FROM HILLS TO HEARTHS: Family Operated Wagon Coal Mines in the Upper Green River Valley Page 4 Compiled by Jonita Sommers [Little Granite Creek Mine]   [Pot Creek Outcropping] [Willow Creek Mine]   [Fontenelle Mines]

    LITTLE GRANITE CREEK MINE The Little Granite Creek Mine was opened in 1931 which mined a 6-foot thick vein for five dollars per ton. They hauled the coal to Jackson. Some coal was found at the mouth of Dell Creek which was not mined. John P. Nocker was at the mine in 1939 and produced 435 tons of coal. Noker came to the Jackson area around the Depression. He mined on Cache Creek first and did quite a bit of prospecting. He sold his coal in Jackson at the Noker Coal building. He then moved to Little Granite Creek. Several of his brothers joined him with their families during the Depression. They did not have money, but they could trade coal for anything they needed. They sold their coal in Jackson and to ranchers in the Hoback Basin. They lived at the mine year round. Someone would bring food to a straw stack at Battle Mountain and leave it. The Nokers would take a sled and team to get it. John P. Noker's address was Jackson when he operated the Little Granite Mine in 1940. Four men in 173 days from January through March and May through December mined 562 tons which was 385 tons lump and 177 tons pea/slack. Again, four men in 230 days during 1941 loaded by hand 796 tons which were 481 tons lump and 315 tons pea/slack. They retimbered the south side and replaced large rails for a small improved tipple. During 1942, two men produced 676 tons in 111 days from May through December. Two men had two non-fatal accidents and mined 330 tons of coal in 1943. Merlin Hayes operated the mine in 1944 and produced 1799.08 tons which consisted of 584 tons lump, 602 tons nut/egg, and 615 tons pea/slack with four men using 2700 pounds of permissible powder. The main haulage was planked while a 70-ton tipple and air course was completed. A 110-volt D.C. system was installed for lights and electric drills. Three men worked for Hayes in 1945 for 113 days producing 25 tons for the house, 403 tons lump and 277 tons nut/egg. No one mined at the Little Granite mine in 1948. Two men produced 222 tons in 150 days with 100 pounds of permissible powder. In 1949, two men produced 150 tons of coal. The mine did not operate in 1950 through 1957. Prospecting was completed in 1952 for $6500. Noker and some relatives formed the Granite Creek Coal and Uranium, Inc. in 1960 through 1981. John P. Noker died in 1967. Orville Alleman also mined on Little Granite Creek. There was a Reynolds Coal mine just south of Noker's mine. Bill Showers would haul coal with his pack horse from the Jim Creek outcropping to use in his forge at the Circle S Ranch.
 
 
  POT CREEK OUTCROPPING The early Kendall Valley ranchers would get coal from the Pot Creek outcropping by putting it in gunny sacks and packing it out on horses for their forges. Sometimes they would use a wagon to get the coal. Dewey Blackman, Mason Phillips and Charlie Alexander were some of the people who used the coal in their forges.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

WILLOW CREEK MINE Pete Jerome and George Hazzard filed a coal location notice in 1904 for the Willow Creek Coal mine. Artus Fish, employee of the mine, escaped injury from falling rock in September 1904 according to the Pinedale Roundup. Pete Jerome bought the mine from J.H. Hamel. In December, Fish was the manager of the Cora coal mine and was charging $2.50 per ton for coal according to an ad in the Pinedale Roundup. The price had gone up to $3.00 per ton in November 1905. In 1909, Fish was no longer coal mining. Harry Payne filed on 40 acres of coal on Little Coal Mine Creek which is the head of Willow Creek in 1912. Harry Payne sold the mine to his brother-in-law, Morrell Gray, for $1200 in 1913. There was a new mine started on Willow Creek in 1914. Morrell Gray turned the mine over to E. Austin Richardson in 1915. John Ray was a proprietor of the mine on Willow Creek in September 1915. There was 40-inch thick ice for 200 feet back into the mine from the mouth. Residents of Willow Creek did not put up ice for their summer ice boxes because they could go to the mine and get it. There was coal to sell. E.A. Richardson sold the 40 acres to P.W. Jenkins in 1918. The Jenkins family still ready owned the land in 1996.
 
Roy Lozier had a new coal mine on Big Flat Top up Willow Creek in April 1924. He kept the mine running until the New Fork Lake dam broke and caused the New Fork River Flood in 1927.
 
There were reports that coal was taken for use on ranches from Mt. Airy located on the Mesa between Pinedale and the Green River.
 
 
 
 
 
  FONTENELLE MINES There were several prospect pits for coal on the tributaries of Fontenelle Creek along Oyster Ridge. Howard M. Holden, who owned the ranch where Aaron McGinnis lived in 1997, had a mine on Little Coal Creek. Howard had a large house which was used as a boarding house for travelers from Kemmerer and Opal to the upper country. He had an ore cart and railroad tracks. He was at the mine in 1906 when A.R. Schultz examined the coal. The local ranchers would come, dig and load their own coal for their forges. The coal was bituminous from the Frontier Formation in the Willow Creek field. The moisture was 7.74, volatile matter 34.65, fixed carbon 53.31, ash 4.30, hydrogen 5.30, carbon 71.51, nitrogen 1.13, oxygen 17.27, sulfur 0.46, and British thermal unit 12,692. The vein was 4.3 feet thick.
 
There were five other prospects in the area. There was a Jones prospect to the west of Holden's mine. There was another coal mine site at Burnt Bend.
 
The coal mines started in 1886 in the upper Green River Valley and ended in 1981 which was nearly a century this product played a roll in the lives of the people in the area.