Craig Daily Press

The following is an article from the Steamboat Pilot on Feb. 28, 1906. It was written by Charles E. Baker.

No other part of the Bear River Valley is so well adapted to a townsite location, the valley being broad and level and well above the river.

None of the drainage or surface water mingles with the subterranean flow which affords most excellent water for domestic use. As a natural commercial center, Craig stands without a peer. Its highways, stage and telephone lines reach out like tentacles to all parts of the county and adjacent territory, giving her a prestige that should make her the metropolis of the western slope.

The town is founded on a bed of coal, which reaches from 10 to 30 miles on the north and northeast, terminating in the anthracite of Pilot Knob. This same coal series extends down the river 65 miles and south 20 to 30 miles, being cut off by the intrusive rocks of the White River Divide.

One vein on the dry fork of Little Bear north of Craig measures 23 feet in thickness: Eight miles to the south, another vein of high-grade bituminous measures eighteen feet. Five miles to the west is Cedar Mountain, once an active volcano. A vein of coal dips under this mountain three miles from its base, at which point the coal is so hard it can scarcely be pierced with a pick.

Nearer the mountain this is supposed to be anthracite, although no development has ever been made to prove that the usual theory holds good in this case.

This wealth of carbonaceous product is found in barren hills and rocky pinnacles, but the bituminous coals underlie first and second mesas, picturesque pastoral and agricultural valleys, with soils rich in the elements of plant growth; while the anthracite coals at more lofty altitudes are in the region’s of the ingenious rocks, deep snows, evergreen forest and eternal streams.

In the three coal measures underlying this field there are 75 feet of workable coal, and, as a rule, the seams lie in a nearly horizontal position, making them easily assessable.

A very considerable portion of the Williams Fork group has been faulted and refaulted until nearly all the seams of the lowest and middle measures are exposed by escarpments along nearly every ridge. The lower veins, prospected but little, give every assurance of coking, while those of the middle measures furnish an excellent steam coal.

In this same Laramie formation, lying contiguous with coal in certain localities, is a superior grade of fine clay, said to compare that from which chinaware is made.

Meanwhile sitting atop all this carbonaceous wealth is Craig, just waiting patiently for a railroad to come into town from any direction.

(The Moffat road reached Craig in November 1913 and Craig celebrated with a big celebration on Nov. 20 and 21. It would be 1914 before regular freight service would take effect, linking Craig to the outside world.

In the 1940s the Colorado-Utah Coal Company — this mine later went under the Colowyo Coal Company name — bought the old Streeter coal mine in Axial Basin. They erected their coal tipple in Craig and hauled coal from the mine in trucks.That is when Craig first became a big coal shipping point. At some later date, Senator Sam Taylor opened a coal mine in the vicinity of where the now idle Empire Energy Mine is located south of Craig; this mine also hauled coal in trucks and had a loading point in Craig. The Colowyo Coal Company underground mine ceased operation in 1974.The W. R. Grace Company having bought the underground mine, and all the coal land holdings, opened a strip pit.

And this was the extent of coal shipping in Craig; later a spur railroad line was extended south to the Empire Energy Mine, and eventually out to the Colowyo Coal Company property.

Today those 100 plus car coal trains are a common sight rumbling through Craig.)