Rediscovering Dana: The Forgotten Black Coal Miners of Southern Wyoming

When coal was king in late nineteenth century Wyoming, the industry was dominated by the Union Pacific Coal Company (UPCC). Operating dozens of mines throughout the high deserts of southwestern and south-central Wyoming well into the twentieth century, the UPCC’s economic success was thanks in large part to its practice of creating wage competition among its carefully recruited pool of multinational and multiethnic laborers. Unsurprisingly, the company’s first recruited group of Black miners were brought in as strikebreakers. They came to a short-lived coal town called Dana about 150 miles west of Cheyenne. Instead of playing the company's intended role, the Black miners greatly influenced early labor reform efforts and the trend of Black western migration and settlement. This article contributes to the scholarship on Black laborers in the West by examining the story of Dana’s Black miners, their role in the passage of fair labor legislation, and their subsequent removal from the historical record. By both building on recent methodologies and utilizing tools of historical interpretation often dismissed or minimized outside the practice of public history, such as genealogy, this article also argues that restoring individual identity augments perception of overall migrant group experience and significance in the evolution of the social and industrial landscape of the U.S. West.

Go West Young Mensch! The Rise and Decline of the Jewish Community of Carbon County, Wyoming (U.S.A.)

Carbon County is a remote, sparsely-populated region of high desert located in south-central Wyoming, U.S.A. Bifurcated by the Union Pacific railway, the county’s economy has long relied upon attracting a labor force from near and far in order to prosper. For a brief period from about 1880-1980, a small yet significant part of that population was comprised of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe.This study discusses the unique history of the Jewish migration to the Wyoming Territory that occurred just prior to and following statehood (1890). Using primary documentation including census logs, military records, and genealogical data, several case studies are presented of individual Jewish immigrants as well as entire families that left their homes in Europe only to eventually make their homes in Rawlins and neighboring communities of Carbon County. It is seen that, by and large, the randomly-chosen life experiences discussed largely parallel those of the county at large, both shaping and being shaped by broader communal developments. The study concludes by addressing the question of why, after 100 years of successful participation in the life of the county’s economic growth, the Jews departed wholesale, leaving barely a trace behind.

Patrons and the Plays of Mormon Culture

This chapter delves into John Codman’s writings about his travel throughout Utah in 1873. Codman’s focus includes the Union Pacific, through which John W. Young managed Corrine’s bathing and boating trade and incorporated the growing network of Mormon leisure industries. Many of John W Young’s projects led Codman to explore the Tabernacle, which informed him about Mormon religious practices and marital systems, and investigate dramatic plays in the Salt Lake Theatre. Codman finishes his assessment on Corinne with a northern tour where he recognizes unity among Corinnethians due to the Indian scare and the anti-Indian program. Overall, Codman’s book, The Mormon Country, publicized Mormonism and played a role as a guided cultural mediator moderating between pro- and anti-Mormon claims, and promised that Utah would remain a special a site of rich cultural encounters, both on and off the railroad tracks.