Hanna Basin Timeline
Compiled by the Hanna Basin Museum with contributions from Nancy and Victor Anderson
Image: Wyoming map showing the spur line from Allen Junction to Hanna (While Family Collection from Bob Leathers)
"1890 a new branch line of the railroad reaches Hanna, where an excellent seam of coal has been found. Workmen live in tents as they develop the mines and build a company town." (HUPCM)
1825 March 23: Trappers of the Ashley-Smith expedition travel through present day Arlington and Pass Creek Canyon. Ashley records, “… innumerable herds of buffalo, antelope and mountain sheep.” (Kinnaman)
1843 August: Explorer John C. Fremont and his military accompaniment fire a cannon at approaching Indians west of Medicine Bow Butte (Elk Mountain). (Kinnaman)
1849: The California gold rush draws the first wagon train to cross southern Wyoming. Led by Captain Lewis Evans, a party of 130 Cherokee Indians with 40 wagon, 304 oxen, 41 mules, 65 horses and 31 cows follow Fremont’s route. (Kinnaman)
1850 September 21: Traversing the Bridger Pass route from west to east and being led by Jim Bridger himself, Captain Howard Stanbury of the Topographical Engineers names Pass and Rattlesnake Creek. (Kinnaman)
1860: Washakie, chief of the Shoshone, requests a reservation near Medicine Bow Butte because he envisions the tribe farming in the area. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 4: "An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and to secure the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes" is enacted by the Congress of the United States. (HUPCM)
1862 July 8: Ben Holladay moves the Overland stage from the Oregon Trail to the more southerly Bridger Pass route. Holladay's conveyances are Concord coaches, army wagons, and mud-wagons. They travel day and night and stop at rustic stations to change drivers and teams. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 8: Medicine Bow Butte becomes Elk Mountain. Its stage station is described as being of logs and boards with a roof of the same, one foot thick. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 11: The Postmaster General changes the mail route from the Oregon Trail to the Overland Trail. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 30: Construction of Fort Halleck begins. The site at the foot of Elk Mountain is chosen for its location - midway between Denver and Forts Laramie and Bridger - and for the abundance of water, grass, and timber. (Kinnaman)
1862 October: Caspar Collins, a boy accompanying his father, Colonel Collins to Fort Halleck, describes their guide Jim Bridger as "uneducated but speaking English, Spanish and French... besides nearly a dozen Indian tongues." (Kinnaman)
1864: Dr. Finfrock, post medical officer at Fort Halleck, estimates that 4264 wagons, 50,000 head of stock and 17,584 people pass by the fort on the Overland Trail during the year. (Kinnaman)
1864 June 12: Jas. A. Evans, in surveying for the first transcontinental railroad, reports the Laramie Plains-Rattlesnake Pass-Bridger Pass route as most favorable. (Kinnaman)
1865 May 22: Soldier Lewis Byrum Hull notes in his diary that 4000-5000 sheep driven from New Mexico and on their way to California pass by Fort Halleck. (Kinnaman)
1866: Companies A and E of the Fifth U. S. Volunteers arrive to garrison Fort Halleck; both are comprised of Confederate soldiers who chose western service over prison terms. (Kinnaman)
Note: These soldiers are often referred to as Galvanized Yankees.
1866 July 4: After four years of guarding the Overland Trail, immigrants and mail route, Fort Halleck is decommissioned. (Kinnaman)
1866 October: The telegraph line following the Overland Trail is in service. (Kinnaman)
1866 November 1: Wells, Fargo and Company purchases the Overland Mail and Express Company from Ben Holladay. (Kinnaman)
1867 May 12: A Union Pacific survey party is attacked; among the three men killed is Percy Browne, who located the original line from the junction of Rock Creek and Medicine Bow River over Browne's Summit near Carbon and down St. Mary's Creek to the North Platte. (Kinnaman)
1868 May 2: Under the supervision of Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge, survey work for the Union Pacific section of the first transcontinental railroad is completed. The proposed line is north of the Overland Trail at distances of from 8 to 24 miles. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 26: Carbon is open for freight traffic with three trains arriving daily. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 29: End of track reaches Carbon which is listed as being 656 miles from Omaha, at an elevation of 6750 feet and as having coal mines. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 30: An excursion train carrying General Dodge, Oliver Ames, President of the Union Pacific Railroad, and several journalists arrives at Carbon and end of the track and the group proceeds on by stagecoach. (Kinnaman)
1868 July: Snow from Elk Mountain is available for 5 cents a pound at Benton, a notorious construction camp 40 miles west of Carbon. (Kinnaman)
1868 July 3: General Casement, who had contracted the laying of the track, notes vast coal beds at Carbon where fuel can be loaded directly into cars. (Kinnaman)
1868 August 11: Leigh Freeman, editor of the Frontier Index published along the UP route, describes "curious petrifactions of animals and things of the past..." at Como, later to be famous as a source of dinosaur bones. (Kinnaman)
1868 August 27: The Frontier Index reports one to three thousand Indians in the vicinity of Medicine Bow with the marauders killing three men at Elk Mountain and injuring another. (Kinnaman)
1868 September 20: Report to the UP from Thomas Wardell, who has leased the coal field, "... enormous beds of very excellent coal... at Carbon Station a vein sixteen feet in thickness is being worked and about one hundred tons of coal taken out per day." (HUPCM)
1868 October 28: A tie train is attacked by Indians between Fort Halleck and Percy; five of the haulers are killed and their bodies thrown in a lake, ever after called "Bloody Lake." (Sublett)
1868 December: A contract is let to Davis and Associates to supply 1,000,000 cross ties and other timber from the Medicine Bow Mountains for railroad construction. (Kinnaman)
1869: Near Carbon, the stable boss, searching for strayed mules, is attacked by Indians; mortally wounded, he is carried to the mine where the panicked community has found refuge. According to some sources, his is Carbon Cemetery's first burial. (HUPCM)
1869: Carbon's population lives in shanties, log cabins, dugouts and houses created of piled stones. Water is sold by the barrel at twenty-five cents. (McKeown)
1869: John A. Creighton of Omaha, who has contracted to build the telegraph line for the Railroad Company, opens the #2 Mine at Carbon. It is destined to be the longest lived of Carbon's seven mines. (HUPCM)
1869 February 13: Blizzards block the railroad line in southern Carbon County. A train with 200 passengers is marooned near Percy station; ninety passengers start on foot for Laramie and the remainder shovel the train to Carbon, seven miles distant. (Kinnaman)
1869 May 10: The Golden Spike joining the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, is driven at Promontory and the transcontinental railroad is open for business. (HUPCM)
1870 November 27: Son of a pioneer miner, T. H. Butler is born in Carbon. He begins work as a trapper boy and, through self-education, rises to become Superintendent of Mines for the Union Pacific Coal Company. (HUPCM)
1871: The Knights of Labor organize the miners in Carbon and Rock Springs. After the mine operators arbitrarily cut wages, a strike is called, but troops from Fort Steele are dispatched to both coal camps and the strike is quelled. (Roberts)
1874: William Issacs and William Kane become the first fatalities in the Carbon mines. Both are killed by "fall of rock" in Mine No. One. (Ellis)
1874 March: The Union Pacific assumes control of its own coal mines, citing Wardell's difficulties with the Knights of Labor as one cause. (HUPCM)
1878 August 19: Railroad detective "Tip" Vincent of Rawlins and Deputy Sheriff Bob Widdowfield of Carbon enter Rattlesnake Pass in pursuit of the "Big Nose George" gang, who had attempted a train derailment and robbery near Medicine Bow. (Meschter)
1878 August 26: A posse discovers the bodies of the two lawmen and a reward of $1,000 for each of the murderers is offered. Within days, the rewards are raised to $2000. (Meschter)
1879 January 5: "Dutch Charley," member of the "Big Nose George" gang, is captured and transported on the train to Rawlins. At Carbon a crowd of men forces Charley from his hiding place in the baggage car. At day's end, his body hangs from a telegraph pole. (Meschter)
1880: The census reports 365 people living in Carbon. Of these, 179 are listed as foreign-born, many from the British Isles. (Census)
1883: Calamity Jane visits one of Carbon's six saloons, where she orders her whiskey "neat"; asked about a chaser, she requests "the same." (HUPCM)
Note: Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Cannary, circa May 1, 1852.
1889: Realizing the Carbon mines are being depleted, the Union Pacific prospects to the north. (HUPCM)
1890: A new branch line of the railroad reaches Hanna, where an excellent seam of coal has been found. Workmen live in tents as they develop the mines and build a company town. (HUPCM)
1890: Carbon's population reaches an all-time high of 1,140 persons. (Census)
1890 June 19: A fire started by an overturned kerosene lamp sweeps Carbon's business section; buildings are dynamited to stop the flames, but stores, saloons, and almost everything north of the track is destroyed. (HUPCM)
1890 July: Carbon is incorporated and one of the first ordinances prohibits stovepipes from extending through roofs. (HUPCM)
1890 July: The building of a water line from the #5 mine is proposed; the line is to provide inhabitants with water faucets and the fire brigades with hose water to fight fires. (HUPCM)
1891: Young Oskari Tokoi, later to become the first premier of Finland, arrives in Carbon and seeks work in the mines. (Tokoi)
1891: A newspaper, The Black Diamond, begins publication in Carbon. Filled with local happenings, advertisements and "boilerplate" serials and trivia, the paper exists until 1896. (Roberts)
1899: The upstart town of Hanna is placed on the mainline of the railroad and old Carbon is on the spur line. (HUPCM)
1900: In Carbon among a total population of 634 persons, there are 140 from Finland, 72 from England, 21 from Wales, and 20 from Germany. (Census)
1902: No. 7 Mine is closed, and Carbon is on the way to becoming a ghost town. (HUPCM)
1903 June 30: In Hanna at ten o'clock in the morning, a blast comes from the No. One Mine and black smoke fills the air. An explosion of gas claims the lives of half of Hanna's miners. The Mine Inspector's Report lists 169 fatalities. (Kitching)
1904: The Finns move their Evangelical Lutheran Church from Carbon to Hanna. The Finnish Temperance Union Hall, built in 1894 and one of the largest buildings in Carbon, makes the same overland trip at an unknown date. (HUPCM)
1908 March: "The Great Race: New York to Paris" brings competing autos to southern Wyoming. Hanna's miners flock to see their first automobiles, which are "more like pack animals than thoroughbred race cars." (Fenster)
1908 March 28: Hanna's No. One Mine, reopened in 1904, explodes at one in the afternoon. As it is Saturday, the mine contains only a small crew attempting to contain a fire. The blast brings many rescuers, including State Mine Inspector Elias. In the evening, a second explosion rocks the mining camp. Mine # 1 claims 60 victims, the working crew and their would-be rescuers. After this, Wyoming's deadliest mine is closed forever. (HUPCM)
1912 May 18: Medicine Bow Times: "... Mrs. John West, 72 years of age, the sole survivor of the long-deserted habitat of Carbon, was found by accident... and taken to Rawlins hospital. 'I will not leave unless you promise to bury me here if I die' she wailed." (Ellis)
1912 July 26: The Elk Mountain Commercial Club publishes an "Overland Trail Road Guide" touting "the most practical transcontinental highway." Included with mileposts are such directions as: "Slow. Bad turn," "Gate," "Bad rocks in road," and "Turn left along fence." (Elk Mt CC)
1913 July 1: The Lincoln Highway is formally adopted as the name of the first transcontinental highway; the idea of Carl G. Fisher, founder of Prest-O-Lite and maker of carbide headlights, it was previously proposed as "The Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway." (Hokanson)
1913 August 26: Fisher announces that the Lincoln Highway through Wyoming will follow the old Overland Trail. This brings the route to within a stone's throw of the old mining camp of Carbon. (Hokanson)
1919 November 11: The Great War ceases. One hundred and eleven men from Hanna have served; five are lost in action. (Kitching)
1920 September 8: Carrying 400 pounds of mail, the first transcontinental airmail flight crosses southern Wyoming. The westward flights of the De Haviland biplane are within view of the Overland Trail and the original line of the Union Pacific. (Roberts)
1928 October 1: In one day's time along the Lincoln Highway, Boy Scout troops erect 3,000 cement markers with small bronze Lincoln head medallions. Within a few months, the Lincoln Highway designation is changed to U.S. Route 30. (Hokanson)
1928 October 3: Pioneer John Sublett, who came to Fort Laramie in 1860, is buried at his log home near Elk Mountain. The mulatto son of frontiersman Andrew Sublett and Millie Donel (perhaps a slave), he had been a scout for the military, a teamster, and a farmer. (Sublett)
1931: President Eugene McAuliffe of the Union Pacific Coal Company offers to those miners in sections with no lost-time injuries an opportunity to win two brand new five-passenger autos. (HUPCM)
1937 October 17: At the small, independently owned coal camp of Carbon, between old Carbon and Elk Mountain, a single horse pulls cars filled with coal to be loaded on waiting trucks. Mining families live in slab houses with pieces of stove pipe sticking through the roof. (Fenimore)
1945 September 2: With the surrender of Japan, World War II ends. The mining town of Hanna sent 166 men to serve, including the five Scarpelli boys and several sons of Japanese miners. Three men are killed in action, including two Lucas brothers. (Kitching)
1949 January 2: The Great Blizzard of '49, the worst storm in Wyoming's history, halts all transportation, devastates livestock, and claims twelve victims. (Roberts)
1954 March 1: The Union Pacific Coal Company mines in Hanna close as the railroad completes the conversion to diesel fuel. Instantly, the miners are without work. "Many tears were shed as most people had been born and raised in Hanna." (Fenimore)
1970 October: A connecting link of Interstate 80, which closely follows Ashley's 1825 route across southern Wyoming, is open for traffic. In the same week, highway officials close that section of the Interstate because of blizzard conditions. (Roberts)
1979 April 12: The first privately published newspaper in Hanna issues Vol.1, number 1. Resurrected as coal powered plants answer the country's insatiable demand for electricity, Hanna begins a new existence. (Hanna Herald)
2001 August 31: Hanna's RAG Shoshone mine, the last working underground mine in the state of Wyoming, shuts down. Although two strip operations continue, the closure brings to an end the 134-year history of underground mining in the Carbon and Hanna Basins. (Gruver)
1843 August: Explorer John C. Fremont and his military accompaniment fire a cannon at approaching Indians west of Medicine Bow Butte (Elk Mountain). (Kinnaman)
1849: The California gold rush draws the first wagon train to cross southern Wyoming. Led by Captain Lewis Evans, a party of 130 Cherokee Indians with 40 wagon, 304 oxen, 41 mules, 65 horses and 31 cows follow Fremont’s route. (Kinnaman)
1850 September 21: Traversing the Bridger Pass route from west to east and being led by Jim Bridger himself, Captain Howard Stanbury of the Topographical Engineers names Pass and Rattlesnake Creek. (Kinnaman)
1860: Washakie, chief of the Shoshone, requests a reservation near Medicine Bow Butte because he envisions the tribe farming in the area. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 4: "An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and to secure the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes" is enacted by the Congress of the United States. (HUPCM)
1862 July 8: Ben Holladay moves the Overland stage from the Oregon Trail to the more southerly Bridger Pass route. Holladay's conveyances are Concord coaches, army wagons, and mud-wagons. They travel day and night and stop at rustic stations to change drivers and teams. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 8: Medicine Bow Butte becomes Elk Mountain. Its stage station is described as being of logs and boards with a roof of the same, one foot thick. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 11: The Postmaster General changes the mail route from the Oregon Trail to the Overland Trail. (Kinnaman)
1862 July 30: Construction of Fort Halleck begins. The site at the foot of Elk Mountain is chosen for its location - midway between Denver and Forts Laramie and Bridger - and for the abundance of water, grass, and timber. (Kinnaman)
1862 October: Caspar Collins, a boy accompanying his father, Colonel Collins to Fort Halleck, describes their guide Jim Bridger as "uneducated but speaking English, Spanish and French... besides nearly a dozen Indian tongues." (Kinnaman)
1864: Dr. Finfrock, post medical officer at Fort Halleck, estimates that 4264 wagons, 50,000 head of stock and 17,584 people pass by the fort on the Overland Trail during the year. (Kinnaman)
1864 June 12: Jas. A. Evans, in surveying for the first transcontinental railroad, reports the Laramie Plains-Rattlesnake Pass-Bridger Pass route as most favorable. (Kinnaman)
1865 May 22: Soldier Lewis Byrum Hull notes in his diary that 4000-5000 sheep driven from New Mexico and on their way to California pass by Fort Halleck. (Kinnaman)
1866: Companies A and E of the Fifth U. S. Volunteers arrive to garrison Fort Halleck; both are comprised of Confederate soldiers who chose western service over prison terms. (Kinnaman)
Note: These soldiers are often referred to as Galvanized Yankees.
1866 July 4: After four years of guarding the Overland Trail, immigrants and mail route, Fort Halleck is decommissioned. (Kinnaman)
1866 October: The telegraph line following the Overland Trail is in service. (Kinnaman)
1866 November 1: Wells, Fargo and Company purchases the Overland Mail and Express Company from Ben Holladay. (Kinnaman)
1867 May 12: A Union Pacific survey party is attacked; among the three men killed is Percy Browne, who located the original line from the junction of Rock Creek and Medicine Bow River over Browne's Summit near Carbon and down St. Mary's Creek to the North Platte. (Kinnaman)
1868 May 2: Under the supervision of Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge, survey work for the Union Pacific section of the first transcontinental railroad is completed. The proposed line is north of the Overland Trail at distances of from 8 to 24 miles. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 26: Carbon is open for freight traffic with three trains arriving daily. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 29: End of track reaches Carbon which is listed as being 656 miles from Omaha, at an elevation of 6750 feet and as having coal mines. (Kinnaman)
1868 June 30: An excursion train carrying General Dodge, Oliver Ames, President of the Union Pacific Railroad, and several journalists arrives at Carbon and end of the track and the group proceeds on by stagecoach. (Kinnaman)
1868 July: Snow from Elk Mountain is available for 5 cents a pound at Benton, a notorious construction camp 40 miles west of Carbon. (Kinnaman)
1868 July 3: General Casement, who had contracted the laying of the track, notes vast coal beds at Carbon where fuel can be loaded directly into cars. (Kinnaman)
1868 August 11: Leigh Freeman, editor of the Frontier Index published along the UP route, describes "curious petrifactions of animals and things of the past..." at Como, later to be famous as a source of dinosaur bones. (Kinnaman)
1868 August 27: The Frontier Index reports one to three thousand Indians in the vicinity of Medicine Bow with the marauders killing three men at Elk Mountain and injuring another. (Kinnaman)
1868 September 20: Report to the UP from Thomas Wardell, who has leased the coal field, "... enormous beds of very excellent coal... at Carbon Station a vein sixteen feet in thickness is being worked and about one hundred tons of coal taken out per day." (HUPCM)
1868 October 28: A tie train is attacked by Indians between Fort Halleck and Percy; five of the haulers are killed and their bodies thrown in a lake, ever after called "Bloody Lake." (Sublett)
1868 December: A contract is let to Davis and Associates to supply 1,000,000 cross ties and other timber from the Medicine Bow Mountains for railroad construction. (Kinnaman)
1869: Near Carbon, the stable boss, searching for strayed mules, is attacked by Indians; mortally wounded, he is carried to the mine where the panicked community has found refuge. According to some sources, his is Carbon Cemetery's first burial. (HUPCM)
1869: Carbon's population lives in shanties, log cabins, dugouts and houses created of piled stones. Water is sold by the barrel at twenty-five cents. (McKeown)
1869: John A. Creighton of Omaha, who has contracted to build the telegraph line for the Railroad Company, opens the #2 Mine at Carbon. It is destined to be the longest lived of Carbon's seven mines. (HUPCM)
1869 February 13: Blizzards block the railroad line in southern Carbon County. A train with 200 passengers is marooned near Percy station; ninety passengers start on foot for Laramie and the remainder shovel the train to Carbon, seven miles distant. (Kinnaman)
1869 May 10: The Golden Spike joining the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, is driven at Promontory and the transcontinental railroad is open for business. (HUPCM)
1870 November 27: Son of a pioneer miner, T. H. Butler is born in Carbon. He begins work as a trapper boy and, through self-education, rises to become Superintendent of Mines for the Union Pacific Coal Company. (HUPCM)
1871: The Knights of Labor organize the miners in Carbon and Rock Springs. After the mine operators arbitrarily cut wages, a strike is called, but troops from Fort Steele are dispatched to both coal camps and the strike is quelled. (Roberts)
1874: William Issacs and William Kane become the first fatalities in the Carbon mines. Both are killed by "fall of rock" in Mine No. One. (Ellis)
1874 March: The Union Pacific assumes control of its own coal mines, citing Wardell's difficulties with the Knights of Labor as one cause. (HUPCM)
1878 August 19: Railroad detective "Tip" Vincent of Rawlins and Deputy Sheriff Bob Widdowfield of Carbon enter Rattlesnake Pass in pursuit of the "Big Nose George" gang, who had attempted a train derailment and robbery near Medicine Bow. (Meschter)
1878 August 26: A posse discovers the bodies of the two lawmen and a reward of $1,000 for each of the murderers is offered. Within days, the rewards are raised to $2000. (Meschter)
1879 January 5: "Dutch Charley," member of the "Big Nose George" gang, is captured and transported on the train to Rawlins. At Carbon a crowd of men forces Charley from his hiding place in the baggage car. At day's end, his body hangs from a telegraph pole. (Meschter)
1880: The census reports 365 people living in Carbon. Of these, 179 are listed as foreign-born, many from the British Isles. (Census)
1883: Calamity Jane visits one of Carbon's six saloons, where she orders her whiskey "neat"; asked about a chaser, she requests "the same." (HUPCM)
Note: Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Cannary, circa May 1, 1852.
1889: Realizing the Carbon mines are being depleted, the Union Pacific prospects to the north. (HUPCM)
1890: A new branch line of the railroad reaches Hanna, where an excellent seam of coal has been found. Workmen live in tents as they develop the mines and build a company town. (HUPCM)
1890: Carbon's population reaches an all-time high of 1,140 persons. (Census)
1890 June 19: A fire started by an overturned kerosene lamp sweeps Carbon's business section; buildings are dynamited to stop the flames, but stores, saloons, and almost everything north of the track is destroyed. (HUPCM)
1890 July: Carbon is incorporated and one of the first ordinances prohibits stovepipes from extending through roofs. (HUPCM)
1890 July: The building of a water line from the #5 mine is proposed; the line is to provide inhabitants with water faucets and the fire brigades with hose water to fight fires. (HUPCM)
1891: Young Oskari Tokoi, later to become the first premier of Finland, arrives in Carbon and seeks work in the mines. (Tokoi)
1891: A newspaper, The Black Diamond, begins publication in Carbon. Filled with local happenings, advertisements and "boilerplate" serials and trivia, the paper exists until 1896. (Roberts)
1899: The upstart town of Hanna is placed on the mainline of the railroad and old Carbon is on the spur line. (HUPCM)
1900: In Carbon among a total population of 634 persons, there are 140 from Finland, 72 from England, 21 from Wales, and 20 from Germany. (Census)
1902: No. 7 Mine is closed, and Carbon is on the way to becoming a ghost town. (HUPCM)
1903 June 30: In Hanna at ten o'clock in the morning, a blast comes from the No. One Mine and black smoke fills the air. An explosion of gas claims the lives of half of Hanna's miners. The Mine Inspector's Report lists 169 fatalities. (Kitching)
1904: The Finns move their Evangelical Lutheran Church from Carbon to Hanna. The Finnish Temperance Union Hall, built in 1894 and one of the largest buildings in Carbon, makes the same overland trip at an unknown date. (HUPCM)
1908 March: "The Great Race: New York to Paris" brings competing autos to southern Wyoming. Hanna's miners flock to see their first automobiles, which are "more like pack animals than thoroughbred race cars." (Fenster)
1908 March 28: Hanna's No. One Mine, reopened in 1904, explodes at one in the afternoon. As it is Saturday, the mine contains only a small crew attempting to contain a fire. The blast brings many rescuers, including State Mine Inspector Elias. In the evening, a second explosion rocks the mining camp. Mine # 1 claims 60 victims, the working crew and their would-be rescuers. After this, Wyoming's deadliest mine is closed forever. (HUPCM)
1912 May 18: Medicine Bow Times: "... Mrs. John West, 72 years of age, the sole survivor of the long-deserted habitat of Carbon, was found by accident... and taken to Rawlins hospital. 'I will not leave unless you promise to bury me here if I die' she wailed." (Ellis)
1912 July 26: The Elk Mountain Commercial Club publishes an "Overland Trail Road Guide" touting "the most practical transcontinental highway." Included with mileposts are such directions as: "Slow. Bad turn," "Gate," "Bad rocks in road," and "Turn left along fence." (Elk Mt CC)
1913 July 1: The Lincoln Highway is formally adopted as the name of the first transcontinental highway; the idea of Carl G. Fisher, founder of Prest-O-Lite and maker of carbide headlights, it was previously proposed as "The Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway." (Hokanson)
1913 August 26: Fisher announces that the Lincoln Highway through Wyoming will follow the old Overland Trail. This brings the route to within a stone's throw of the old mining camp of Carbon. (Hokanson)
1919 November 11: The Great War ceases. One hundred and eleven men from Hanna have served; five are lost in action. (Kitching)
1920 September 8: Carrying 400 pounds of mail, the first transcontinental airmail flight crosses southern Wyoming. The westward flights of the De Haviland biplane are within view of the Overland Trail and the original line of the Union Pacific. (Roberts)
1928 October 1: In one day's time along the Lincoln Highway, Boy Scout troops erect 3,000 cement markers with small bronze Lincoln head medallions. Within a few months, the Lincoln Highway designation is changed to U.S. Route 30. (Hokanson)
1928 October 3: Pioneer John Sublett, who came to Fort Laramie in 1860, is buried at his log home near Elk Mountain. The mulatto son of frontiersman Andrew Sublett and Millie Donel (perhaps a slave), he had been a scout for the military, a teamster, and a farmer. (Sublett)
1931: President Eugene McAuliffe of the Union Pacific Coal Company offers to those miners in sections with no lost-time injuries an opportunity to win two brand new five-passenger autos. (HUPCM)
1937 October 17: At the small, independently owned coal camp of Carbon, between old Carbon and Elk Mountain, a single horse pulls cars filled with coal to be loaded on waiting trucks. Mining families live in slab houses with pieces of stove pipe sticking through the roof. (Fenimore)
1945 September 2: With the surrender of Japan, World War II ends. The mining town of Hanna sent 166 men to serve, including the five Scarpelli boys and several sons of Japanese miners. Three men are killed in action, including two Lucas brothers. (Kitching)
1949 January 2: The Great Blizzard of '49, the worst storm in Wyoming's history, halts all transportation, devastates livestock, and claims twelve victims. (Roberts)
1954 March 1: The Union Pacific Coal Company mines in Hanna close as the railroad completes the conversion to diesel fuel. Instantly, the miners are without work. "Many tears were shed as most people had been born and raised in Hanna." (Fenimore)
1970 October: A connecting link of Interstate 80, which closely follows Ashley's 1825 route across southern Wyoming, is open for traffic. In the same week, highway officials close that section of the Interstate because of blizzard conditions. (Roberts)
1979 April 12: The first privately published newspaper in Hanna issues Vol.1, number 1. Resurrected as coal powered plants answer the country's insatiable demand for electricity, Hanna begins a new existence. (Hanna Herald)
2001 August 31: Hanna's RAG Shoshone mine, the last working underground mine in the state of Wyoming, shuts down. Although two strip operations continue, the closure brings to an end the 134-year history of underground mining in the Carbon and Hanna Basins. (Gruver)
Sources
- Bureau of the Census
- Elk Mountain Commercial Club. Overland Trail Road Guide. Cheyenne, 1912.
- Ellis, Olive, "History of Carbon, Wyoming's First Mining Town," Manuscript, Hanna Basin Museum.
- Fenster, J.M. "The Longest Race," American Heritage. November 1996.
- Fenimore, Catherine. On Coming to Wyoming. Manuscript, Hanna Basin Museum.
- Gruver, Mead. "Hanna Has Survived Boom and Bust," Associated Press Release, August 2001.
- "Town Built by King Coal Braces for Last Mine Closure," Associated Press Release, August 2001.
- Hanna Herald
- Hokanson, Drake. The Lincoln Highway. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1988.
- Kinnaman, Daniel. A Little Piece of Wyoming. Rawlins, Wyoming, Kinnaman Publications, 1996.
- Kitching, Muriel Collection, Hanna Basin Museum.
- McAuliffe, Eugene, et. al., History of the Union Pacific Coal Mines. Omaha, The Colonial Press, 1940.
- McKeown, Martha Ferguson. Them Was the Days. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1950.
- Meschter, Daniel. "Yesteryears," Rawlins Daily Times (Wyoming), January-April 1979.
- Roberts, Philip J., David L., and Steven L. Wyoming Almanac, Laramie, Skyline West Press, 1968.
- Sublette, John, interview with Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, December 7, 1913, University of Wyoming.
- Tokoi, Oskari. Sisu: Even Through a Stone Wall. New York, Robert Speller & Sons, 1957.