OSGOOD BUILDS COLORADO FUEL & IRON
1892-1900
by Mary Boland
Osgood now controlled this industrial giant of the west, Colorado Fuel & Iron: the company’s fuel lands included 69,000 acres containing estimated 400 million tons of steam, domestic, coking, gas, smithing, or anthracite coals; fourteen mines were operating thought the state and producing some 12,000 tons daily; there were 800 ovens in different localities producing about 25,000 tons of coke monthly; iron lands amounted to 2,311 acres and iron mines in production were turning out 900 tons daily; the company owned and operated the only integrated Bessemer plant in the west, with three blast furnaces having a combined capacity of 400 tons of foundry pig, or ferro-manganese iron daily; the rolling mill had a capacity of 500 tons of blooms and 300 tons of rails daily, and the merchant mill could turn out 40 tons of merchant iron daily, plus a quantity of light rails; the cast pipe foundry yielded 40 tons, and the spike mill 5,000 pounds in a shift. (H Lee Scamehorn, Pioneer Steelmaker in the West, The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company 1892-1903 – page 81)
The same year that Osgood gained control of the great resources of this new corporation, he began with characteristic alacrity the development of the Crystal Valley’s high-quality coking coal at Coalbasin, the claims to which he had acquired some years ago and then sold to the corporation he now controlled. Under his direction, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company caused the incorporation in 1892 of the Crystal River Railroad, which took over the equipment and right-away of a number of companies which had already tried without success to provide adequate transportation along the Crystal. Construction of the line began the same year, as did development of the mines at Coal Basin, some 12 miles up Coal Creek, west of Redstone, and construction of the beehive coking ovens at Redstone.
However, this development was suspended, along with most of the corporation’s other expansion projects, for five years after the crash of silver prices in 1893. The closing of many smelters throughout the state caused an immediate reduction in the demand for coal and coke. In fact, the depression in its business was so severe that the corporation struggled along from month to month for the next two years barely able to ward off insolvency. At the same time, a coal miner’s strike lasting over two months also took its toll, as did difficulties Osgood experienced in marketing iron and steel manufactures.
However, after fuel demand had picked up again and the corporation had managed to raise substantial new capital, work on the whole Crystal River project was resumed in 1898. The railroad consisted of a single-track standard gauge rail line running 16.6 miles from Carbondale to Redstone and 4 miles further on to Placita, where an anthracite mine was run for a short time. At Redstone, the narrow-gauge “High Line” was quite an experience; the line climbed over 2,200 feet in the twelve miles by curving constantly, some of the curves being as sharp as 40 degrees. Osgood like to call the line the “Columbine Road” after the outstanding flower displays along the way. But “High Line” was the term more generally used.
At 9,500 feet, Coalbasin was one of Colorado’s highest mining camps and afforded the miners living up there spectacular scenery and a lot of beautiful as well as some very rugged weather. The railroad and other development work necessary to open the mines at Coalbasin and the coking ovens at Redstone was completed by 1900 and production went into full swing … to be continued.
Author Mary Boland (1936-2017), moved to Carbondale in 1973. She was Glenwood Bureau Chief for the Grand Junction Sentinel, a Professor at Colorado Mountain College and prolific writer for many national and local publications. This is one article, reprinted with permission, from her publication.THE HISTORY OF THE CRYSTAL VALLEY.
Mary Boland’s article is enhanced with photos found in THE CRYSTAL RIVER PICTORIAL by Dell McCoy and Russ Collman.