By Julie Johansen
Emery County Historical Society members and guests took a June trek to the small ghost town of Sego in Grand County on Saturday, June 12. Their tour guide was Jessica Montcalm, the Interpretive Trail Center Manager with the Bureau of Land Management.
Sego is an abandoned coal mine camp found in Grand County. Montcalm has undergone extensive work in the canyon and was able to tell the history of area while showing what remains of dugouts used by early settlers, the general store, pictographs and a 100-year-old cemetery.
The mine was part of the American Fuel Company from 1911 until 1925. The small horse and wagon mining operation grew to a coal supplier of Denver Rio Grande and Western Railroad. In 1949, the tipple was destroyed by fire and, in 1955, the last load of coal was shipped from the mine. With the uranium boom of 1960, many residents moved from the mine area to towns like Green River, Moab and Thompson.
Many of the buildings were also loaded on wagons and moved to other destinations. In 2017, the Ballard-Sego Coal Mine Historic Deistrict was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
- Photos credit of the Emery County Historical Society
