1888 - 1891: The Union Pacific Coal Company’s No. 1 mine at Dana, Wyoming
and the Wagon Miller Mine
Page by Bob Leathers
The Union Pacific Coal Company’s No. 1 mine in Dana was opened for production in 1888 and abandoned in 1891. The average pitch of the coal seam was 26 degrees. The slope pitch was 16 degrees. Parts of the mine ran directly under the Union Pacific Railroad's main tracks. The mine produced over its lifetime 62,792 tons of coal with a peak work force of 142 workers in 1890. The first group of African American miners recruited by the Union Pacific Coal Company went to Dana. They were brought to Dana as strike breakers. When the Dana mine closed in 1891 many of the miners ended up in the Hanna No. 1 coal mine. One documented miner, M. J. Walsh, was killed in the Dana Mine.
Dana and Hanna in the Eighties
By a Dana “Old Timer”
Back in eighty-eight the old Carbon Coal basin began to show signs of depleting and as coal in that vicinity was very essential for railroad purposes considerable prospecting for new mines was done along the route of the old main line, which then ran six or seven miles south of Hanna. There were several visible coal croppings and a point seven miles south and west of Hanna was decided on, a mine opened and christened “Dana,” which though short lived, was a hummer while operating. The camp, while lacking in the present day luxuries and pastimes, had many ways to use its playtime. The saddle horse took the place of the automobile for the fishing and hunting outings, and also for most of the evening joy rides, and as much pride, or more, was taken in our mounts as in our automobiles today. Our week end dancing parties were usually held at some outlying ranch in the Elk Mountain district, where some hay barn was used for the festival, illuminated by lanterns and torches with baled hay for settees. The means of transportation to these affairs was an old regulation stage coach drawn by four or six horses and handled by old colored Brown. In regular livery, few drivers could be classed with him in handling the reins over the jolting rough trails, with no culverts, and few bridges over the water courses. Tents were the universal shelter for living quarters, also for saloon and store, and during the severe winter of eighty-eight and eighty-nine, hardships from the cold and heavy snows were many, and to keep warm we often went to sleep in full outdoor clothing. But we came through, little worse for the experience. A few of us who took part then are still in service. The Dana coal was of a low lignite grade and used exclusively for locomotives, and as the engineers of that day were not equipped with stack netting, the finer coals would shoot through the fire box and issue from the stack a stream of flame, which was, from back of the hills, an impressive sight at night. Trains running against the wind were in constant danger from the box car fires, and while most of the train crews rode with fire buckets, sousing small blazes, sometimes fire would break out at many points at one time and would “best” the crew. With inadequate fire fighting equipment at hand, the only chance left in such cases was to cut the train and make a run for the nearest stand pipe or water tank, which might be miles away. These runs were the chief outdoor sport of the period, on the division between Laramie and Rawlins. Many bets were laid by train crews and onlookers as to whether the stand pipe would be reached before the cars would burn to the tracks, and it was an even break in high wind. The game was exciting, with one or several box cars ablaze streaming behind a flying locomotive, with the whistle tied down for a clear track and everyone within hearing or seeing distance on hand to watch the outcome. But such sport, of course, could not last and the old man sent us out scouting for new fields in the vicinity, with the result that location was made on the present site of Hanna and mines No. 1 and No. 2 opened up, during the summer of eighty-nine, and a branch line of railroad laid connecting the main line at Allen Junction the fall of the same summer. Hanna, in its infancy, was similar to Dana - a tent camp. Our first amusement hall was the old freight depot and finally a clap-board shanty, the old Richards Boarding house at No. One, where many pleasant gatherings were held in the early nineties until the camp finally took shape. The old main line was abandoned in 1900 and the first passenger train rolled through Hanna in October of the same year, which marked the exit of camp life and placed Hanna in the city class. (UPCCEM, Aug. 1925)
Union Pacific Coal Company's Dana No. 1 Mine Map
Union Pacific Coal Company Map showing the location of the Union Pacific Railroad's main tracks with respect to the Dana workings (Map Collection from the Hanna Basin Museum Website)
A 1949 Survey of the Dana Coal Mine Workings that took place under the Union Pacific Railroad Tracks (Map Collection at the Hanna Basin Museum Website)