Day 194 – Highway of Legends

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Day 194 of Year Long Road Trip Along America’s Scenic Byways

Sugarite Canyon State Park

Sugarite Canyon State Park is an interesting place as it encompasses the abandoned mining town of Sugarite which was established in 1912.  Sugarite was one of seven towns in the Raton area built by the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain and Pacific Railroad.  People from twenty different nations came to live in this coal camp. The camp included housing, a ball field, a school, a clubhouse, the company store, and a doctor’s office; not to mention the mines, related buildings, and a railroad.

History of Coal Communities

Sports were the focus of coal communities, and many of the miners at Sugarite were talented baseball players.  Professional teams courted several men.  Soccer was the game of choice in the winter.  The Sugarite team often played Dawson and later shared tea.

Schooling was a boon to immigrants from other countries where only the wealthy were educated. Students up to eighth grade attended the two-story school house until it burned down in 1939.  Teachers and students rescued books and a piano and attended classes the next day in three empty houses.

The company built a clubhouse in each town which provided a social center and boosted morale.  An ice cream parlor, a beer parlor, a cigar room, and pool tables could all be found at the clubhouse.  In addition, the clubhouse hosted several activities such as a sewing club, housekeeping demonstrations, and dances.

The company coal towns paid their miners in scrip which was only good at the company store; thereby keeping their “money” in town.  Groceries, doctor’s bills, rent, work materials, and explosives were all deducted from a miner’s paycheck, leaving a meager balance.  Despite these hardships, no one went hungry.  The butcher gave
away free liver and tongue and the families kept gardens and chickens and shared their food.  Those of different nationalities traded recipes.  Italian families even ordered grapes from California and produced wine which was kept in the store’s cool basement and consumed throughout the year.

The town doctor was paid by the company and got a bigger house.  The doctor treated most of his patients in a dentist chair and the remedy of choice to cure illnesses was alcohol.  Seriously injured miners were transported to the hospital in Gardiner. With no sick leave, miners generally returned before they were fully healed, and if any miners died, it was considered the miner’s fault.

Women of the camp baked bread for fifteen cents a loaf and earned money cleaning house and doing laundry. The bread was baked in an outdoor wood fire oven.  Once the wood burned down to coals, the bread was placed on the bricks that retained the fire’s heat and baked the bread.

Sugarite Mine

The most productive mine at Sugarite, was mine #2.  In 1916, the mines produced about 650 tons of coal per day.  Eleven miles of tunnels extend horizontally into the mountain behind the entrance of mine #2 which is blocked off by an iron gate, though the entrance tunnel has also collapsed.  The coal was mined by the room and pillar method, whereby rooms cut into the coal seam were secured up using vertical and horizontal timbers. Miners were not paid for completing this dead work which would sometimes be rushed through resulting in tragic consequences.

In order to mine the coal, during the day miners had to hand drill holes into the coal face.  At night, workers called shot fires would locate each hole, pack each one with
explosives, and blast away the coalface. If the powder was damp, the shots would “hang fire” or smolder, a dangerous situation that had to be resolved quickly.  As a safety precaution, the explosives were stored in a building far from the entrance of the mine.

Another safety precaution included checking for methane gas prior to each shift.  Fire bosses used a special safety lamp to ensure workers would not succumb to the odorless gas.  In addition to the check, an above ground structure housing a giant fan was used to ventilate the tunnels and the tunnels were watered down to control flammable coal dust.

Trinidad

After wandering around the park and mine camp, I turned toward Trinidad.  I’ve driven nearly 35,000 miles on my road trip across the USA, and it turns out I was only about an hour ahead of my sister-in-law who was driving from Dallas to Denver over two days.  I stopped in Trinidad, the beginning of my next scenic drive and had lunch with Marti and my nieces and nephew, Elizabeth, Molly, and Jack.  What fun!

Cokedale National Historic District

The Highway of Legends led me west to Cokedale National Historic District, another mining town, much more intact than Sugarite.  The Gottlieb Mercantile Company building, which was not built as a “company store” as the miners were paid in cash, not scrip, is now the City Hall.

Monument Lake

We continued to Stonewall clearly named for the looming wall of sandstone that rose above the river and pasturelands, before we finally reached Monument Lake where we camped for the night.  I found a spot at the north end of the lake around 5 pm. 

Bear Encounter

While I took advantage of one bar on my cell phone by sitting on the sliding door step of VANilla, Petey jumped up remarkably quickly given he can hardly walk, raised the fur on his neck, and growledas he stared off in the distance.  I jumped to grab him, looked toward the forest and saw nothing.  While his reaction seemed like it was wildlife induced given I couldn’t spot any visitors, I presumed he must have seen a dog in the passing car.  Regardless, upon finishing my conversation, we retired to the comforts of VANilla to blog for the evening.

Both of VANilla’s side windows were open, the right that slides backward and the left that rotates out and upward with a hand crank.  My Fig Newtons were resting on the stove beneath the left side screen as the raised stove cover blocked my view to window.

As I was downloading my pictures in the back of VANilla, I heard a guttural grunt coming from the mid area of the van.  I thought to myself, was that Petey?  It didn’t sound like his usual high pitch whines from his dreams.  I looked toward him when I heard another grunt and felt VANilla jiggle gently, though less than it jiggles in a windstorm.  Petey wasn’t squirming or grumbling in a dream so I knew it wasn’t him.  Plus it sounded like it was coming from VANilla’s left side window, about three feet from Petey’s head.  I got up and slowly turned down the stove cover to see a bear!

It immediately lumbered away, so I leapt to the back, grabbed my camera, jumped to the front seat, rolled down the window and shot an absolutely terrible picture of the mama bear rumbling down the road with two, tiny baby cubs following behind.  It was simply amazing to see how much distance they covered in what seemed like ten seconds.  While they appear like they are laboring, they were fifty yards from VANilla in a flash…and so quiet!  I didn’t even hear them until they grunted for food, and Petey was just snoring away…some guard dog he is!

Bear Photography

My heart pounding and my mind racing, I sat in VANilla for a few minutes waiting and thinking.  Darn, I wanted a picture.  I wondered, are there any slow people nearby?  As long as I’m with someone slower than me, I could snap a photo.  I sat a while longer and the more I thought about it, I rationalized that the bears ran off with hardly a movement on my part, so I slipped out of VANilla, tip-toed to the road and poked my head out around the bushes to see down the hill.

The bears were visiting my neighbors.  I warned two nearby fishermen so they wouldn’t be startled by the bears, and the three of us, hidden behind trees on the hillside a safe distance away with VANilla in sight, began shooting photos of the mama and her cubs.  Oh how I wished I got their photo near VANilla instead of them eating my neighbors trash; though it was funny to see them startled by the trash bag flapping with each gust of wind. 

I briefly considered scaring them away from my neighbor’s camp, but given mamas tend to be protective of their cubs, I decided that was my neighbor’s problem, not mine.  It was SO exciting, scary, and cool!  I’m certain I won’t be sleeping with my windows open tonight.  ETB

 

Map of My Road Trip Across the USA

Learn more about my road trip across the USA, or click the link below for the interactive map.

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