Consumers is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in Carbon County,

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, United States. It is located in the Gordon Valley near several other former coal mining communities that also are now ghost towns. It is less than a mile from the ghost town of

National National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, and also quite near to Clear Creek.

History

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 Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

was discovered in the area in 1908, but large-scale mining did not begin until the 1920s. The settlement was originally named Gibson, after Arthur E. Gibson who secured almost 1,500 acres of land sometime before 1920. During the winter of 1921–22, Gibson began to develop a seam of coal, hiring labor to work the mine. By 1924, the Consumers Mutual Coal Company was formed; the town that was originally called Gibson changed its name to Consumers. The Consumers Mine was the first in Utah to use conveyor belts to haul the coal, rather than mine cars. In September, 1927, the company was sold to the Blue Blaze Coal Company. The town shared a post office, school house, hospital and amusement hall with the nearby towns of National and Sweet. Consumers had its own store and a central well. The mine closed in February 1938, although it reopened in October 1939 under new ownership. Sometime in the 1940s, the Hudson Coal Company took ownership of all the coal mining operations in the Gordon Valley area. Modern mining operations continue in the area today, but Consumers itself was abandoned by the end of the 1940s. All that remains today are a few decaying buildings and foundations.

References

Ghost towns in Carbon County, Utah Populated places established in 1921 Mining communities in Utah Ghost towns in Utah {{US-ghost-town-stub

History

See also

References