Of the Uinta Basin...
Read it in PDF form here.
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I first came to the Uinta Basin as a guide for Centennial Canoe on the White River. Launching from Bonanza, I was intrigued by the large industrial structure of the American Gilsonite plant in this remote corner of the desert. The trip through the White River canyon was beautiful and the scenery was amazing. I also knew there were a few ghost towns nearby that were somehow tied into the history of Gilsonite mining. I had ridden up there in fellow guide's car and was not at the time able to convince them to drive 20 miles further out of the way to stare at a few ruins after the trip. This of course only served to intrigue me further.
Since 2008 I had been researching Utah's Ghost towns and since 2010 I had committed myself to writing about them professionally. Talking to the owner of the canoe company that winter, he asked if I would be interested in guiding the White again next summer. I said of course I'd love to, and set out to write the first in depth study of the ghost towns on my list. Unfortunately, as the schedule worked out all my trips were on the Gunnison and the Colorado, and I missed the excitement of high water on the White.
However, I did get shuttled back and forth a bit from Green River to Vernal to run the Green through Dinosaur National Monument. On two such trips I took the scenic route to see for myself what was left of the towns of Dragon and Watson, where from 1904 to 1939 mining communities with schools, barber shops, saloons, stores, American Red Cross chapters and baseball teams established tenuous outposts of civilization in one of the most remote parts of the state.
I have received no compensation for this article, but I did receive a great deal of help in writing it from several institutions. Among them are the Western History / Geneology Department at the Denver Public Library, the Special Collections Department at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, the Uintah County Public Library, and the Green River Public Library.
Special thanks is due to the Southwestern Studies Department at FT Lewis College in Durango, where I found rare copies of two very helpful books on the history of the Uintah Railway and the American Gilsonite Company. The librarians at Fort Lewis not only gave me a library card even though I wasn't a student, but they were extremely helpful with library resources, from geologic maps to laminations and photo copies. Another institution whose work I benefited from immensely was the University of Utah. The "U of U's" J. Willard Marriott Library is hosting many historic photographs for county libraries around the state, some of which I have with permission used in this article. Perhaps even more significantly, archivists at the U have made this article possible through the Utah Digital Newspapers project.
The digitization of newspapers is in the process of revolutionizing the way history is written. Now anyone with a computer and a little free time can search back issues of historic newspapers that previously took weeks of tedious page by page flipping by hand to accomplish. This of course was only possible for people who could take enough time off work to spend, potentially, weeks at some archive. Digitization is bringing a tremendous access to the level of "ordinary" citizens. In writing this article I have relied heavily upon digitized issues of the Vernal Express, who since its inception has enthusiastically covered developments in the Gilsonite industry, and whose articles over the years provided me with a level of detail of daily life in the Gilsonite camps that it would not have been possible to obtain from previously written history books or passing references in geologic articles alone.
Lastly, tremendous thanks is due to Holiday River Expeditions, and in particular to Green River Operations Manager Tim Gaylord, for allowing me to spend countless hours between river trips last season doing the research for this article on the company internet from the air conditioned comfort of the Green River warehouse.
Ghost Towns and Gilsonite is being released here for the benefit of anyone interested in learning more about Gilsonite mining history. Unfortunately that is still a fairly limited method of distribution. If you are interested in helping me to publish this this article elsewhere, please contact me at cawright2007@yahoo.com.
The Towns...
Dragon
Watson
Bonanza
Pipeline (over White River) and Gasoline Plant (at Loma)
