Dragon 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 Uintah County, at the extreme eastern edge of

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. Founded in about 1888 as a Gilsonite mining camp, Dragon boomed in the first decade of the 20th century as the end-of-line town for the Uintah Railway. Although it declined when the terminus moved farther north in 1911, Dragon survived as the largest of the Gilsonite towns. It was abandoned after its mining operations stopped in 1938 and the Uintah Railway went out of business in 1939.

Geography

Dragon lies on the tiny Evacuation Creek at the mouth of Dragon Canyon, approximately west of the

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

state line and southeast of Vernal, the area's main city. This part of the Uinta Basin has been isolated and barren throughout modern times. The reason for the town's existence was the

veins Veins () are blood vessels in the circulatory system of humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are those of the pulmonary and fetal c ...

of natural

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

called Gilsonite, found nowhere else in the world at the time, that run southeast to northwest through this region. The present-day center of Gilsonite mining,

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on ...

, is about to the north of Dragon.

History

As the commercial mining of Gilsonite began in 1888, a significant deposit was discovered some up Dragon Canyon. Observers said that the vein of the black substance formed the shape of a dragon along the surface of the ground, and the operation was named the Black Dragon Mine. The name ''Dragon'' was soon given to both the canyon and the mining camp that grew up in the flat area at the canyon's mouth. The mine and town developed slowly at first, because of the difficulty of transporting the Gilsonite out of the area. The town received its first

telegraph line Electrical telegraphy is point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most wide ...

, to Fort Duchesne, in 1901. In 1902, subsidiaries of the Gilson Asphaltum Company took over the Black Dragon Mine and began work on a

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

to serve the mine. In 1904 the Uintah Railway reached Dragon, where it stopped. The company also built

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

s to Vernal and Fort Duchesne,

ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

on the Green River, and a

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

over the White River at Ignatio, making Dragon the regional transportation hub. As the terminal station on the only railroad ever to enter the Uinta Basin, Dragon began to boom. At the completion of the railroad, the town had a depot, warehouse, locomotive shops, store, boarding house, homes, two saloons, and a barber shop. The railroad company built the Uintah Railway Hotel in Dragon to lodge passengers. A school was established in 1904. Gilsonite is a flammable

hydrocarbon In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and Hydrophobe, hydrophobic; their odor is usually fain ...

mixture, and Dragon experienced a number of

mining accident A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground mining (hard rock), underground coal mining, although accidents al ...

s. In 1908, a fire started in one section of Dragon's Gilsonite vein. A nearly inextinguishable fire similar to a

coal seam fire A coal-seam fire is a burning of an outcrop or underground coal seam. Most coal-seam fires exhibit smouldering combustion, particularly underground coal-seam fires, because of limited atmospheric oxygen availability. Coal-seam fire instances ...

, it was still burning two years later. Also in 1908, an explosion in the Black Dragon Mine killed two miners. In 1910, a costly fire sparked in stored Gilsonite completely destroyed the Uintah Railway warehouse, along with hundreds of tons of

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

. In 1910 a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...

was established in Dragon, with an unusual arrangement. The Uintah Railway would transport library books free of charge to and from any borrower along its route. At the 1910 census, the population of "Dragon Precinct" (the town and surrounding area) was 287. The output of the Black Dragon Mine was declining, however, and other rich Gilsonite deposits had been discovered to the north. In 1911 the Uintah Railway extended its line northward, establishing a new end-of-line town called Watson north of Dragon, with a spur line to the southwest of Watson to

Rainbow A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...

, the new mining center. The loss of the railroad terminus caused a moderate decline in Dragon, but because the railroad's shops and roundhouse were still here, Dragon remained the stable population center in the Gilsonite mining area. The railroad saw the need to encourage the shipping of diverse products, and in 1912 they built large

sheep shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the Wool, woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a ''Sheep shearer, shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (depending upon dialect, ...

pens at Dragon. Enough people remained in 1917 to support a renovation of the Dragon schoolhouse. The census precinct, greatly expanded but still named for Dragon, reported populations of 487 in

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...

and 452 in

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

. By 1938, all of the Gilsonite mining activity moved still further north, to the

area. The Dragon and Rainbow mines closed down. Trucks to Vernal and Craig, Colorado replaced trains for hauling Gilsonite. People started to abandon Dragon, Rainbow, and Watson. In 1939 Dragon's population was just 72, mostly railroad workers. Having lost the majority of its freight business, the Uintah Railway ceased operation in 1939. The 1940 census recorded a "South Dragon precinct" population of 10. Only ruins remain at the Dragon site. There is a rubble pile where the hotel stood, a sidewalk that ran to the old schoolhouse, some foundations, and a small cemetery.

Notable people

* Art Pollard (1927–1973) —

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, officially known as the NTT IndyCar Series for sponsorship reasons, is the highest class of American open-wheel car racing in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of various sanctioning bodies sinc ...

driver

References

External links

Dragon
at GhostTowns.com {{authority control Ghost towns in Utah Mining communities in Utah Ghost towns in Uintah County, Utah

Geography

History

Notable people

See also

References

External links