Sunrise was a company mining town of the

Colorado Fuel and Iron Company The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892.Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 10 By 1903 it was mainly owned and con ...

located in Platte County,

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

, United States. The entire site of the former mining district and town is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

History

Miner church built in Sunrise, Wyoming by CF&I

In the 1880s the area around what would become Sunrise was an important area in the mining of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

. In 1890, Charles A. Guernsey, after whom the nearby town of

Guernsey, Wyoming Guernsey is a town in Platte County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,147 at the 2010 census. The town was named for C. A. Guernsey, a cattle rancher. Geography Guernsey is located at (42.267251, −104.743187). According to the U ...

is named, founded the Wyoming Railway and Iron Company to exploit iron mining in the area. In 1898, the

Colorado Fuel and Iron company The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892.Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 10 By 1903 it was mainly owned and con ...

began leasing mining rights in the area to improve its supply of iron. In 1904 Colorado Fuel and Iron bought the entire Sunrise Mine. Colorado Fuel and Iron hoped to make Sunrise a model company town. In the early 1900s company-owned houses, boarding houses, depots, a school, churches, shops, and other structures were built. In response to the Ludlow Massacre, further improvements came to the town in the 1910s and 1920s in the form of better brick housing, a

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

building, parks, a playground, better utility systems, a hospital, and other improvements. By 1928 the mine employed 547. Initially, the mining methods used at Sunrise were

strip mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

followed by glory-hole mining. In 1930, underground

block caving Underground hard-rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate "hard" minerals, usually those containing metals, such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin, and lead. It also involves the ...

mining was started, and by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

all mining was underground. Ore mined was partially processed on site and then sent to Colorado Fuel and Iron mills in

Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...

. Because of decreasing ore quality and problems in the domestic steel market, the town and mine were closed by Colorado Fuel and Iron in 1980. Over the lifetime of the mine 40 million tons of iron ore were produced, more than any other C.F. & I. mine. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Highways

* - runs west from Sunrise one mile to Hartville, where it meets , which connects to

U.S. Route 26 U.S. Route 26 (US 26) is an east–west United States highway that runs from Seaside, Oregon to Ogallala, Nebraska. When the U.S. highway system was first defined, it was limited to Nebraska and Wyoming; by the 1950s, it continued into Idaho and ...

, five miles to the south.

References

External links

Sunrise Mine Historic District
Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources {{authority control Ghost towns in Wyoming Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming National Register of Historic Places in Platte County, Wyoming Populated places on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming