Colorado Mining Tour

2025 Mining History Association

Somerset-Marble-Redstone Tour

Tour Leader, Steve Hart

Gunnison to Redstone, Colorado

June 15, 2025, 8:00AM to 5:00PM

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Colorado’s West Elk Scenic Byway (CO 92/133) was the route of the one-way, full-day field trip to a Black Canyon of the Gunnison overlook, the coal company town of Somerset and its current West Elk Mine, Marble and its famous stone quarry, and the historic Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) model coal/coke company town of Redstone. And, it may be hard to believe upon arrival, but Gunnison and Marble are both in Gunnison County (political, not common sense, boundaries!). Leaving Redstone at the end of the tour, accommodations may be found at the Redstone Inn or to the north on CO 133/82 in Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, or Aspen. In Glenwood, I-70 can be accessed to Denver and Grand Junction.

The coal town of Somerset had been owned by Kaiser Steel, US Steel, and several coal companies before the company-owned houses were sold to employees in the 1960s. The Oxbow Mine, owned at the time by Koch brother, Bill Koch, closed in 2013, but retained ownership of the town water district. Now the company plans to close the water district because it failed state drinking water standards, leaving the 71 town residents with hauling water. Fortunately for local miners, Core Natural Resource’s West Elk Mine opened just east of town in 1982 with a workforce of 250-300. This underground, longwall mine, now Colorado’s largest, produces 4.6 million tons/year of high-BTU thermal coal for export.

The white marble of the Elk Mountains was first discovered in the 1870s, but the historic Yule Quarry did not open until 1905. The quarry received the contract for the Lincoln Memorial stone in 1917 and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1931. An electric tramway brought the marble blocks from the mine to the world’s largest marble finishing mill along the tracks of the Crystal River & San Juan Railway. The tram was so steep that the mine owner, Col. Channing Meek, formerly VP of CF&I, was killed in 1912 when he jumped from a runaway tram car. The mill was destroyed by an avalanche in 1912 and a fire in 1925, but rebuilt each time. However, due to the Depression and WWII, the quarry and mill closed and the equipment was sold for scrap in 1941. The quarry, now owned by the Italian parent company of Colorado Stone Quarries, reopened in 1990, but the new marble finishing plant was built in Delta, Colorado.

The 1901 company town of Redstone was the brainchild of CF&I owner John Cleveland Osgood. Due to labor unrest in other coalfields, he decided to create a “show model” company town along the east bank of the Crystal River for his 200+ coking plant workers (miners lived 8 miles west and 3,000’ up a steep grade in “Coaltown”). He also constructed his personal home, “Cleveholm Manor”, and a gamekeeper’s cottage a mile south of Redstone. Redstone contained a long street of Craftsman-style single-family homes with yards for a garden and cow, a large boarding house for single workers, a school, a volunteer fire house, and a company store, complete with company scrip. Now, the boarding house is the Redstone Inn, the miner’s lamphouse is the history museum, the town is a national historic district, and the abandoned coke ovens have been restored.

(This description is adapted from the original by Steve Hart, 2024.)

STOP 1 was at the Pioneer Point Overlook on Highway 92 on the North Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. The West Elk Loop actually starts in Crested Butte on Highway 135 visited on the MHA Crested Butte Tour. That highway joins US Route 50 at Gunnison. This tour follows Route 50 along the Blue Mountain Reservoir and then joins Highway 92 at the Blue Mesa Dam. By the end of the tour in Redstone (and Carbondale), we will have covered the full 204 miles of the Loop which has the shape of a backwards “J,” nearly encircling the West Elk Mountains and Wilderness Area.

View of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River from the North Rim at Pioneer Point toward the east in the direction of the Blue Mesa Dam which forms the Blue Mesa Reservoir in the Curecanti National Recreation Area.

View to the west from Pioneer Point. Further downstream, the river flows through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park where most visitors view the spectacular canyon walls from the South Rim.

The Curecanti Needle is a 700-foot-tall granite landmark along the Gunnison River. It was formed by a fault that cuts diagonally through the rock and Blue Creek and the Gunnison River.

It is east to lose your hat, your glasses, or your life if you lean too far forward at Pioneer Point. The average depth of the canyon is 2000 feet.

The high points on the canyon rim reach an elevation of over 9,200 feet rising from around 7,200 feet along the river.

A closeup view of the Precambrian Gneiss that makes up most of the canyon’s rock.

STOP 2 was at the small coal mining town of Somerset. On the long drive from Pioneer Point, we passed through Crawford, Hotchkiss, and Paonia. Crawford is cattle country. Hotchkiss was founded by Enos Hotchkiss whose mining interests we learned about on the MHA Lake City tour. Hotchkiss and Samuel Wade are given credit to establishing fruit growing agriculture which has brought fame to Paonia as the “Banana Belt” od Colorado. Nearby, the town of Bowie was formed to mine coal.

Steve Hart and the MHAers at the Somerset, CO Post Office building.

Western Colorado University Intern, Connor Hamilton, describes the history of the mining town of Somerset.

John Poulus welcomes the MHAers to the West Elk Mine which is owned by Core Natural Resources.

The colorful West Elk Mine logo. Opening in 1982, the mine is Colorado’s largest coal producer.

Coal stockpiles are ready to load onto railroad cars. Log Cabin residence (17).

Conveyor system transporting coal to the preparation plant. Maintenance shops are in the center of the photo.

Aerial photo of the West Elk Mine complex and its surface facilities.

Map of the West Elk Mine surface facilities including shafts and ventilation fans that serve the production areas.

Map showing several large longwall panels in the mine’s production areas.

During lunch, John Poulus’ presented a well-illustrated talk on the history of coal mining in the North Fork Valley of the Gunnison.

John’s slide shows the tipple and townsite of the Utah Fuel Company’s Somerset Mine, one of the early coal mines in the valley.

John’s slide shows the town of Somerset in 2026 after the Oxbow Mine was closed and before the silo at the railroad loadout was demolished. The Post Office is across the highway and to the left of the silo.