Sunrise, Wyoming, in its heyday during 1930s.
Every kid should get a chance to operate a steam shovel
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Acting as the fireman on the old, orange-rust-colored Osgood Steam shovel during a Reynolds Ranch Restoration Day at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry years ago, I was reminded of when I first visited the town of Sunrise, Wyo.Orange houses, orange buildings, even orange trees . . . Sunrise was aptly named, looking like the picture of an orange fireball sun.
Colorado Fuel and Iron hoped to make Sunrise a model company town back in 1904, when it bought the entire Sunrise Mine from Charles A. Guernsey, namesake of nearby town Guernsey, Wyo. Guernsey founded the Wyoming Railway and Iron Company in 1898.
I was the editor of Guernsey Gazette and Lingle Guide for a time in the mid-1980s in Lingle and Guernsey, Wyo. The two tiny papers covered those towns in eastern Wyoming, and several other nearby towns including Fort Laramie, Hartsville and Sunrise.
In the 1880s, the area around what would become Sunrise, was an important area in the mining of copper. Colorado Fuel and Iron, in the early 1900s, built company-owned houses, boarding houses, depots, a school, churches, shops, and other structures.
In response to the Ludlow Massacre here in southern Colorado, further improvements came to the town in the 1910s and ’20s in the form of better brick housing, a YMCA building, parks, a playground, better utility systems, a hospital, and other improvements. By 1928, the mine employed 547.
Sunrise properties were initially strip mined, and then mined using a glory-hole method. In 1930, underground block-caving mining was started, and by World War II all mining was underground.
Ore mined was partially processed on site and then sent to Colorado Fuel and Iron mills in Pueblo.
Because of decreasing ore quality and problems in the domestic steel market, the town and mine were closed by C.F. & I. in 1980.
Over the lifetime of the mine, 40 million tons of iron ore were produced, more than any other C.F. & I. mine. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
Osgood Steam Shovel, built in Marion, Ohio, circa 1920
This steam shovel was used by Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation from 1927 until 1939 to mine hematite, iron ore; in glory holes in Sunrise, Wyoming. The shove dug pits 750 feet deep and and a quarter mile wide. The machine's overall reddish tint comes from the buildup of hematite dust, a legacy of its many years of faithful service.
When I worked in Lingle and Guernsey, near Sunrise, in the 1980s, though the company town had ceased operations years earlier, the trees and the remaining buildings and everything in Sunrise were orangish red still.
Two men were needed to operate the shovel. The fireman fed coal and water to boiler, and the operator controlled the three steam engines. The crowd engine would move the bucket forward and back, the hoist would raise the bucket, and the house engine would rotate the house. It is now at the Museum of Mining and Industry on Northgate Road near the north gate of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Located near the present day communities of Hartville and Guernsey in Platte County, Wyoming, it is one of the most historical iron ore mines in all of the country. Founded about 1899, Sunrise began as a company town with the construction of a general store. By 1902 there were 38 four-room homes with a boarding house with a “seating capacity of 90,” a school house, and a “sociological” building with a hall and reading room.
In 1917 a YMCA building was constructed that is still the centerpiece of this “Historical Community.” that by 1920 reached over 500 individuals. Operated until 1980, the now abandoned Sunrise Mine produced 42,457,187 tons of iron ore, with peak production being in 1941 when Sunrise produced approximately 1% of all iron ore mined in the United States. The iron was used in a variety of steel applications during WWII including structural members for ships, for barbed wire, and fencing.
As a kid, working in a hardware store in Dolores, Colo., I unloaded countless C.F. & I. trucks of smooth box nails, bailing wire and rolled fencing that probably utilized hematite mined from that very same Sunrise mine.
But the Osgood Shovel — originally steam, but now runs on compressed air at the Museum on North Gate Boulevard. Jeff Tapparo, on WMMI’s board of directors, and also at the shovel's controls from time to time, convinced me I should give it a try.
The shovel is one of the museum’s most popular attractions. Shovels like the Osgood have been tasked at building the Panama Canal, unearthing gold in mining districts of the Yukon – and in the case of this particular shovel, digging glory holes in Sunrise.
The C.F. & I. letters can still be seen on its side panels, if you look hard enough.
During the Reynolds Ranch Restoration Day, officials gave us clues about upcoming projects like eventually getting a mine hoist and headframe operating again.
The place takes you back in time. It is worth the visit . . . even if you aren't a rusty old Colorado relic like me (or the 1927 Osgood Shovel), from a Sunrise long past.
Two men were needed to operate the shovel. The fireman fed coal and water to boiler, and the operator controlled the three steam engines. The crowd engine would move the bucket forward and back, the hoist would raise the bucket, and the house engine would rotate the house. It is now at the Museum of Mining and Industry on Northgate Road near the north gate of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Located near the present day communities of Hartville and Guernsey in Platte County, Wyoming, it is one of the most historical iron ore mines in all of the country. Founded about 1899, Sunrise began as a company town with the construction of a general store. By 1902 there were 38 four-room homes with a boarding house with a “seating capacity of 90,” a school house, and a “sociological” building with a hall and reading room.
In 1917 a YMCA building was constructed that is still the centerpiece of this “Historical Community.” that by 1920 reached over 500 individuals. Operated until 1980, the now abandoned Sunrise Mine produced 42,457,187 tons of iron ore, with peak production being in 1941 when Sunrise produced approximately 1% of all iron ore mined in the United States. The iron was used in a variety of steel applications during WWII including structural members for ships, for barbed wire, and fencing.
As a kid, working in a hardware store in Dolores, Colo., I unloaded countless C.F. & I. trucks of smooth box nails, bailing wire and rolled fencing that probably utilized hematite mined from that very same Sunrise mine.
But the Osgood Shovel — originally steam, but now runs on compressed air at the Museum on North Gate Boulevard. Jeff Tapparo, on WMMI’s board of directors, and also at the shovel's controls from time to time, convinced me I should give it a try.
The shovel is one of the museum’s most popular attractions. Shovels like the Osgood have been tasked at building the Panama Canal, unearthing gold in mining districts of the Yukon – and in the case of this particular shovel, digging glory holes in Sunrise.
The C.F. & I. letters can still be seen on its side panels, if you look hard enough.
During the Reynolds Ranch Restoration Day, officials gave us clues about upcoming projects like eventually getting a mine hoist and headframe operating again.
The place takes you back in time. It is worth the visit . . . even if you aren't a rusty old Colorado relic like me (or the 1927 Osgood Shovel), from a Sunrise long past.
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