History of Sweetwater Coal Camps Told in New Book

March 28, 2012 - PRLog -- New from Arcadia Publishing, Karen Spence McLean and Marjane Telck is Coal Camps of Sweetwater County. This pictorial history is the latest volume in the popular Images of America series and affords readers a unique opportunity to reconnect to the history that shaped their community.

In the early to mid-1900s, the coal camps of Reliance, Dines, Winton, and Stansbury emerged from the hillsides and desert in southwestern Wyoming due to the increased need for coal. The miners and their families who came to these coal camps were a true melting pot bringing with them different races, religions and customs from all over the world.

They forged unique communities and worked and lived harmoniously depending on one another for survival, entertainment and camaraderie. Although distanced from one another, the camps were integrated by the mines and activities of the Union Pacific Coal Company and unified by School District No. 7, which provided the educational foundation for their children. The people who lived in these camps contributed significantly to the development of southwestern Wyoming, the economy of the state, and the welfare of the United States during wartime.

Highlights of the book include:
•   The majority of the images have been donated from private collections of local residents, the Sweetwater County Museum and the Coal Camp Reunion.
•   The book covers the four coal mining camps in Southwestern Wyoming encompassed by School District No. 7 (Reliance, Winton, Dines and Stansbury) from their inception in the early 1900s until they closed in the late 1950s.
•   Pictures in the book document mining structures, equipment and miners during this era.


Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or www.arcadiapublishing.com.  

Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States.  Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America’s people and places.  Have we done a book on your town?  Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com.

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With more than 7,500 local history titles published to date, Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Widely recognized sepia books feature hundreds of vintage historical images.