Tono is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

in southwest

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

in the United States. It was a company-owned mining town founded in 1907 by the Washington Union Coal Company, a subsidiary of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

to supply

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

for their steam

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s. Tono was located in southern Thurston County about south of

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. European ...

, south of Tenino, east of the town of Bucoda, at the end of a railroad spur.

History

The town was named

Tono TONO is a Norwegian corporation that administers copyrights for music in Norway. It is owned and governed by its members; composers, music publishers and text-writers. Through the managing agreement the originators give TONO an exclusive right to ...

in 1909 by one of the many Japanese railroad workers. Folk etymology states the name is a contraction of "ton of coal". At its peak in the 1920s Tono had over 1,000 residents, 125 houses, a hotel, a hospital, a general store, and a school. The town flourished until 1932 when the railroads began switching to

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s; the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

then sold the mines to the Bucoda Mining Company. Afterwards the mines operated intermittently while most of the residents moved away. Many of the vacant houses were sold and moved to nearby communities. By 1950, there were only a few buildings and residents left in Tono. The last full-time residents of Tono were John and Lempi Hirvela, who had moved there in 1923. The Hirvelas lived in the last surviving home, until 1976: The mine superintendent's former residence. In 1967 the

Pacific Power & Light Company PacifiCorp is an electric power company in the western United States. PacifiCorp has two business units: # Pacific Power, a regulated electric utility with service territory throughout Oregon, northern California, and southeastern Washington. # ...

revived operations at the Tono field, now known as the

Centralia Coal Mine Centralia Coal Mine was an open-pit coal mine, owned by the Canadian-based TransAlta Corporation. The mine shut down in 2006. Also referred to as the TransAlta Centralia Mining (TCM) operation, the coal mine was located approximately northeast ...

. purchased the property including the town site (and the Hirvela's home) and began

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 ...

the area to supply coal for the

Centralia Power Plant Centralia Big Hanaford power plant is a major coal-fired power plant supplemented with newer natural-gas-fired units. It is located east of Centralia, Washington, United States in Lewis County. It is the only commercial coal-fired power plant in t ...

in nearby Lewis County<.ref> Mining operations obliterated most of the former town site in the 1980s. All that remains of Tono are a few overgrown foundations.

References

External links

* * * * {{Thurston County, Washington Ghost towns in Thurston County, Washington Ghost towns in Washington (state) Geography of Thurston County, Washington