferred settlement in the Pleasant Valley area, and many miners lived in the town and traveled to their mines at Winter Quarters and Clear Creek. In 1924 the large, open hay fields were covered by the waters of the Horseley dam. (Zehnder, pp. 8,9)

During 1877 there were six to eight ranches in the open portions of grazing lands near Scofield, with large herds of cattle and horses. (Deseret News, September 5, 1877)

(United States Fuel in its booklet, "Thirty Years of Coal Mining", on page 6, wrongly states that the Union Pacific mine No. 1 and the Winter Quarters mine were both opened in 1884, and abandoned "a few years later".)

The Union Pacific mine remained closed from 1897 to 1907. In 1907 the mine was re-opened and operated until June 1, 1911, when the mine was closed again due to a lack of demand for the coal. (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 125)

Production of the Union Pacific Pleasant Valley mine between 1883 and 1911 was 1,578,778 tons of coal. (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 15)

In early 1907 the Union Pacific mine at Scofield was to be reopened to supply coal to the Oregon Short Line. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, February 28, 1907, p. 1)

Union Pacific mine was to be reopened in February 1907 after being idle for ten years. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, March 7, 1907, p. 6)

(The Eastern Utah Advocate in its June 20, 1907 issue, page 7, wrongly states that the Union Pacific mine was formerly the Mud Creek mine and in 1907 was called the Utah Mine.)

In early 1908, the Union Pacific mine was working four to five days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, January 30, 1908, p. 6)

In February 1908, Union Pacific hired the former mine clerk of the No. 2 mine, Bernard Newren, back from the Utah Fuel Company, and assigned him the task of extinguishing the fire in the original No. 1 mine that started in 1884. Newren later became the superintendent of the Scofield mine, and in 1932 he became the vice president and general manager of the Scofield Coal Company. (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 125)

By March 1908, the Union Pacific mine was producing 400 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, March 26, 1908, p. 8)

By mid 1908, the Union Pacific mine was shipping 1,200 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, June 11, 1908, p. 1)

Production by spring 1909 was reduced to 1,000 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, April 15, 1909, p. 1)

Work was progressing in late October 1908 on reopening of the Union Pacific mine after the fire. Mine opening had been cleared and the opening re-timbered. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, October 22, 1908, p. 1)

The Union Pacific mine was referred to as the Pleasant Valley mine of the Union Pacific Coal Company in 1910. The mine produced about 278,400 tons in 1909, about half of Sunnyside's 550,600 tons during the same period. The coal veins at the Union Pacific mine varied from fifteen to thirty-six feet, and was badly cut in various directions by faults. The coal mined was not screened, but was shipped as "mine run" for locomotive use on the Harriman system of railroads -- the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Oregon Short Line, and the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. Scofield was the only incorporated town of all of the Carbon County coal camps. (Harrington, pp. 20,21)

Demand for coal increased during 1917 due to World War One, but the Union Pacific Coal Company was out of the commercial coal business, concentrating all its facilities on the production of railroad fuel. The result was that the Union Pacific mine was leased to the Scofield Coal Company on May 1, 1917. The Scofield Coal Company was organized by George E. Pexton, O. E. Bradbury, and J. H. Martin, all of Evanston, Wyoming. (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 125)

In 1917 the Union Pacific mine was leased to the Scofield Coal Company, and by 1936 the mine had been abandoned. (Cunningham: Tours, p. 9)

Operated as the Kinney Mine from 1920-1926. (Doeling)

Sometime after 1932, because of "excessive taxation", the Scofield mine was abandoned by the Union Pacific Coal Company. The taxes levied on the mine "far exceeding any rental and royalty return." (Union Pacific Coal Company, p. 125)

During the 1930s the Union Pacific mine was not being operated and was taken by the county for non-payment of taxes. In 1939 the mine was to be opened soon. (Coal Index: Sun Advocate, September 14, 1939, p. 1)

The Union Pacific Mine at Scofield was served by a switchback spur from the Scofield yard. (D&RGW Branch Line Report, 1938)

The fire in the Union Pacific mine had been burning for the last fifty years. (Coal Index: Sun Advocate, December 21, 1939, p. 1)

(QUESTION: Was this the same fire that started at the tipple in January 1884?)

By January 1940 the fire had been put out. It had been actively burning for the last five years (and apparently smoldering for the fifty years before that). (Coal Index: Sun Advocate, January 11, 1940, p. 1)

May 27, 1942
D&RGW approved the retirement of the spur track that served the "U. P. Mine." (D&RGW AFE T-9412, dated May 27, 1942, courtesy of Jerry Day)

During 1946, Bernard Newman, who had operated the mine for thirty years, wanted to reopen the Union Pacific mine through a new opening. (Coal Index: Sun Advocate, August 29, 1946, p. 13)

(RESEARCH: Look in the state mine inspector's records for reports of the Union Pacific mine and continuing fire.)

In 1951, the former Union Pacific mine at Scofield was known as the Monay mine of the Carbon Coal Company. (D&RGW: Traffic Circular 36-E, p. 86)

Operated as the Monay Mine from 1946-1956. (Doeling)

The railroad spur had remained in place, with parts of the track structure removed by D&RGW at various times after the last trains were operated in the late 1950s.

(jump to 2005...)

In December 2005, Carbon Resources, LLC, was granted permission to begin exploring for coal in the area near Scofield. The permitting process was begun in February 2008 to develop the resources of what was known as the Kinney No. 2 mine, located on 448 acres either at the same location, or immediately adjacent to the location of the original UP Mine. Known as Utah Oil Gas & Mining permit area no. C0070047. The development was proceeding by Carbon Resources LLC of New Mexico.

The Kinney Project

(click here for more information about the new Kinney No. 2 mine, near Scofield, at the location of the original Union Pacific mine)

Utah Mine

(Also Known As The Mudd Creek Mine)

(Watts: First Mine, page 35, says that the Utah Mine was owned by the Utah Fuel Company.)

The first large mine in the Carbon County (or what, after 1894, would become Carbon County), was the Mud Creek Mine in Pleasant Valley, opened in 1878. The Mud Creek mine was located three miles south of Scofield and the same mine was later owned by the Pleasant Valley Coal Company as the Utah Mine. (United States Fuel: Thirty Years, p. 6)

The Mud Creek mine was developed in 1880 by the Pleasant Valley Coal Company. That same coal company also owned the Winter Quarters mine, but the Winter Quarters mine was leased to other operators. (Watts: First Mine, p. 38)

In 1885 the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, under the new management of W. G. Sharp, shut down the Mud Creek mine. At the same time the company took over the operation of the Winter Quarters mine. (Watts: First Mine, p. 38)

The Mud Creek mine, renamed the Utah Mine in 1907, was first opened "twenty years ago" (in 1887) but never developed. During spring of 1907, Utah Fuel was about to re-open the mine. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, April 25, 1907, p. 6)

By June 1907 rails and ties were being re-laid to the mine. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, June 6, 1907, p. 7)

By October 1907 the Utah Mine was producing fifty tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, October 3, 1907, p. 3)

(The Eastern Utah Advocate in its June 20, 1907 issue, page 7, states that the Union Pacific mine was formerly the Mud Creek mine and in 1907 was called the Utah Mine.)

During 1914 the Utah mine of Utah Fuel Company produced 86,000 tons of coal, one-third to one-fourth of the totals for Utah Fuel's other three mines, Castle Gate, Winter Quarters, and Clear Creek, and one-ninth that of the Sunnyside mine. (Gibbs, p. 62)

Clear Creek Mine

(The incorporation papers for the Carbon County Railway of 1899, Utah corporation number 2749, shows as its route "from main of Rio Grande Western at or near Scofield Station, south to Clear Creek (ex Mud Creek)". QUESTION: Was the Mud Creek referred to here the actual creek, or the coal mine?)

The Clear Creek Mine at the head of Pleasant Valley was opened in 1899. (United States Fuel: Thirty Years, p. 6)

Clear Creek was first a logging camp, built to supply timbers for the Winter Quarters mine. A coal seam was discovered and a mine was developed. (Zehnder, p. 6)

The Carbon County Railway (of 1899), in addition to its line from Mounds to Sunnyside in the eastern part of the county, also built the present six-mile D&RGW branch south from Scofield to the Clear Creek Mine of the Utah Fuel Company. (Utah corporation, index number 2749, projected to be seven miles long.)

During late 1901 the Clear Creek mine used twenty Clydesdale horses to move the mined coal from the extreme interiors to the mine opening. Most other camps used mules for this work. The Clear Creek mine was the highest of all of Utah's coal mines, at an elevation of 8,200 feet. (Higgins: Industries, p. 19)

During March 1908, the mines at Clear Creek and Winter Quarters were producing about 2,000 tons per day, working three days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, March 26, 1908, p. 8)

The number of miners working at the Clear Creek mine reached its peak of 450 in 1908. (Madsen, p. 33)

Production in 1908 was 2,000 tons per day. (Zehnder, p. 6)

In April 1909 the Clear Creek and Winter Quarters mines were producing 1,800 tons per day. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, April 15, 1909, p. 1)

In 1909 the Clear Creek mine ranked second only to Sunnyside in its production. The coal was remarkably clean and hard and was known as the premier domestic coal at the time. (Harrington, p. 22)

The Clear Creek mine and the Winter Quarters mine planned to increase the production to four days per week. The Sunnyside mine had never been lower than six days per week. (Coal Index: Eastern Utah Advocate, June 11, 1914, p. 2)

Mechanical mining came to the Clear Creek mine in 1912, with the associated increase in production. (Zehnder, p. 6)

Utah Fuel constructed a new opening for the Clear Creek mine in late 1914, east of the original 1899 opening. Two new tunnels were being driven and were 2,000 feet long by mid September. (Salt Lake Mining Review, September 15, 1914, p. 24)

The new tunnels for the Clear Creek mine were driven at a rate of 303 feet per month, and by late 1914 had struck a virgin area of coal in the same Clear Creek coal vein across a faulted zone from the earlier opening. (Gibbs, p. 62)

In March 1925 the Clear Creek and Winter Quarters mines were leased to the Littlejohn Brothers and Bishop T. J. Parmley to keep them open. (Coal Index: The Sun, March 20, 1925, p. 1)

By 1931, production at the Clear Creek mine had been reduced, although production per man had been increased by "the inauguration of better facilities." (Madsen, p. 31)

Production at Clear Creek was reduced to just 5,000 tons for the entire month of December 1931. By the mid 1950s the mine was shut down. (Zehnder, p. 6)

The Clear Creek mine was included with other Utah Fuel Company mines when Utah Fuel was sold to Kaiser Steel in 1950. Kaiser sold Utah Fuel Company to Independent Coal & Coke in December 1951. Independent sold the Utah Fuel mines to North American Coal Company in 1968. In 1975, North American sold its mine at Castle Gate to McCulloch Oil Corporation. At the same time, North American sold the former Utah Fuel mine at Clear Creek to Valley Camp Corporation. Valley Camp was purchased by Quaker State Oil Refining Company in 1976.

(click here for more complete history of Utah Fuel Company)

Skyline Mine

(click here for the detail page for the Skyline Mine at the Utah Oil Gas & Mining web site; Permit Number: C0070005)

In August 1978 Coastal States Energy Company acquired about 6,400 acres in federal coal leases, known as the McKinnon property, from Energy Fuels Corporation and Routt County Development. Production was expected to begin in 1982. (Provo Daily Herald, August 10, 1978, p. 17)

Coastal States Energy Company was a subsidiary of Coastal States Gas Corporation. In March 1979 Coastal States signed an agreement with Getty Oil Company in a joint venture to develop two coal mines, on 6,400 acres near Scofield. The property was to be operated by Coastal's subsidiary company, Utah Fuel Company, with the mine being known as the Skyline mine. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 18, 1979)

On June 24, 1980, the Skyline Coal Project of Coastal States Energy Company and Getty Mineral Resources had its official beginning, when its underground mining permit was signed. It was the first underground mining permit released under the Surface Mining Control & Reclamation Act of 1977. Construction of the mine was to begin immediately. (Deseret News, June 25, 1980)

Coastal States Energy Company's coal contract with the Salt River Project's Coronado Generating Station at St. John, Arizona expired on December 31, 1984. Coastal had been furnishing 500,000 tpy from its Sufco No. 1 mine near Salina, Utah, 600 miles north of St. John. The new contract was let to Pittsburg & Midway Mining Company's (P&M) McKinley Mine near Gallup, New Mexico, just 94 miles from St. John. P&M was presently furnishing 1 million tpy, half of the generating station's requirements. (Coal Age, Volume 88, number 8, August 1983, p. 35, "Coal in the News, Salt River Project…")

May 2003
The following comes from the May 28, 2003 issue of the Sat Lake Tribune:

Central Utah's struggling economy took another hit Tuesday: The Skyline Mine will shut down by next summer because of low coal prices and insufficient markets. The Wasatch Plateau mine employed around 215 people, primarily from Sanpete and Carbon counties, and produced about 3.5 million tons of coal in 2002. But with the cost of coal down nearly $12 per ton from levels 20 years ago and the Pacific Rim export market nonexistent, Skyline's majority owner -- Arch Coal Inc. -- announced it will phase out production at the mine and keep it closed until economic conditions improve markedly.

"It's been a real difficult time for the Utah market," said Dick Pick, president of Canyon Fuel Co., the mine operator jointly owned by Arch Coal (65 percent) and Itochu Corp. (35 percent).

Utah mines used to export more than 3 million tons to Japan. We don't export any coal to Japan anymore," he said. "Our other [United States] markets are in the Midwest and East, but there's a lot of coal produced between here and there, so it's difficult to move coal from Utah to the Midwest." (Salt Lake Tribune, May 28, 2003)

Belina Mine (later White Oak), Valley Camp of Utah

(click here for the detail page for the Belina Mine at the Utah Oil Gas & Mining web site; Permit Number: C0070001)

The Belina No. 1 and No. 2 mines were located in a canyon almost two miles due west of Clear Creek, at the southern end of Pleasant Valley coal field. The mines and loadout were operated by Valley Camp of Utah, Inc., and known as the Belina Complex prior to September 1993. Until 1993, the mine complex was owned by Quaker State Corporation. In November 1992, the oil company announced that it would sell the Valley Camp mine, the last of the coal mining properties owned by the oil company.The mines were transferred to White Oak Mining & Construction Co., Inc. in 1994 and subsequently to Lodestar Energy, Inc. in 1999. (part from New York Times, November 18, 1992)

Mining was done with two radio control continious mining machines, and average production was 5000 tons per day.

The loadout was known by the D&RGW railroad as Val-Cam, and was located at the site of the town of Clear Creek. Railroad service was provided during the 1970s, including the shipment of coal to UP&L's Gadby plant in Salt Lake City, and to the Gardner Plant at Moapa, Nevada. The floods in 1983 washed out the tracks, and they were not repaired. After that, the coal was shipped to customers by truck. The largest customer was the UP&L Carbon generating plant at Castle Gate, after a contract was signed in which Valley Camp of Utah agreed to furnish 450,000 tons per year to the generating plant. Valley Camp raised the price and UP&L sued. A settlement was reached in March 1989 in which UP&L paid off the contract, and the mine was placed in standby status. (part from Deseret News, March 15, 1989)

Road construction for access to the mining complex began in 1975 and the underground No. 1 mine was in operation from 1979, with full production starting in 1981. The No. 2 mine was opened in 1982. Both mines closed in 2001, and the surface coal was shipped out between 2001 and 2003. The entire mining complex was closed in 2003. Reclamation work started in late 2004, and was completed in November 2005. Additional reclamation work started in 2010.

Other Coal Mining Companies In The Pleasant Valley Area

In December 1899 Utah Coal & Coke Company sold part of its property in Sections 10 and 11, T12S, R7E, near Hale, the future site of the Scofield dam, to the Peoples Coal Company. (Carbon County Miscellaneous Book 3, p. 368) (This sale shows that Utah Coal & Coke was an active company in 1899, and may have been the predecessor to Utah Fuel.)

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