USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume II > Part 62
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"For extent in area, thickness of coal seams, good roof and floor, ab- sence of gas, freedom from heaving bottom, absence of water, which, if present, would necessitate powerful pumps ; in fact, for all favorable con- ditions which go to make up a desirable coal-producing field, New Mexico is far ahead of any state or territory in America, and consequently the coal fields can he more profitably operated. The extent of the areas underlaid hy coal in the Territory of New Mexico can not be fully estimated until a geological survey is made. New localities are attracting notice each year, as it is demonstrated by development that profitable coal fields exist therein."
The Fields and Mines .- The Colfax coal field embraces an area com- mencing in Town 28 north, Range 19 east. and running thence northeast to Town 31 north, Range 26 east, a total length of about 45 miles, and an average width of 12 miles, or an area of 540 square miles. The mines of this county have the best transportation facilities in the Territory. In addition to the coal shipped, there was an output of 76,737 tons of coke during 1905, this industry being actively developed at Blossburg and Daw- son. New railroad lines are being projected from Raton and Dawson to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the El Paso & Northeastern re- spectively, to provide even more complete transportation for the immense tonnage of coal and coke which is anticipated within the next few years. Demand for coke in the smelting industries of the Southwest is expected to furnish the chief market for the product of the Colfax mines, and many new railroads, as well as the settlement of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico, will supply the necessary market for coal.
Mckinley county is second as a coal producer, but as its field is geo- logically coextensive with that of San Juan county to the north, they are generally described as one. They comprise an area of 125 miles in length by 10 in width, and extend from the Zuni buttes on the south to La Plata, or the Colorado line, on the north. This immense field is underlaid by several coal seams of good, workable thickness, ranging from 31/2 to 40 feet. In the Gallup district, Mckinley county, the most productive region, there are two series of coal seams, known as the Upper and Lower Coal Measures, separated by about 400 feet of sandstone, slates, shale and clays. In the upper seam, or measures, six coal veins have been exploited and five of them found to be valuable producers. All the workable seams in both measures are in the areas controlled by the Gallup, the Weaver and Clark Coal Company's mines; but it is believed there is an almost inex- haustible supply in the Upper Measures alone.
The coals of Mckinley countv. so far as developed, have proven to be lignites of non-coking character, so that operators are forced to depend
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upon the demand for fuel in the sale of their output. Thus, as heretofore stated, they have been much handicapped recently by the plentiful supply of fuel oil from the Pacific coast. Gallup coal has been noted for years for its superior qualities as a fuel.
The first discovery of coal at Gallup was made in 1880, about a year before the advent of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, the discovery being made by Thomas Dye, who found an outcrop and developed a small mine, the product of which he sold to the railroad company. Soon after his arrival a man named Patten found a body of coal near the surface, which he worked, disposing of it to the same customer. The news of the success of these two men spread, and soon after Patten began his operations the firm of Pegram & McMillen began operations on a tract of land which they secured from the government. Mr. Pegram subsequently retired from the firm, which then became McMillen, Kennedy & Weaver. It was these gentlemen who organized the Gallup Coal Company. The product of this mine also was purchased by the railroad company. After two or three years Dye and Patten abandoned the field. In 1885 Judge Joseph Bell, Colonel Molineanx Bell and E. S. Stover, of Albuquerque, under the firm name of Bell & Company, began operations on section 16, west of Gallup. Soon afterward W. A. Maxwell and others organized the Black Diamond Mining Company, opening the Black Diamond mine.
By 1888 operations in this field had grown more extensive and capital began to be attracted to a greater extent. In that year the Caledonian Coal Company, composed of Alexander Bowie, Mariano S. Otero, Neill B. Field, M. D. Thatcher, John Stewart and others, opened three proper- ties called the Caledonian mine, the Thatcher mine, and the Otero mine. About the same time the Aztec Coal Company, organized by John A. Lee, E. S. Stover, Charles Marriner and others, purchased the property of Bell & Company, under the name of Aztec Coal Company, and also opened the Catalpa mine about one mile south of the railroad and south of Gallup. The Crown Point Coal Company, organized about this time, opened a shaft on section 2, north of the railroad, and began taking out the coal.
In the meantime the work of prospecting which had been carried on over an extensive territory, proved the existence of a practically inex- haustible supply of coal, and the independent operators began to talk of consolidating. The first step in this direction was taken when the Gallup Coal Company, the Aztec, the Black Diamond Coal Company, combined with an organization chartered as the Crescent Coal Company, which oper- ated under that name until 1900, when its properties were sold to the American Fuel Company. This concern operated these mines and devel- oped the industry systematically until March, 1906, when it branched out by purchasing the entire mining property of the Caledonian Coal Company. This concern is now the most important in the Gallup district.
In 1897 United States Senator W. A. Clark, of Montana, secured a large tract of land located about four miles west of Gallup and the same distance north of the railroad, where he at once began development work on a large scale. This property is now second in importance to that of the American Fuel Company only. Among the smaller operators are Stephen Canavan, who owns the Rocky Cliff mine located north of the railroad about a mile east of Gallup ; and the Gallup Fuel Company, located about a
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mile south of Gallup, which recently purchased the property of the Union Coal Company.
The coal field of which the town of Gallup is the active operating center, is said by experts to be the most important and most extensive un- broken body of that mineral in the United States exclusive of the Penn- sylvania fields. It extends from a point about fifty miles south of Gallup in the form of a rough triangle to the northern boundary of the Territory and even into Colorado. Along the line of the Santa Fé railroad it ex- tends from a point three miles east of Gallup as far west as Defiance sta- tion, widening out rapidly as it goes north. In the northern section of this vast field there has been found one bed over thirty-five feet thick, and one about twenty feet thick. In the southern section the beds vary in thick- ness from three to eight feet. The entire field belongs to the Laramie group, and in its formation is identical with that at Canyon City and Trini- dad in Colorado and the great Colfax county field. Experiment and years of practical experience have proved that the product is particularly adapted for domestic use, as it is easily kindled, burns very freely and leaves a smaller proportion of refuse than any other coal to be found in New Mexico.
In 1886 the output of all the mines in and near Gallup was about five hundred tons per day. In 1906 the average daily output was something over two thousand tons, but the productive capacity of the mines is placed by experts at about three thousand tons daily with the existing develop- ment work. The greater portion is consumed by the Santa Fé Railroad system, but large quantities are sold for domestic fuel at all points in Ari- zona and California reached by that railroad and its connections, and also in Albuquerque, and at all points south of that city reached by the Santa Fé system; El Paso and Mexican points reached from that city ; Deming, Lordsburg, Bisbee, Douglas, Cananea, Mexico and other places. Large quantities are also used in the same sections for steam fuel.
The possibilities of this vast field are pronounced by experts to be practically unlimited. At one time there seemed to be no doubt that it would become the principal producer for the entire southwest, west and south of Albuquerque, but the discovery of oil in vast quantities in Cali- fornia altered the outlook in that direction very suddenly. When the oil output begins to diminish, as it eventually must, the demand for what has become widely known as Gallup coal obviously must increase at a corre- sponding rate.
Alexander Bowie, for years superintendent of the Caledonian Coal Company's properties, is recognized as the highest authority on the sub- ject of the coal fields of northwestern New Mexico. His entire life has been devoted to scientific coal mining in Scotland, his native land, and in America. In young manhood he came to the United States and in the coal region of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, became superintendent of a large mine. In 1880 he was selectel by the Canyon City Coal Company to open the mines near Canyon City, Colorado, for supplying fuel to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railway Company. He opened shafts I and 2 and the Shaw mine, and performed other expert work there of a similar character. In 1882 he went to Carthage, New Mexico, for the San Pedro Coal and Coke Company, remaining there about a year. From 1882 until 1886 he served as mine expert for the Santa Fé, during which time he
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
made a study of coal mining conditions and prospects in many parts of the Territory. In 1887 he went to Gallup to manage the property of the Bell Company. The year following he organized the Caledonian Company, of which he remained superintendent until its purchase by the American Fuel Company in March, 1906. Mr. Bowie expresses the conviction that the coal field of northern New Mexico is one of the greatest and most im- portant in the world.
The Santa Fé county coal field, which is third in the extent of its production, is much disturbed and broken. Generally speaking, it extends from the north end of the Sandia mountains, in Bernalillo county, across Santa Fé county in a northeasterly direction, to Porvenir, in San Miguel county. From this total distance of 50 miles is deducted the interruption of 15 miles, caused by the Glorieta Mountain range, making a total area of 35 miles in length by 4 miles in width, or 140 square miles. A further de- duction is again made of fully 79 per cent for the broken condition of the remaining territory, leaving only about 42 square miles of available coal lands in Santa Fé county. The most compact section is that in which are located the mines of Madrid and Waldo, generally known as the Cerrillos mines. Here is the only pronounced anthracite coal region of New Mexico, until recently the Lucas mine at Madrid, having been a steady producer for fifteen years. It is believed that the most valuable deposits of this coal have been exhausted. The Madrid field has been by far the most pro- ductive in Santa Fé county, over 1,000,000 tons of both varieties having been mined during the past ten years from one seam of an area one-half a mile square.
The Coal Measures of Santa Fe county in the vicinity of Madrid have attracted much attention, both on the part of geologists and operators, from the fact that the bituminous and anthracite coals occur in juxtaposition in the same seam. In some instances a part of a coal vein may be anthra- cite, while a few hundred yards distance, laterally, the same vein may pro- duce bituminous coal. The product of the Cerrillos bituminous (Cook & White) mine has until recently been a non-coking coal, but at a depth of about 2,600 feet it changed to a very good coking variety.
The coal field of Lincoln county is much broken and cut by igneous dikes, so that its area is difficult to estimate. It ranks fourth among the producing counties of New Mexico, its most productive mines being at Capitan. Work in them has been almost abandoned recently because of faults in the seams, which make their working so expensive as to cut out all the profits. An area near White Oaks promises to be more permanent in its yield.
The coal fields of Rio Arriba county commence on the east at Azotea, a station on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, and extend west along the Colorado line to the San Juan river-a distance of 40 miles in length by an average width of 12 miles, south of the Colorado line. Besides this continuous area outcrops appear below Monroe, about forty miles south and twenty-five miles southeast. Fortunately, wherever the fields have been developed along the line of that road the coal has possessed excellent coking characteristics. The total area of the fields in the county is esti- mated at 400 square miles, and geologically they are classed as an eastern division of the Coal Measures of San Juan county.
Socorro county has been credited with a coal-bearing area of only
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about 1,000 acres, but a much larger area has been recently developed in Northern Socorro and Southern Valencia counties.
The Coal Measures developed and operated in San Juan county are supposed to be an extension of the great fields found in Mckinley county. Those of San Juan, however, are larger than those found in any other section of New Mexico, ranging from 4 to 60 feet in thickness, and as most of these great deposits are composed of good, marketable coal, it is probable that, with the coming of the railroads, the county will become a large producer. The Denver & Rio Grande has already built a line from Durango, Colorado, to Farmington, which is considered the first step to- ward tapping these inexhaustible supplies. Half a dozen small mines have been in operation, principally supplying the local demand of farmers in the valleys of the La Plata, Las Animas and San Juan rivers. The La Plata mine, near Pendleton, is the best developed, its coal seam, at one point showing a thickness of 60 feet. The second, in point of production, is the Stevens mine, near Fruitland.
The coal field of Sandoval county, which is a broken extension of the Cerillos field in Santa Fe county, has been but little developed, the Hagan mine being the only real operator. The building of the branch lines connecting the district with the Albuquerque Eastern and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé roads will undoubtedly hasten its development.
In addition to the coal fields above named, there are several isolated areas of coal lands, but of undetermined extent. In the vicinity of the vil- lage of Cebolleta and Chavez Mesa, in Valencia county, there are two workable seams of coal, one 4 and the other 5 feet in thickness. Thou- sands of acres of coal lands have been located along the boundaries of Santa Fé and Bernalillo counties.
Undoubtedly the prospects of New Mexico as a producer of bitu- minous coal are bright. As an indication of what has already been accom- plished in the way of the organization of companies and the establishment of mines in the Territory, the following directory, prepared by United States Mine Inspector Sheridan, is reproduced :
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
Name of mine.
Name of owner.
Name of manager or super- intendent.
Post-office.
(J. Van Houten, vice-presi- dent.
Allen French, general super- intendent.
Dutchman mine .. Brilliant mine ...
Climax mine .... Sugarite mine ... Llewellyn mine ..
Raton Fuel Co Thos. Llewellyn ..
Elmer Sperry.
Scott & Polly, lessees. [ W. P. Thompson, general manager.
E. H. Weitzel, superintend- ent.
Honeyfield mine. Lincoln County : Capitan mines Nos. 1 and 2.
Old Abe Coal mine.
McKinley County : Gallup mine ....
Weaver mine ... Catalpa mine ... Heaton mine ....
Clark Coal Co ..
Otero mine ..... Thatcher mine .. Rocky Cliff mine Canavan mine. .. Union mine .....
Black Diamond mine. Casna mine ... Rio Arriba County : Monero mines Nos. 1 and 2. Mc Broom mine .. Kutz mine ..
Santa Fé County :
Cerrillos Bitumi- nous.
Cerrillos Anthra- cite. Block Coal mine.
Estate of Leonard Lewisohn.
New Mexico Fuel and Iron Co.
Powell Stackhouse, Jr., trustee.
Southern Fuel Co.
Emerson & Allaire
John James, superintendent Robert E. Law, superintend- ent. B. Allaire, general man- ager.
W. H. Thomas, superintend- ent.
Morgan mine ...
Stevens mine ...
E. S. Young.
Geo. E. Jones
T. H. O'Brien.
Gco. Morgan, superintendent. Thos. Evans, lessee and operator. Geo. W. Jones, owner and operator. T. H. O'Brien, general man- ager.
Raton, N. Mex.
Van Houten, N. Mex. Blossburg, N. Mex. Do. Raton, N. Mex.
Do.
Do.
Dawson, N. Mex.
Raton, N. Mex.
E. & C. Building, Denver, Colo. Gallup, N. Mex. Gibson, N. Mex. Clarkville, N. Mex. Gallup, N. Mex. Do. Do.
Do.
Do.
Monero, N. Mex.
Lumberton, N. Mex.
Boston Building, Denver, Colo. Madrid, N. Mex. San Pedro, N. Mex.
Santa Fé, N. Mex. Hagan, N. Mex.
San Antonio, N. Mex.
Do.
Emerson mine ...
San Juan County : Thomas mine .. .
\V. H. Thomas.
Geo. Morgan
Do.
Fruitland, N. Mex.
Jones mine ..... La Plata mine ..
St. Louis, Rocky Mountain and Pa- cific Co.
James Cameron, superintend- ent. Bert Lloyd, superintendent. Joseph Curran, superintend-
ent.
Frederick Pelouze, gener al manager.
Thos. Llewellyn, superintend- ent.
Sperry mine ....
Dawson mines. .
Dawson Railway and Coal Co.
Honeyfield Bros ....
New Mexico Fuel Co.
Old Ahe Mining
Co.
manager.
Geo. W. Bowen, president ...
Thos. Pattison, division su- perintendent.
Hugh McGinn, superintend-
ent. W. L. Bretherton, agent. .. Alex. Bowie, general man- ager. ( John Stewart, superintendent. Stephen Canavan, general manager. Wm. McVicker, general man- agcr. John Sharp, general man- ager. Andrea Casna ..
Black Diamond Coal Co.
Andrea Casna ....
Rio Arriba Coal Co
Geo. W. Kutz ....
J. H. Crist, general manager. Geo. W. Kutz, general man- ager.
Colorado Fuel and Iron Co.
John T. Kebler, president .. { James Lamb, superintendent. Richard McCaffrey, agent.
W. S. Hopewell, president ... John W. Sullivan, general manager.
Hagen mine .
Socorro County: Hilton mine .. Government mine Bernal mine ..... McIntyre mine ..
Do.
Pendleton, N. Mex.
Do.
Dawson, N. Mex.
American Fuel Co.
Clark Coal Co ... .. Caledonian Coal Co. Stephen Canavan .. Union Coal Co ....
Honeyfield Bros. rW. P. Thompson, general manager. Capitan, N. Mex. James McCartney. superin- tendent. John Y. Hewitt, general Whiteoaks, N. Nex.
Colfax County : Van Houten mines, Nos. 1, 2, and 3.
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MISCELLANEOUS MINERAL PRODUCTS.
Petroleum .- On account of the widespread areas of bituminous coal through New Mexico, the natural inference would be the presence of pe- troleum, but although indications of the oil have been found in many places they have not yet led to any commercial production. The most favorable indications and the most persistent efforts at development center in locali- ties adjacent to Raton, Colfax county, and Gallup, Mckinley county. In 1902 what was known as the Raton Oil and Development Company com- menced operations a few miles east of the town, but after boring a well 2,700 feet, obtained only a strong odor of oil, or, as the trade term goes, "got a smell." In the following fall the New Mexico Oil and Gas Com- pany put down two wells on the McCowen and Burns ranches, twelve miles southeast of Raton, reaching a depth of 1,000 and 1,500 feet, respect- ively. In one of the wells, at 700 feet, a small flow was obtained, with an immense escape of gas. Four or five barrels of oil were drawn, and 100 feet further down the borers struck a large flow of water and lost their tools. At 1,400 feet oil in small quantities was again encountered, but there was another experience of water, sand and loss of tools, and work was finally suspended.
Both northeast and southwest of Gallup, wells have been sunk from 400 to 900 feet, without results as promising as those recorded above. Also, more or less work has been done near Farmington, San Juan county, and in the vicinity of Santa Rosa, Guadalupe county. Although in the latter region the surface indications, such as a rich bituminous sandstone and petroleum-saturated earth, seemed to be especially favorable, no oil oil have been found in many localities, but time, perseverence and the in paying quantities has yet been encountered. As stated, indications of oil have been found in many localities, but time, perseverance and the expenditure of some capital will be necessary to prove whether oil exists in commercial quantities.
Iron .- In preceding pages note has been made of the most promising iron properties in the Territory, but there is only one deposit which has been worked to advantage and that is at Fierro, in Grant county. In 1903 the production of the mines there was 137,269 tons. An important iron field also lies in Eastern Socorro and Western Lincoln counties. Gen- erally the iron is of fair quality, and is suitable for the making of good steel. As compared with the Lake Superior ore, it contains a greater quantity of phosphorus.
Salt, Gypsum and Soda .- There are a number of saline lakes in New Mexico, but up to the present their product has not been manufactured or refined on a commercial scale. The benefits of a vast supply of salt have been confined to a suppositions savoring of the foods of the Aztecs and later natives of the soil, and to furnishing a necessary element in the
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, HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
nourishment of the live stock of the plains. Nearly in the center of New Mexico is the Estancia plain, occupying the lowest point between the Trinchera Mesa and Manzano mountains. Scattered over it are numerous saline and alkaline fakes, the largest of which, known as Big Salt Lake, is the most important producer of salt in New Mexico. About a third of the matter which the water holds in suspension is common salt, and a vessel, when left standing in it for a few hours, will be covered with crystals. This remarkable property is in possession of the Pennsylvania Development Company, which is the builder of the Santa Fé Central Rail- road.
The salt lakes of the famous White Sands district, which lies prin- cipally in southwestern Otero county, are also rich in natural deposits, but are chiefly valued by the ranchmen, and no attempt has yet been made to acquire them for commercial purposes. The Zuñi Crater salt lake in Western Socorro county, which is about a mile and a quarter across, is set in an extinct volcano. The salt is simply shoveled from the lake into small flatboats, and piled on the bank ready for the ranchmen or settlers, who come hither for their supply for a hundred miles around. It is the purest in quality of any found in the Territory. It is estimated that the waters of the lake contain 500,000 tons of salt, to say nothing of the valu- able deposits which are known to exist at the bottom of the lagoon.
Geologically, gypsum is always associated with salt, and from all natural evidences it has been determined that the gypsum deposits of New Mexico were laid down in salt water bodies which become separated from the parent ocean. Eastern Socorro county, at the north end of the Sierra Oscura, and southwestern Lincoln county, furnish some of the most note- worthy deposits, but they have been virtually undeveloped, either here or elsewhere. The Rock Island Cement and Plaster Company, however, is utilizing the gypsum beds at Ancho, in the latter county, for the manu- facture of cement plaster.
The White Sands .- But perhaps the most remarkable gypsum deposit in the world is found in the desert stretch in Otero and Doña Ana coun- ties, known as the White Sands. One of the best descriptions ever writ- ten of this remarkable region occurs in the report of Governor Otero to the secretary of the interior for the year 1903, and is here reproduced :
"The White Sands, extending into Doña Ana county, are among the great natural wonders of the Southwest. They are a most conspicuous feature in the landscape. They have a length of 40 miles and a width varying from 5 to 20 miles. They are easily reached from Escondido, Dog Canyon, Alamogordo, La Luz, and Tularosa, the distance varying from 15 to 20 miles. They are great dunes of white gypsum, broken into fine grains like sand, which move to and fro with the wind like the sand dunes on the seacoast. This gypsum sand, white as snow and fine as corn meal, evidently comes from an old lake bed, covering about 100 square miles, where the winds have been at work for ages operating a sand blast. The area of these sand hills is about 600 square miles, and away from the edges there is neither animal nor vegetable life, but along the edges there are found small groves of cottonwood trees, large areas of peppermint. and plants peculiar to the locality, some of them, owing to the chemical properties of the gypsum, being nearly colorless. The white- ness of the region under the full glare of the sun is so dazzling that one
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