UtahRails.net

UtahRails.net

Trail Mountain Coal Mine

This page was last updated on January 23, 2024.

(Return To Utah Coal Index Page)

Overview

The Trail Mountain mine in Cottonwood Canyon, northwest of Orangeville and Castle Dale, Utah, was developed in the 1950s and was a small mine, selling coal to the local market. As roads and trucks improved, the coal was sold to a wider market, but in competition with numerous other truck mines in the area. The number of employees for all of these small truck mines seldom exceeded 10 for each of the many mines.

Development began in 1975 and continued after 1977 with a series of ownership by out-of-state companies that included three oil companies. The coal produced in these years before 1992 was sold on the open market or by short-term contract. Beginning in 1981 coal was trucked to the C. V. Spur loading site and loaded into rail cars for shipment to Nevada Power. The sale to Arch Mineral in 1987, and then Arco Coal later that same year continued the development of the mine, but the mine was still among the lower coal producers in the state at less than 1000 tons per day.

Utah Power & Light bought the Trail Mountain mine in 1992 to expand its coal reserves, replacing the mined-out portions of the adjacent Deer Creek and Wilberg mines. All three mines were taking their coal from the same coal seam, with the Trail Mountain mine being farther to the west from the two other mines. This was the same year that Utah Power & Light became PacifiCorp and within a year the underground connection between the Wilberg mine and the Trail Mountain mine was completed, along with a ventilation fan portal in Cottonwood Canyon adjacent to the previous Trail Mountain mine surface facilities.

Timeline

The original coal mine that later became the Trail Mountain mine was owned by Earl Robertson, who operated it as a small truck mine selling coal to the local market. The first reference in available online newspapers was in late December 1956 when an explosion in an adjacent mine killed three, including Robertson's son Ted, and two young boys visiting him at the time. Robertson's mine was close enough for him to hear the underground explosion in the adjacent mine and rush to the aid of anyone injured. (Emery County Progress, December 27, 1956)

Earl J. Robertson, Orangeville, died Nov 17, 1972, age 76. Owner and operator of Trail Mountain Coal Mine for 25 years.

July 1, 1962
The Trail Mountain Coal Company was awarded the federal lease of coal in the original Trail Mountain mine site. The lease was transferred from Trail Mountain Coal Company to John Bell on August 4, 1980.

Exploratory holes were drilled in September 1975. Applications for mining permits were submitted in September 1976. The existing surface facilities were located on private land, and surface ownership of planned mine was administered by U. S. Forest Service. The mine was proposing to expand on to 40 aces of federal coal lease land. If approved the mine operations would expand from 11 miners to 100 miners, working on two shifts. The mine was owned by John Bell. There had been an accident in the 1950s in which three were killed by an explosion of coal dust. One of those killed was Ted Robertson.

April 1977
Trail Mountain Coal Company submitted a request for a permit from the U. S. Department of Interior to mine 285,000 tons of coal from a 40-acre plot of federal land. The permit (U-082996) was approved in July 1979.

May 1978
The Trail Mountain mine was one of four active coal mines in the Huntington Canyon area. Swisher, Deer Creek and Rilda were the other three.

November 1, 1978
John Bell sold the Trail Mountain mine to the Fetterolf Group of Somerset, Pennsylvania. John Bell had been the owner since 1975. The coal seam was between 6 and 9 feet thick and production in February 1979 was to be about 200,000 tons per month. (Sun Advocate, February 14, 1979)

July 1980
Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining cited Fetterolf's Trail Mountain Coal Company for violation of several requirements of Utah law concerning coal mines, notably failure to have a reclamation plan, failure to cover toxic materials, failure to minimize disturbance of water features, and failure to revegatate reclaimed areas. A joint state and federal inspection was completed on July 15, 1980, confirming the violations. In September 1980, a fine of $38,200 was leveled against the company. A total of 33 violations were noted as the result of 12 inspections.

In December 1980 the Trail Mountain coal mine was shown owing almost $8000 in delinquent property taxes.

In January 1981 the Trail Mountain mine was reported as mining in the 8-foot Hiawatha seam. Fetterolf had purchased the mine from John Bell in November 1978, at which time the mine had 13 miners working, using a single continuous miner. The mining method in use was the room-and-pillar method. Under Fetterolf management the mine had 70 miners working two shifts, using two continuous miner machines, taking out 35,000 tons per month. Coal was loaded into trucks and transported to C. V. Spur for loading into rail cars and shipment to power plants in Nevada.

January 8, 1981
Natomas Minerals, and its newly organized company Natomas Trail Mountain Coal Company agreed to buy the Trail Mountain mine from the Fetterolf Group.

March 1981
The Trail Mountain mine was sold to Natomas Energy of Houston, Texas. In February 1982 the mine had contracts to furnish Nevada Power with 25,000 tons per month, Beaver Creek Coal with 14,000 tons per month, and to export 125,000 tons per month. (Sun Advocate, February 10, 1982)

During 1982 the Natomas Trail Mountain mine produced 600,000 tons of coal, which was shipped to Nevada Power, and to Beaver Creek Coal to help that company meet its orders.

September 1983
Natomas Energy sold the Trail Mountain mine to Diamond Shamrock Corporation of Lexington, Kentucky. The mine was inactive at the time, but returned to production in January 1984. (Emery County Progress, January 18, 1984) (Later reports show that Natomas and Diamond Shamrock merged in September 1983, with Diamond Shamrock being the surviving company.)

January 2, 1985
The Trail Mountain Coal Company received a federal permit to mine coal for 5 years. "Coal has been mined on a small scale since 1946. Trail Mountain Coal Company was formed on September 1, 1983 as the result of a merger between Natomas Corporation and the Diamond Shamrock Corporation, and was known as Natomas Trail Mountain Coal Company before the merger. Natomas Trail Mountain Coal Company purchased the coal lands described previously from the Fetterolf Group of Somerset, Pennsylvania, on March 2,1981. The permit area will cover approximately 773 acres. Surface disturbance at the site is limited to 8.8 acres. Maximum mine production is at a rate of 400,000 tons of coal per year over five years." (Emery County Progress, January 2, 1985)

Also in January 1985, Utah Power & Light was taking bids for contracts to replace the coal production lost due to the fire in the Wilberg mine. The Trail Mountain mine was one of the prospective suppliers. The coal would be used at the Hunter power plant. Research has not yet found if UP&L began buying Trail Mountain coal at this time.

March 12, 1986
Diamond Shamrock was reported as offering to sell the Trail Mountain mine. The company was offering to pay for improvements and to act as the contractor in the improvement of the county road that accessed the Trail Canyon mine, desiring to have the improvements completed by the time of the sale. In May 1986 the county agreed to use its share of federal coal lease funds to pave the road to the mine, a total of $1.1 million. (Emery County Progress, March 12, 1986; May 21, 1986)

April 17, 1987
Trail Mountain Coal Company was purchased by Arch Mineral from Diamond Shamrock. The proposed sale was announced in March 1986, and Arch Mineral of St. Louis was supposedly to be the buyer. The sale was for the Trail Mountain Coal Company as a subsidiary of Diamond Shamrock Coal Company, which in turn was a subsidiary of Diamond Shamrock Corporation of Dallas, Texas. The sale to Arch Mineral was to be completed "by the end of the third quarter" (about the end of September) of 1986, with a reported sale price of $135 million, but talks were called off in mid October. Talks resumed and the sale was agreed upon on April 17, 1987. (Salt Lake Tribune, July 23, 1986; Louisville Courier Journal, October 18, 1986; Lexington Herald Leader, April 17, 1987)

September 1987
Arco Coal Company purchased the Trail Mountain mine from Arch Mineral Company "last week." Arco already owned the Beaver Creek mine. The Trail Mountain mine employed 45 persons, and was producing 300,000 tons per year. The mining permit was transferred from the Trail Mountain Coal Company, to the Beaver Creek Coal company. (Sun Advocate, September 29, 1987)

October 1, 1990
Beaver Creek Coal Company took over the lease of the six sections west of Cottonwood Canyon that made up the Trail Mountain mine, known at the time as the Trail Mountain Mine No. 9, being Arch Coal's 9th mine in Utah, unrelated to the actual mine location.

1991
"During early 1991, Beaver Creek Coal Company merged with Its sister company, West Elk Coal Company, located in Colorado, under the collective name of Mountain Coal Company. Mountain Coal Company Is now In the process of commissioning a continuous haulage system at the Trail Mountain Mine that will deliver coal from the face to the section conveyor. This is an innovative technology that was originally developed in Canada and will improve the efficiency as well as the safety of this mine operation." (1990 Utah Coal Report, dated August 1991)

June 4, 1991
The mining permit for the Trail Mountain mine was transferred from Beaver Creek Coal Company, to the Mountain Coal Company. (Emery County Progress, June 4, 1991) (Both companies were subsidiaries of Arco Coal, which in turn was a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield.)

1992
"Mountain Coal Co., which changed its name from Beaver Creek Coal Company last year, successfully installed its continuous haulage system in 1991 and increased its efficiency as well as its safety. Since the decline of the coal spot market in late 1991 and early 1992, Mountain Coal decided not to pursue that market and reduced its work force the past few months to serve its existing contracts more efficiently." (1991 Utah Coal Report, dated November 1992)

September 1992
"In September of 1992, PacifiCorp acquired the idle Trail Mountain mine from Arco Coal Co. Some rehabilitation work was completed in 1992 and will continue in 1993. Production from this property will resume in 1994 as part of the Cottonwood Mine expansion." (1992 Utah Coal Report, dated February 1994, page 13)

"Mountain Coal Co., previously known as Beaver Creek Coal Company, a subsidiary of Arco, discontinued its Utah coal operation and put its emphasis on its Colorado activities. The Utah coal mine (Trail Mountain) was sold to Utah Power but the load out facility and the coal stockpile at the load out was not part of the sale. The Trail Mountain mine will become active in 1994 as part of Utah Power's Cottonwood mine expansion." (1992 Utah Coal Report, dated February 1994, page 13)

October 6, 1992
PacifiCorp purchased the Trail Mountain mine from Mountain Coal Company, a subsidiary of Arco Coal, which in turn was a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield. The economic conditions were making the mine's room-and-pillar and continuous miner methods more expensive than the low-cost longwall methods of other mines. PacifiCorp would lay off the Trail Mountain's miners, shut down operations at the Trail Mountain mine, and expand its own opertions into the Trail Mountain mine's coal reserves. "The area will eventually be mined from the Cottonwood operation." The two companies were mining coal from the same coal seam. PacifiCorp's current Cottonwood underground workings and operations were two miles distant from the Trail Mountain reserves, but would be linked within a year. (Emery County Progress, October 6, 1992; Salt Lake Tribune, October 29, 1992)

(Read more about the Trail Mountain mine under PacifiCorp ownership)

1993
"Nevada Power's Reid Gardner Plant, with a cumulative capacity of 636 megawatts (MW) purchased a total of 1.38 million tons of coal and burned 1.4 million tons of coal to generate 3,240 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. Approximately 880 thousand tons of this purchase came from Utah with the remaining half million tons coming from Colorado. Before 1993 the four units of the Reid Gardner Plant relied almost entirely on Utah coal. One of the four major contracts of Nevada Power with Utah coal producers was with Arco which was originally supplying the coal from its Gordon Creek mines and lately from its Trail Mountain mine. In September 1992, Arco sold its Trail Mountain mine to PacifiCorp but continued to fulfill its contractual obligation to Nevada Power from its stock-pile in Utah and through some local purchases. However, in 1993, the major portion of Arco's obligation was fulfilled by production from its West Elk mine in Colorado." (1993 Utah Coal Report, dated November 1994)

After PacifiCorp

On December 12, 2014 PacifiCorp agreed to sell its Trail Mountain mine to Bowie Resource Partners, under the name of Fossil Rock Fuels, organized on June 9, 2011 as a subsidiary of PacifiCorp. The sale to Bowie was finalized on June 5, 2015. "In the future the Trail Mountain Mine will be referred to as the Fossil Rock Mine. The Fossil Rock Mine is owned by a new company, Fossil Rock Resources, which is wholly owned by Canyon Fuel Company."

Fossil Rock Resources was organized in Delaware on August 29, 2014 and is owned 100 percent by Canyon Fuel Company, which in turn is 100 percent owned by Bowie Resources. Canyon Fuel Company was organized in Delaware on December 10, 1996, which in turn is owned 100 percent by Bowie Holdings.

(Read more about Bowie Resources, now known as Wolverine Fuels)

Bowie became Wolverine Fuels on October 15, 2018.

Fossil Rock

In June 2011 PacifiCorp organized a new subsidiary to manage its regulated coal reserves. The new company was Fossil Rock Fuels and was incorporated on June 9, 2011. Its first property was the Cottonwood Lease of 2007, which had been awarded to Ark Land, as a subsidiary of Arch Coal. Ownership of the Cottonwood Lease passed to PacifiCorp in 2011.

Ark Land Company had been awarded the Cottonwood lease on January 8, 2008. It was a Utah State coal lease. This lease encompassed about 8200 acres in parts or all of 18 of the 36 sections in T17S, R6E.

In mid-2011, the Cottonwood lease was transferred from Ark Land [subsidiary of Arch Coal] to Fossil Rock Fuels, which as a subsidiary of PacifiCorp and Rocky Mountain Power, as part of a settlement of litigation between Arch Coal and PacifiCorp. The Cottonwood tract is adjacent to PacifiCorp's existing, but inactive, Trail Mountain federal lease. (2013 Utah Coal Report)

In June 2011, Fossil Rock Fuels, a wholly owned subsidiary of PacifiCorp, acquired the Cottonwood coal reserve lease in Emery County Utah, which contains an estimated 47 million tons of recoverable coal. PacifiCorp intends to sell the rights to the Fossil Rock coal reserves to a third party in the second quarter of 2015. (Documents on file with the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining)

Letter from PacifiCorp to various state regulatory bodies, dated June 21, 2011.

###