Serene, Colorado was a company town owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. Serene had company housing, a post office, a

tipple A tipple is a structure used at a mine to load the extracted product (e.g., coal, ores) for transport, typically into railroad hopper cars. In the United States, tipples have been frequently associated with coal mines, but they have also been use ...

, and was the site of the Columbine Mine. The town was located by what is today the Erie landfill at

History

In 1927 Colorado

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 ...

miners conducted a statewide

strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

that had been called by the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

. The Columbine Mine at Serene was the only major

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

in the state that continued to dig coal. In her book ''Once A Coal Miner'', author Phyllis Smith described the company town of Serene: :...a collection of dirty company houses surrounded by a barricade of barbed wire, illuminated at night by a giant searchlight that was installed on the Columbine tipple. :In addition to living quarters for the employees of the Columbine, Serene boasted a church, a gambling hall, general store, mess hall, a house of prostitution, and the United States post office... :Because of its location, Serene was "cut off from the world and from outside workers ... despite its name, dingy little Serene epitomized the conditions the miners were striking against."Once A Coal Miner: The Story of Colorado's Northern Coal Field, by Phyllis Smith, 1989, pp. 172-174, quoting Perry Eberhart, "Trouble in Serene," Denver Westerners Brandbook, vol. 29, (1973), p. 205. The Colorado State Ranger Unit (the former "dry unit" from prohibition days) was summoned to prevent a demonstration by striking coal miners. Some 500 protestors showed up at the mine on the morning of November 21. The confrontation between strikers and the militia unit resulted in the

Columbine Mine Massacre The Columbine Mine massacre, sometimes called the first Columbine massacre, occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado. A fight broke out between Colorado state militia and a group of striking coal miners, during which the unarmed mine ...

, in which six miners were killed by machine gun, rifle and pistol fire.

Geography

Serene was located on rolling hills just west of the present-day Interstate 25 on State Highway 7, north of the State of Colorado

Historical Marker A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other ...

that commemorates the

. The area that once was the company town of Serene is now a public landfill in extreme southwestern

Weld County Weld County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 328,981. The county seat is Greeley. Weld County comprises the Greeley, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Denver ...

, just outside the limits of the town of

Erie Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...

and the city of Broomfield.

Notes

{{authority control Company towns in Colorado History of Colorado Industrial Workers of the World in Colorado Geography of Weld County, Colorado Ghost towns in Colorado