FROM HILLS TO HEARTHS: Family Operated Wagon Coal Mines in the Upper Green River Valley Page 3 Compiled by Jonita Sommers [Blind Bull Coal Company]   [Vail Mine on Deadman Creek]    

BLIND BULL COAL COMPANY Between 1933 and 1956, the Blind Bull Coal Company produced 289,664.1 tons of coal from the Adaville Formation in the McDougal Field of the Hams Fork Region. The Blind Bull Company was formed by people from Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1933 when ten men mined 533 tons of lump coal. Twelve men mined 8,713 tons in 1934 while in 1935, the production jumped to 24,281 tons with 32 men in 140 days. There was 9303.33 tons of lump and 14,983.73 tons of small sizes which were loaded by hand. While working 176 days during January and June through December, 22 men mined and loaded mechanically 31,474.9 tons which was 10 tons for houses at the mine, 11,232.97 of lump, and 20,231.07 tons of small sizes. The highest production year was 1937 when 33,732 tons of coal, 10, 180 tons of lump and 23,571.7 tons of small sizes, were loaded by hand in 140 days. They installed tipple scales along with a shaking conveyor, built a horse stable, and developed a new water system. During 161 days, 27 men mined 28,967 tons of rockdusted coal. A 7-B cutting machine was purchased to help produce 34,673.46 tons of rockdusted coal in 199 days with 48 men during 1939. During 1940, 26,207 tons of coal were mined by 26 men in 171 days with 5,140 pounds of permissible powder. They built a new sawmill, and the following five non-fatal accidents occured: 1) On July 16, Alonzo Nickerson, miner, received a simple fracture of the left shoulder blade, fracture of the first and fifth ribs on his left side and his left lung was punctured from a fall of cap rock. 2) Amputation of an index and middle finger on the right hand of Gale Storer, tippleman, occurred on August 11 when his right hand was caught in a saw while cutting mine timbers. 3) Vernon Norton, loader, had a laceration on his ring finger of his right hand when coal fell from the face on September 5. 4) Mine foreman, David K. Wilson, obtained an oblique fracture of the middle one-third of right radius and ulna along with marked swelling and deformity of admission when he fell off of the top clay on September 29. 5) On November 16, Ruel W. Mickelsen, miner, had his right instep bruised with ligament between torsen and meditorsen torn when a large piece of coal came out of the chute, and struck a car which upended and caught his foot between the bumper and rail. Permissible electric cap lamps were used in 1941 along with the mine being rockdusted when 9844.81 tons of lump, 3686.46 tons of nut/egg, and 15,579.79 tons of pea/slack were mined in 170 days from July through December. They also built a horse barn and a new powder house. Rockdusted coal was mined in 134 days by 43 men using permissible powder during 1942. Twenty-four men who used permissible electric cap lamps and 4,000 pounds of permissible powder mined 4,116.58 tons of lump coal, 1627.65 tons of nut/egg, and 8213.86 tons of pea/slack in 122 days with one non-fatal accident during 1943 after they lined the powder house with cement. Cirillo Conovi, miner, fractured his great toe when a piece of rock hit his big toe while standing on a pit car picking rock. During 115 days from July into October in 1944, 16 men machine cut 6254 tons of rockdusted coal which included 105 tons used at the mine, 1,982 tons of lump, 618 tons of nut/egg, and 3,229 tons of pea/slack, while using electric lamps and 1,000 pounds of permissible powder. While mining in 1945, 14 men using electric cap lamps produced 2,492 tons in 90 days with permissible powder. Twelve men loaded by hand 3,114 tons of lump, and 3,117 tons of slack/pea, which equals 6,231 tons of rockdusted coal in 1946. After a bucket type tractor loader was bought, fan alarm systems installed, and the haulage way retimbered, 24 men produced 7,040 tons of rockdusted coal which was 210 tons in stock, 35 tons for houses, 3,040 tons lump, and 4,000 pea/slack in 98 days during 1947. A No. 75 K.W. power plant was installed in 1948 so 12 men could mine 8,000 tons during 116 days in the months of June through October with 40 pounds of permissible powder and four non-fatal accidents. The Blind Bull Coal Company's address was Afton, Wyoming in 1949. They bought one cutting machine, one loader, and two horses so 24 men could mine 5,500 tons of rockdusted coal in 103 days while using electric cap lamps and having one non-fatal accident. In 1950, Blind Bull Coal Company's address was Alpine. Twenty men machine cut 7269.92 tons of rockdusted coal. They used 2,000 pounds of permissible powder and electric cap lamps in a new drift which was 250 feet long. Eight men mined 3934.41 tons of coal with 982 pounds of permissible powder in 1951. While working 76 days, five men produced 4,136 tons of coal with 1,400 pounds of permissible powder during 1952. After working 86 days in 1953, twelve men used 1,330 pounds of permissible powder to mine 3990.70 tons. Six men loaded 2724 tons of coal by hand in 55 days from July through October after using 1505 pounds of permissible powder. They also installed a crusher and put a telephone inside and outside of the mine during 1954. The summer of 1955 saw four men under the direction of Joe Goyen, mine operator, machine cut and mechanically load 2497.16 tons of coal after blasting it with 1750 pounds of permissible powder. There was only one non-fatal accident after they did work on the main entry and return air vent. Joe Goyen had been a mine foreman in Rock Springs along with being chosen to go to France and help teach mining techniques. Again in 1956, Goyen was the operator and he repaired the tipple. Three men worked 108 days from June through October while mining 2429 tons of coal with 660 pounds of permissible powder. Bert Rood took over the mine. He sold all of the equipment, and built the Blind Bull cabin which was refurbished by the snow mobile clubs in 1996.
 
 
  VAIL MINE ON DEADMAN CREEK Wallace C. Vail received a coal prospecting permit for his coal company called Vail Coal Company which would expire in 1939. Forty thousand dollars were spent to open the mine. In 1936, the Vail Coal Company of Idaho Falls, Idaho was started by Vail and his family. In 198 days, 30 men mined 3237.93 tons of coal which was high volatile C Bituminous in a 6-foot thick seam from the Adaville Formation. The thermal unit was 9,086 at the mine while the moisture was 20.43, the volatile matter was 30.64, the fixed carbon was 42.43, the ash was 6.49, and the sulfur was .42. Truck scales, a bunkhouse, an office building, a tipple, a boiler, a boiler house, and a 300-foot entry were all constructed and installed at the mine in 1937. Fourteen men mined 1393.30 tons of coal in 1938 during 171 days in the months of June through December. There was a mine explosion killing five men at the Vail Mine located on Deadman Creek which flows into the Big Greys River February 11, 1938. Mrs. Baker, the foreman's wife, skied to Sam Young's ranch to report the disaster. Rex Young heard the dogs barking and found Mrs. Baker lying exhausted in the snow. The explosion came from the 350-foot tunnel just as the men were quitting for the day because fine coal or "bug dust" instead of damp, nonexplosive rock dust was used to pack the blasting powder into the bore. Rex and Sam Young snow shoed to the men and found all the men dead or burned with debris scattered 300 feet from the mine. They skied back to the ranch after finding no survivors and called the officials. A plane flew the mine inspectors to Young's ranch. Thirty-six miles of road was cleared of seven feet of snow to remove the bodies and rescue team.
The following article, "Fatal Day at Vail Mine" written by Janet S. Osmun of Arvada, Colorado, was in the Wyoming Wildlife magazine for June 1980 (p. 31-33) and gives a detailed account of the accident:
Five miners died in the 1938 explosion of Greys River's Vail coal mine--five hardy men snowbound in the western Wyoming Rockies blasting coal from the guts of Deadman Mountain. The explosion took the lives of Carrie Baker's husband and son and left the stunned woman alone to face a perilous six-mile trek to the cabin of the nearest neighbor.
It was Friday, February 11, 1938. The peaks of the 10,000-foot Salt River Range quivered in sub-zero temperatures and seven feet of snow covered the dirt roads of Bridger National Forest. John Baker, his wife, Carrie and son, Bill, and three other men were wintering at the 8,000-foot Vail Mine on the headwaters of Deadman Creek. Vail promised to be rich in slack coal and the men hoped to stockpile a sizeable quantity for summer shipment. It was late afternoon. The sun was slanting through the bird's-eye pines along the southwest ridge and the miners inside the 350-foot horizontal tunnel were chilled through. The men had just tamped blasting powder into a bore in the eerie rock wall. "Let's knock off for the day," grumbled John Baker, squinting in the vague glow of the battery-powered light strapped to his hard hat.
"You boys go on ahead," replied his son Bill. "I'll fire this one." Rulon Ivie stayed to help while John Baker and Denver Holbrook limped stiffly along the tunnel toward the window of light ahead. Minutes before a fifth miner, Henry Ash, had led out the horse hitched to the mine car. Ash was waiting under the massive timbers of the tipple. Mrs. Carrie Baker was working biscuit dough in a nearby cabin. She glanced at her husband's pocket watch waiting on the washstand--it was 4:30.
Six miles below Vail Mine where Deadman Creek joins Big Greys River was the 280-acre Young Ranch owned by seasoned trapper and retired U.S. Army Sgt. Sam Young, Sr. Old Sam Young lived with his wife, Helen, and son, Rex, in a cabin behind their cafe and store which in summer served miners and truckers working the nearby Vail and Blind Bull coal mines. Another son, Sam Young, Jr., had taken a wife a few months before and lived in a two-room cabin nearby. The Youngs had come to Greys River in 1927 and bought out two homesteaders. Despite winter temperatures of 55 below and a snowpack which often reached eight feet, the Youngs lived on the river year-round. The nearest town--Alpine, Wyoming--was 30 miles north. Rex and Sam, Jr. worked in the mines in summer while Old Sam and Mother Young and Sam, Jr.'s wife, Ila, tended the cafe and store. In winter Old Sam and his husky sons ran a trapline reaching 30 miles south to the headwaters of Big Greys River.
The smoke from the Young's cabins hung lazily in the pines that February day; the horses huddled miserably on the feedground and Rex and Sam, Jr. came back from the trapline early, shivering in the biting cold. Mother Young and Ila fried potatoes and strips of deer meat for supper. The fireplace flames licked the pitch from the pine logs and burned down to a red glow. Soon after nightfall the family retreated to the warmth of beds piled high with heavy quilts.
Around 11 p.m. Rex was awakened by the barking of the Youngs' dog. He raised on an elbow and listened. Off in the distance a strange dog was yipping anxiously. Lighting a coal oil lamp, Rex dressed and climbed the snowdrift draping the cabin to the eaves. He strapped on snowshoes and moved off through the darkness in the direction of the yelping dog. A burning wind had come up, moving a bank of low clouds across the narrow Greys River valley. Shielding his cheeks against his coat collar, Rex swung one web around the other. He'd gone a quarter mile up Deadman Creek when he heard the desperate sobs of Mrs. John Baker. Carrie Baker, suffering from frostbite and exhaustion, was sprawled across her skis with her shaggy black dog huddled against her. "The mine blew," she choked as Rex knelt beside her. "I found Henry Ash. He's hurt bad. Don't know about the others. John and my boy are in there. You've got to help them." Mrs. Baker was wearing a house dress, a light coat and moccasin-like house slippers poked into the bindings of a man's heavy crude skis. She and the dog had floundered along for over six hours hunting the Young Ranch. Rex Young gathered Mrs. Baker in his arms and labored back to the cabin. Old Sam and Mother Young stoked a roaring fire and heated broth for Mrs. Baker. Rex rousted Sam, Jr. The boys loaded a toboggan with blankets and took off up Deadman Creek. Sam Young, Jr. recalls the sight of the tragedy some forty years ago.
"The moon was up and shining through broken clouds by the time we reached the mie," he remembers. "The heavy timbers and tipple were snapped like toothpicks. The mouth of the tunnel was blocked by the splattered logs. Two mine cars had been blown clear across the canyon and the hillsides were black with soot."
The brothers found Henry Ash dead in the bunkhouse where Mrs. Baker had dragged him. Ash remained conscious long enough to give her directions to the Young Ranch. "Go for help," he groaned. "Whatever you do don't leave you skis..." Carrie Baker had never worn skis in her life.
Sam, Jr. and Rex found two more bodies pinned in the rubble. "We knew there was no hope of anybody being alive," Sam recalled, "so we hurried back to the cabin. The folks and Ila were working to revive Mrs. Baker."
A U.S. Forest Service telephone was connected to Old Sam's cabin, but crews were repairing a line near Alpine. Outside a howling wind was whipping falling snow. Time no longer mattered to the five miners, and the brothers decided to let the storm pass before skiing out for help. It was too easy to get lost in a blizzard.
Luckily the telephone wires were repaired Saturday morning and word of the mine disaster forwarded to Wyoming National Forest Headquarters in Kemmerer. Famed mountain aviator A. Bennett of Idaho Falls was called in to pilot state mine inspectors and U.S. Bureau of Mines rescue personnel gathered at Afton across the Salt River Range to land on the Young's meadow. Bennett, flying a bi-wing, open-cockpit, six passenger aircraft, made five trips over the mountains. Sam, Jr. and Rex readied skis and webs and led each incoming party up to the mine, then returned with the gear to outfit the next group.
Wearing gas masks, rescue men began pulling away the debris. Inspectors had brought along two canaries held in battery-heated cages. The birds, highly sensitive to "blackdamp" or mine gas, were carried into the tunnel to test the air. The canaries were unaffected and it was soon determined that the explosion had not been caused by a gas pocket. The Vail miners had used fine coal or "bug dust" rather than damp, compactible, non-explosive rock dirt to pack the blasting powder into the bore. The "windy" shot "bounced" or blew back out igniting coal dust hanging in the tunnel from previous blasts. Bill Baker, 19, and Rulon Ivie, 30, were killed at the blast site. John Baker, 45, and Denver Holbrook, 25, were blown completely out of the tunnel. Henry Ash, 28, who was waiting outside, was struck by the collapsing tipple and suffered burns and internal injuries; the intense heat had partially melted his belt buckle.
Lincoln County highway crews, assisted by Civilian Conservation Corps workers, cleared seven feet of snow from 30 miles of the Greys River road and the six miles of access road up Deadman Creek. Cave-in inside the tunnel had been minimal and the bodies had been recovered when the caterpillars arrived Monday afternoon to transport the victims to Alpine.
Following the Lincoln County coroners' inspection, the bodies of John and Bill Baker, Denver Holbrook, and Henry Ash were shipped home to North Carolina and West Virginia. Mrs. Carrie Baker recovered and returned to the East, grateful to the Young family and her shaggy black dog that she had not perished as well. Rulon Ivie was buried in Scipio, Utah.
The Vail Mine, owned by Wallace C.Vail of Vail Coal Company, Idaho Falls, was not reopened but the Youngs of Greys River stayed on. Old Sam died in 1959 in Cheyenne's Veterans' Hospital. Mother Young moved to Canada and remarried. Sam, Jr. and wife, Ila, bought the upper 160 acres of Meadow Creek from Old Sam in 1942 and through the years built the seven cabins, bathhouse, and rustic lodge of today's Box Y Guest Ranch. Rex of Afton still owns the remaining 120 acres of the original Young Ranch at the mouth of Deadman Creek, across from majestic Virginia Peak.
 
 
Sickish and Chadey operated the mine in 1939 with five men who produced 1393.3 tons of coal in 150 days. Joe Goyen from Alpine operated the mine under the name of Dead Man Gulch Mine in 1957 after he acquired a coal prospecting permit in 1954. They built or installed buildings, a generator, equipment, and housing so two men could mine 201 tons of coal in 36 days using 300 pounds of black powder. Goyen started mining a 7.5-foot thick coal bed along a 475-foot drift which eventually produced 31,144.7 tons of Bituminous coal from the Adaville Formation. The thermal unit at the mine was 12,720 while the moisture was 5.7, volatile matter was 41.1, fixed carbon was 53.2, ash was 5.7, and sulfur was 7. On February 1, 1959, the BLM leased Goyen 760 acres for a coal mine. That year new cap and powder magazines, a bath house, new living quarters, two new bridges, and 700 feet of water pipe from the spring to bath were installed. Three men worked 105 days in June through October to produce 972 tons of coal using 600 pounds of permissible powder. In 1959, two men mined 869 tons of coal in 24 days with 500 pounds of permissible powder. The year 1960 found the two men mining 559 tons working 385 surface man-hours in 24 days with 500 pounds of permissible powder. One non-fatal accident happened while two men worked 320 underground man-hours in 20 days. During 1962, two men working 350 man-hours underground in 25 days produced 313 tons of coal with 515 pounds of permissible powder. Joe Goyen died in 1964, and his wife, Mary, turned the mine over to Jim Purcell in 1965. Jim Purcell leased it out to Fred C. Hoth Sandoval in 1966 and V. Jerome Cruz in 1975. The mine was active through 1996.
 
Frank Willizon and his two brothers dug this mine in Beaver Hill in 1934, but never found any coal. The Bronx community put money into the project. Frank was a very good carpenter and built Fred Pape's house, the Pape apartments in Pinedale and what was Nick Stadler's house in 1996. He was also a cabinet maker.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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