Let's Talk Wyoming
A podcast about Wyoming and everything we talk about including the weather, politics, energy & agriculture, sports & everything else effecting our state.
Let's Talk Wyoming
Let's Talk Wyoming - Weather's Wild Ride: Heat Waves, Homelessness, and Wyoming's Coal Mining Legacy
Imagine waking up to an unseasonably warm day in Wyoming, just as the Fourth of July weekend is approaching. We'll uncover how this heat wave is reshaping activities like floating on the Bighorn River and impacting the well-being of both humans and animals. As we navigate through erratic weather patterns in the Midwest and unusual fires in New Mexico, we’ll ponder the possibility of weather modification. You'll also hear a touching story about Steve, a man facing homelessness, and how a small act of kindness became a moment of profound significance.
Travel back with us to the early days of the Union Pacific's expansion into Rock Springs, Wyoming, and discover how the coal mining industry shaped the region. We'll explore the ethnic diversity of the workforce, the bustling coal camps, and the technological advancements that peaked during World War II. Alongside these rich historical insights, we’ll discuss the significant role of foreign workers and a recently published book that chronicles these events. Join us as we honor Wyoming's heritage and the indelible mark left by its coal mining industry.
Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host. Today. We'll be talking about Wyoming weather, and it's been warm and our weather around the US has been rather strange. We'll have a story on being thankful for what you have and we'll talk about the coal mines at Reliance Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:Taking a look at Wyoming weather here on the 24th day of June. June is slowly but surely coming to a close. Also our weather here in Wyoming. As I've seen around the country, it has definitely warmed up. We're having a heat wave right now. Over the weekend it's gotten hot. Yesterday, sunday, was just an absolute furnace outside Hot, almost 100 degrees, with a strong wind blowing. It is definitely not good. Right now All my animals are sleeping inside. They're all inside laying on the floor resting. It's amazing. Animals know about this hot weather and know that they just might as well lay low because it's not very conductive to much activity outside. So but it looks like this weather is going to stay around for the rest of the week. Maybe a little brief cool down on Friday. Then it's going to be back and warm going into the 4th of July.
Speaker 2:The 4th of July is right around the corner and it looks like we're going to have some good weather. Now, this may be the first year in quite a while. Here in Hot Springs County People like to float on the Bighorn River and this may be the first time in a while the weather's been conductive, the weather's been good, the river's actually going to be down and it looks like it's going to be a good Fourth of July weekend to get on the water. I've heard that usual float. Also, boysen Reservoir is down quite a bit. I think they had some estimation issues. I think they were expecting a little bigger runoff than what we ended up with. I know they're talking about water flows are going to be reduced. So again, part of this.
Speaker 2:And then I look at weather around the country here recently the weather out in the Midwest. I saw places in Iowa and I saw Sioux Falls, south Dakota All these areas are just getting unbelievable amount of rain, just epic amount of rain. There's something definitely going on. I can remember a podcast from oh, probably two years ago, from Wyoming History, where they talked about weather modification and a lot of people don't believe in this type of stuff, but I sure do. Somebody's messing around with our weather. And then you see down in New Mexico, in Rio Dosa, down in New Mexico it's down in that southern part of the state of New Mexico they suddenly had these crazy fires that came in, a little bit like the ones that you saw in California and also in Hawaii, that suddenly appear out of nowhere and the heat is just unbelievable. A little strange out there the activities are going on, but summertime is here and it's going to be a long time before we're going to have any relief. We better just hunker down and lay low and be like the dogs, maybe take a nap.
Speaker 2:I'd like to share a story that I saw this evening. As I was leaving Best Buy, I noticed this man going through the garbage can outside of the store. As I walked to my car, I watched him as he reached into the garbage can and pulled out fast food trash bags and inspected all that was in the thrown away bags. He did this for several minutes. He would find a few fries in one bag and a bite or two of a hamburger in another bag. You can see the hamburger wrapper by his knee where he was placing the food items he'd found. He never bothered anyone or tried to stop and beg for money as people entered and left the store. After he went through the entire trash can, he neatly cleaned up the area and wrapped up the food he had found in the dirty hamburger wrapper. My heart hurt for him. I am not someone who just hands out money or even helps homeless people, because so many are not truly homeless. I don't guess I've ever seen someone actually go through a garbage can to try to find food to eat.
Speaker 2:I knew I had to help him. I got out of my car and asked if I could buy him something to eat. He told me he would appreciate anything I could get him. He was on a bike and I told him if he'd follow me I'd buy him a meal at the fast food place around the block. He followed me and I bought the biggest meal they had on the menu. The only request he gave me for this order was if he could get a big glass of sweet tea to go with the meal. Brought the food to him. He was so thankful. He told me his name was Steve and he'd been homeless ever since his sister died last September. He was trying to get off the streets but it was so hard. I told him God loved him and I would pray for him. He told me again how much he appreciated the meal.
Speaker 2:When I got back in my car I drove off with such a heaviness in my heart for this man. I drove down the road and felt compelled to go back to help this man. When I came back, he had finished his meal and was riding away. I pulled up beside him and asked him if there was any way I could help him. He told me not really. He never asked me for money. I asked him if I could buy him a few meals and put on a gift card for him. He told me that would be kind. I drove to McDonald's and bought him some meals and gave him a gift card.
Speaker 2:He broke down crying. He told me that he had prayed for me today. I wasn't sure what he meant crying. He told me that he had prayed for me today. I wasn't sure what he meant. I was assuming he was praying for me, for what I did for him. So I thanked him. He said no, you don't understand. I prayed that God would send someone to buy me a hot meal today, and he sent you.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to say I was speechless. Maybe God uses me to answer this man's prayer, to let him know that he cares for him. But maybe God used this man to show me just how blessed I am and what I take for granted. He said you see, I have cancer. He pulled up his shirt and pointed to a huge mass that was poking out from his stomach. He said he knew it wouldn't be much longer. I asked him if he knew Jesus. He told me that he did. I asked if I could pray for him and he said that I could.
Speaker 2:We prayed right there on the sidewalk of McDonald's. Tears just poured from his eyes. He told me he knew that he was going to die and that he was ready to die. He was tired of being in pain and would be better off off dead, because this was no life living this way. I stayed and encouraged him for a few minutes, just trying to fight back my tears. My prayer is that I showed him the love of Jesus today, that something I said gave him hope.
Speaker 2:You see, everybody has a story. I know Steve's story all because I felt compelled to help him. He ended up touching me today. When I left him, I knew I had done what God wanted me to do. God put him in my path today. I know he did. I never felt such a feeling to help someone as I did today.
Speaker 2:I was reminded again of how blessed I am. I have a vehicle that gets me from place to place. I have a roof over my head, clean clothes, money to buy a hot meal, running water, electricity, my health, a job, family and friends. Sometimes God sends situations our way to remind us of how blessed we are. Please remember Steve in your prayers. Yes, I have been blessed. God's so good to me. Precious are his thoughts of you and me. There's no way I could count them, there's not enough time, so I'll just thank him for being so kind. God has been good, so good. I've been blessed. I've been blessed.
Speaker 2:Today in our world, coal is such a nasty name. A lot of coal-fired plants are being attacked by environmentalists and it's having a major impact in the state of Wyoming. Wanted to look at a story from back from the wildhistoryorg by Dick Bluss Jr. Reliance, the last of the Sweetwater County coal camps. While trappers and traders had long been aware of extensive coal deposits in the area, the immense Rock Springs Coal Field in present-day Sweetwater County. Wyoming was first documented officially by Captain Howard Stansbury of the US Army Topographical Engineers. Stansbury was on his 1849 to 1851 expedition to survey the Great Salt Lake in Utah, evaluated the Mormon and Oregon trails and scout routes for a transcontinental railroad. His return trip took him through Bitter Creek Valley and what is now Rock Springs, where the party observed great outcroppings of coal and a good quality coal in beds 10 foot thick, protruding from the hills on the south side of the creek.
Speaker 2:In August of 1868, the Union Pacific reached Rock Springs, though the town was little more than a stop on the Overland stage line. Coal mining had already began. The Union Pacific Coal Department, formed in 1874 and by 1890 reorganized as the Union Pacific Coal Company, produced most of the coal mined in the immediate area. During the early days of Sweetwater County, coal industry mining was usually close to the railroad. Between 1869 and 1900, all but one of the coal mines in the Rock Springs field were located within a mile of the main line. All that changed with the turn of the century, however. In 1899, upe began a massive project to rebuild the entire line from Omaha to Ogden, straightening curves, boring tunnels and reducing grades to allow for longer, heavier trains, a lower cost per ton per mile and more profit. Demand for coal rose sharply. Between 1898 and 1910, wyoming coal production more than doubled from more than 3 million tons to more than 7 million tons per year. Consequently, the Union Pacific began constructing spur lines north from the main line to new or newly acquired mine sites.
Speaker 2:In 1906, a spur up Horse Thief Canyon, east of Rock Springs, to the mines at Superior were completed, and in 1907, work began on a line to be called Gunn, three miles north of the tracks on the western edge of the North Baxter Basin, the area of the Sweetwater coal camps, had begun. On March 20th of 1910, miners began digging at a site several miles north of Rock Springs. It was designated the number one mine, followed soon by number three and four, and the coal camp that sprung up near the mines were christened Reliance. Other camps followed over the years along the immense arc of the Rock Springs Coal Field, including Winton Dines, lion Coal, east Plain and Stansbury. The Reliance mine proved highly productive. In 1906, coal production in Sweetwater County was reported at 2.1 million tons, but by 1912, when the Spur line to Reliance was completed, this figure had risen to 2.9 million tons, an increase of 38%. This created a demand for workers. One Union Pacific newspaper advertisement called for 1,000 miners and laborers for the mines at Rock Springs, superior and Reliance. These mines are safe and free from gas. Work is steady and wages are good, while influx of workers came.
Speaker 2:Extraordinarily ethnic and cultural diversity. During 1880 and 1910, a full 61% of Sweetwater County's railroad and coal town dwellers were foreign-born. More than 20 nationalities were represented, including English, welsh, irish, scottish, belgium, french, canadians, german, dutch, hungarians, italian, polish, croatian, slovenia, finnish, serbian, swedish, danish, basque, greek, chinese and Japanese. By 1911, the State Mine Inspector reported that at Reliance, while the mines were being opened, the company carried on a house-building program. Seventy-five comfortable and commodious houses had been built and others had been added. Characterizing the houses as comfortable and commodious was probably an exaggeration. At first water had to be hauled to the dwellings where it was stored in barrels. Later wells were drilled and water was piped in. Eventually, an enlarged power plant in Rock Springs brought electricity to Reliance. The population grew steadily, if not rapidly. According to census information, in 1930, there were 626 people in Reliance and 740 in 1940.
Speaker 2:The Union Pacific Coal Company Reliance Headquarters building was roughly at the center of the camp. It housed the mine office, the company store and post office. Reliance's social center, a large building called the Bungalow, featured a large amusement hall, an activity room, the camp doctor's office, a pool hall and a barbershop. Dances, concerts and other community events were staged there and movies were shown. There was even roller skating. Reliance served as the unofficial capital of the coal camps north of Rock Springs. While younger children attended grade school at their own camp, all attended high school at the Reliance High School completed in 1928. The first class graduated in 1931.
Speaker 2:At coal mining operations of the coal camp era in the West, coal sorting stations called tipples, were used to sort mine coal by size and also to remove debris. The sorted coal was then loaded on rail cars for shipment. For decades a wooden tipple served the Reliance mines, but in 1936, a massive steel and concrete tipple replaced it. Twenty or more coal hauling cars at a time, with a capacity of four tons each, traveled a special trolley line from the mines to a new tipple, powered by cables that ran overhead in the mines and were strung on poles alongside the trolley tracks. At the tipple the cars were tipped sideways with special machinery dumping the coal into the hopper. The coal then moved to a shaker screen that sorted the coal into one of four categories of size powder, nut, egg or lump. Tipple's main conveyor, delivering the coal to rail cars, was a 48-inch wide rubber covered belt traveling at 310 feet per second. The plant could process 500 tons of coal per hour.
Speaker 2:As production increased from 1936 on, more workers were needed at the Tipple. America's entry into World War II in December of 1941, however, caused a manpower shortage, with many men, enlisting Consequently women, worked at the temple during the war to pick bony or waste material, mostly slate that needed to be removed by hand from the coal. At their peak, during World War II, their reliance mines produced 1.4 million tons of coal per year coal per year. But during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as the Union Pacific accelerated its changeover to diesel electric locomotives, demand for coal declined. By the late 1950s the transition was complete. When the demand for coal ceased, the mines closed and the coal camps died. Winton, stansbury, gunn, dynes, lion Coal were abandoned and dismantled. To avoid paying taxes on the now vacant miners' houses, the coal companies sold them for a pittance and many were transported out whole to the towns of Rock Springs, pinedale, big Piney, lander and Hudson, wyoming. Some even went out of state to Idaho, utah and Colorado. All that remains of the camps today are foundations and a few crumbling walls.
Speaker 2:Reliance was and remains the exception that stubborn little town population in the low hundreds continued to hang on. It has a branch of the Sweetwater County Library open four days a week. Reliance residents may have to drive to Rock Springs for groceries and gas, but they can get their dogs groomed at Cute and Curly on Main Street. The old high school still stands. By 1958, it was down to five seniors and closed in 1959. But from 1960 to 61, served as the second campus of the Western Wyoming Community College, first to offer daytime classes. The high school, one-time home of the Reliance Pirates, was placed on the National Registry of Historical Places.
Speaker 2:The Reliance Temple remains too. When the last of the Reliance mines shut down in 1954, the temple was abandoned. Its powerful electric motors were salvaged and sold off, but the structure itself and its internal components, including shakers, hoppers and screens, were left intact. Shakers, hoppers and screens were left intact. Some of the metalwork has fallen away and its glass windows are long broken out. But there it stands, only 100 yards from South Street, a hulking icon of an age gone by and nearly a lone one. The other surviving coal tipple from the Wyoming coal camp era is a wooden Aladdin tipple in Crook County.
Speaker 2:The Reliance tipple from the Wyoming coal camp era is the Wooden Aladdin Tipple in Crook County. The Reliance Tipple is listed on the National Register of Historical Places and visitors are welcome. With a caveat Stay out of the interior. The Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River confirms that the site is fenced, posted and under video surveillance. The interior is dangerous and off-limits People entering the tipple place themselves at risk.
Speaker 2:Just another great story on the coal industry here in the state of Wyoming and at these other mines they had the same thing with the influx of these foreign workers. As you read different stories about mines around the state, even here in Hot Springs County at the Chibo mine years ago, there has been a book just recently published on the mines in that area and the amount of foreign workers that came and worked in these mines. All part of our history of Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the Code of the West, we ride for the brand and we hope you enjoy our podcast.
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