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Standard Coal Company

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Standard Coal Company (Standardville, Utah)

The Standardville mine was opened by the Standard Coal Company in 1913. The company was organized in 1913 by Fred A. Sweet, who had previously organized and developed the Independent Coal & Coke Company at Kenilworth in 1907, and the Consolidated Fuel Company at Hiawatha in 1908. (Reynolds, p. 226)

(Read more about Fred A. Sweet and his three brothers)

June 3, 1913
Standard Coal Company was incorporated on June 3, 1913. The contract for the grading of the new 3-1/2 mile railroad had been let to the Wattis Construction Company. The railroad was to connect with the railroad of the Spring Canyon Coal Company at Storrs. (Eastern Utah Advocate, July 3, 1913, "Sweets Back In Coal Game")

July 8, 1913
F. A. Sweet, president of Standard Coal Company, announced a new railroad to be built from the Standard coal mine to the Spring Canyon coal mine at Storrs. (Carbon County News, July 8, 1913, p. 6)

July 15, 1913
Standard Coal Company let a contract to build a 3-1/2 mile railroad from Storrs to its mines. (Salt Lake Mining Review, July 15, 1913, p. 29)

July 19, 1913
The Standard Coal Company contracted with the L. R. Wattis Construction Company to build its railroad. (Coal Age, Volume 4, number 3, July 19, 1913, p. 104)

Construction started on the Standard Coal Company's railroad on July 10, 1913. (Higgins, Will C. "Operations of the Standard Coal Company", The Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 16, number 2 (April 30, 1914), p. 13)

The railroad of the Standard Coal Company was about one mile long and the tipple yards about 1,000 feet long and built on a two percent grade. The empty cars were moved above the tipple and allowed to move by gravity to one of the four tipple tracks, after passing over a Fairbanks Morse 150-ton full suspension scale. The empty portion of the tipple yards had a capacity of eighteen cars, together with one car under each of the tipple loading stations. After loading, the railroad cars passed over another scale and dropped onto the two make-up tracks for pickup by the D&RG. The loaded portion of the tipple yards had a capacity of nineteen cars and the make-up yard could store twenty-nine cars. (Higgins, Will C. "Operations of the Standard Coal Company", The Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 16, number 2 (April 30, 1914), pp. 18,19)

The name Standard was selected because the mine and its adjoining town would be the standard for all others to follow. (C. H. Madsen, Carbon County, A History, 1947, p. 52)

The equipment and layout of the Standard mine was unique among all the mines in Spring Canyon and Utah. The design included an all-steel and concrete tipple, with a massive concrete wall below the loop track for the lower terminal of the mine's double track gravity tramway. The tipple retaining wall was forty-six feet high at its highest section, the mine car rotary dump. It was said at the time that the construction of the Standard tipple and its retaining walls used as much concrete as the then-new state capital building in Salt Lake City. Concrete was chosen to make the structure fire-proof and to eliminate any vibration, both to ensure longevity. The design of the tipple allowed a capacity of approximately 4,000 tons daily. The tipple's Ottumwa box car loader completely tilted a box car towards an end at a sixty degree angle to fill one end. The car was then tipped towards the other end and filled, with the center being filled upon the car being returned to the level. A car could be filled in about five minutes by this method. The screens and coal separating equipment in the tipple were furnished by the Link Belt Company of Chicago. In addition to the shaker screens in the tipple, the slack coal was conveyed to a re-screening hopper and separated into pea coal and dust. Pea coal was loaded into a railroad car. The dust coal was conveyed through a sixteen inch iron pipe to either a waste pile or the mine's own steam power plant for use as fuel. The 4,300 foot long, double track tramway in Gilson Gulch between the mine and the tipple was a straight line tram with one break in grade, from 12.4 percent to 7.1 percent. The track gauge used was forty-two inches and moved the loaded mine cars in trips of eighteen cars, with 3.5 tons each, from the mine to the tipple. The grading for the tramway was contracted to the L. R. Wattis Construction Company, and required much blasting and filling in the upper portion of the grade. (Higgins, Will C. "Operations of the Standard Coal Company", The Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 16, number 2 (April 30, 1914), pp. 14-19)

The concrete tipple was in a modified 'U' shape, 114 feet along the long walls, with curved walls that were 46 feet radius. A short wall about 50 feet long connected the two curved sections, and was the location of the steel portion of the tipple. The two radius points for the curved sections were 56 feet apart. The concrete walls were 46 feet high at their highest point, along the short section where the steel tipple was. (Robert S. Lewis, "The Book Cliffs Coal Field, Utah," AIME Transactions, Volume 50, 1914, page 669, with drawing of the walls)

The coal company built a town for its miners and other workers, called Standardville. (Reynolds, p. 226)

February 10, 1914
Standard Coal company shipped its first coal. (Eastern Utah Advocate, June 11, 1914)

The first coal from the Standard mine arrived at the Standardville tipple on February 10, 1914. (Higgins, Will C. "Operations of the Standard Coal Company", The Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 16, number 2 (April 30, 1914), p. 13)

July 8, 1913
Standard Coal Company announced that their coal would be marketed as "Castle Gate Coal". (Eastern Utah Advocate, July 8, 1913, p. 6)

By April 1914, none of the workers' homes had been completed. (Higgins, Will C. "Operations of the Standard Coal Company", The Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 16, number 2 (April 30, 1914), p. 19)

(Reynolds, page 227, in a more generalized statement says that the mine was "ready for operations during the fall and winter of 1913.)

July 30, 1914
In July 1914 the Standard company added a Manierre box car loader for handling egg coal. (Salt Lake Mining Review, July 30, 1914, p. 32)

September 15, 1914
A additional box car loader for nut coal was installed in September 1914. (Salt Lake Mining Review, September 15, 1914, p. 24)

In 1917 the Denver & Rio Grande bought the railroad property of Standard Coal Company, from Storrs (later Spring Canyon) to Standardville. (LeMassena, Robert A. Rio Grande...to the Pacific!, Sundance Ltd, 1974, p. 131)

May 1930
Standard Coal company was erecting a new all-steel tipple at Standardville in Spring Canyon. The mine was jointly served by Utah Railway and by D&RGW. The new tipple had a capacity of 4,000 tons per eight hours, and was to be completed and in operation by early June. (Ax-I-Dent-Ax, May 1930, page 18)

There were delays in the completion of the new all-steel tipple at Standardville, with a new expected date of operation in early August 1930. A new 900-foot track was added for box car loading. (Ax-I-Dent-Ax, July 1930, page 8)

April 8, 1936
C. N. Sweet was voted as president and general manager of Standard Coal company, replacing his brother F. A. Sweet who had recently passed away. F. A. Sweet Jr., and Mrs. F. A. Sweet were also voted as new directors of the company. (Salt Lake Tribune, April 9, 1936)

February 1, 1939
The company was unable to meet its payroll on January 25, 1939. The 265 miners voted unanimously to work only for food to save the mine from closing. Fred Sweet, Jr. was company president and general manager. (Ogden Standard Examiner, February 1, 1939, p. 5)

February 2, 1939
The Standard mine was closed in February 1939 due to non-payment of wages to the miners. (Sun Advocate, February 2, 1939, p. 1)

April 5, 1939
The Standard mine was closed on April 5, 1939. The company was sold under foreclosure on November 3, 1939, and reorganized as Standard Coal, Incorporated (of Nevada). Shipments resumed on December 1, 1939. (Utah Railway. Coal Mines Tributary To Utah Railway, 1944)

August 24, 1939
The mine was reopened in September 1939 after the company had been reorganized. (Sun Advocate, August 24, 1939, p. 1)

November 9, 1939
Standard Coal Incorporated of Nevada bought the property of the Standard Coal Company in November 1939, which had been ordered sold by the federal court. (Sun Advocate, November 9, 1939, p. 8)

November 16, 1939
In 1939, the Standardville mine was sold to satisfy its bondholders. (Sun Advocate, November 16, 1939, p. 15)

April 25, 1941
Spring Canyon Coal, Standard Coal, and Royal Coal companies were shown as being under joint management. The subject of the news story was that more than 1000 miners across Carbon County had been on strike since March 31st, and that they would be returning to work on April 25th. (Salt Lake Tribune, April 25, 1941)

Spring Canyon Coal, Standard Coal, and Royal Coal all shared the same owners and managers. In the November 1944 issue of Coal Age magazine, Leonard E. Adams is shown as having been promoted to president and general manager of all three companies. Previously he had been vice president. (Coal Age, November 1944, Volume 49, Number 11)

During World War Two, the mine of the Standard Coal Company produced 2,000 tons per day. (Carr, Stephen L., A Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 1972, p. 77)

June 1945
The following comes from the Condensed Mining Handbook of Utah, June 1945.

In April 1947, the Spring Canyon, Standard and Royal coal mines were shown as being at the same address, 818 Newhouse Building, and therefore under common ownership. The companies were shown with the following active mines, which had been ordered to close by the federal Bureau of Mines due to safety concerns. Royal No. 2, Standard 1, 2, and 2-1/2, and Spring Canyon 1, 2 2-1/2, and 4. (Provo Daily Herald, April 3, 1947)

September 1947
The underground mining methods of the Standard Coal company's Standardville coal mine were the subject of a four-page article in Coal Age magazine, September 1947 (Volume 52, No. 9). The article included several photos of the underground operations, and a diagram of the mine workings, and the following statement about the Standard mine being under the same management as the Spring Canyon and Royal mines, "L. E. Adams heads the company and its affiliates -- Spring Canyon and Royal."

In 1950 Standard Coal Company mine was closed. (Carr, Stephen L., A Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns, 1972, p. 77)

October 3, 1958
Control of the Spring Canyon Coal company, the Standard Coal company, and the Royal Coal Company was sold to the Van Horn Gas and Oil company of California. (Deseret News, October 3, 1958)

(Read more about the Standard Coal mine after it and the affiliated Spring Canyon Coal mine and the Royal Coal mine were sold in October 1958)

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