Little Miz English : Today was reflective.

Today I traveled to Carbon County (South East of Salt Lake City) to coal country. Utah has a long history of coal mining and most of it has taken place in Carbon and Emery County. The first stop was to the Castle Gate Cemetery. This is the site of the worst coal mining disaster in Utah. On March 8, 1924 one of the mine bosses in the No. 2 mine spotted a pocket of gas. When he reached up to look at it, his headlamp blew out. When he tried to relight it, it triggered and explosion that went through several tunnels in the mine killing the miners. The explosion blew out the lamps of the miners in the other parts of the mine. When they tried to relight their lamps, they set off a second explosion that killed the rest of the miners. This is the worst mining disaster because every miner died. Several of the miners were brothers or fathers and sons. One rescue worker also died while trying to retrieve the bodies. The majority of tombstones in the Castle Gate Cemetery (that is just east of the mine) have the death date of March 8, 1924. The cemetery still has the original turnstile at the entrance.

In the late 1970s, the US government decided to increase the energy use of coal. As a result, the Castle Gate mine needed to expand. So, they picked up all the homes in Castle Gate and using huge trailers, moved the homes further south to the city of Helper, Utah. This is the only town in Utah that was moved, house by house.

After visiting the Castle Gate cemetery, I traveled south to Emery County and to Huntington, Utah. I stopped at the Crandall Canyon Mine, which is the site of one of the worst modern day mining disasters. Coal mining is becoming very dangerous in Utah because coal miners have to go farther into the mountains where it is very unstable. The Crandall Canyon mine was practicing retreat mining where miners remove the large coal pillars that keep the roof from collapsing. As the coal pillars are removed, the ceiling and mine collapse behind it. On August 6, 2007 six miners were killed when the mine collapsed on top of them. On August 16, 2007, while rescue workers were working to try and reach the miners, another collapse occurred which killed three rescue workers and injured several others. The mine was then sealed up. There is now a memorial to the miners who died and are still buried in the mountain and the three rescue workers who were also killed.

Along with coal mining, Utah is also known for lots of dinosaur bones and footprints. Dinosaur bones have been discovered all over Utah and several of them can be seen at the College of Eastern Utah Dinosaur Museum in Price, Utah. Dinosaur footprints have been found in lots of coal mines when the coal miners used to dig out the coal using picks and shovels. There are not as many footprints found in the mines anymore because of new mining equipment that destroys the rock surrounding the coal.

Utah also has rich Native American history. In fact Utah got its name from the Ute Indians. All throughout Southern Utah you can see Native American arrowheads and hieroglyphics.