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COKEDALE • Along a highway stretching through pinyon and juniper hills of southern Colorado, a long, peculiar row of stone in an otherwise empty field catches the eye.
“Most people have no clue what they are,” Dave Harris says. “I get asked if they’re Roman ruins, or if there was an aqueduct there.”
These are coke ovens, remnants of the operation that gave rise to society here. These were for treating high-demand coal that was mined in Reilly Canyon, where about 1,500 men came from all around the world to make a living and settle Cokedale — what the Trinidad newspaper 8 miles away proclaimed to be “a model camp” upon its establishment in 1907.
Where thousands lived for four decades of company rule, now about 130 people call Cokedale home. Harris is one of them. He’s director of the museum, which is housed in the most prominent structure around, the old general store.
It and the coke ovens are far from the only reminders of life that once was.
Just as Cokedale was regarded as “a model camp” in the beginning, it is regarded as a model site of preservation today. Of the 117 buildings standing, almost all were built in the town’s first year, and almost all are homes. No signs of modern commerce here, no chain names.
“It’s one of the few coal camps still intact,” Harris says.
Today’s residents live in the same houses of the first residents. The simple addresses are the same as those assigned by the company that built them; 1G is the museum.
“’Plain’ would best describe (them) today,” reads the 1976 book that is considered the definitive history of the town, “Cokedale: 1907-1947.”
Plain walls of concrete made from that coke material and cement. Plain kitchens and living rooms. Plain, square yards — some still keeping their outhouses and coal sheds.
That includes the Holmans’ home. They retired from Denver and moved here more than 20 years ago.
“Our attic was full of coal dust,” Bob Holman recalls. “When we started doing something to the walls, black coal dust would fall outta the walls and outta the ceiling.”
He and his wife, Rose, look out their front door and see the old baseball diamond, where the once-bustling community gathered on Sundays. Across the way is the old trolly stop. Down the street, the mayor lives in the old ice house. Elsewhere is the old schoolhouse. Also in view is the big, black slope of slag — like the coke ovens, an unmistakable marker of industry and degradation here.
Still, nature has its way. The area is known for having one of Colorado’s highest concentrations of bears. Residents awake some mornings to the gobbling of turkey and bugling of elk. A recent notice in the town newsletter speaks to the interface: A mountain lion was said to have been stalking neighborhood dogs “and possibly a human” before being shot down.
“I can walk out my front door and be gone for two hours and hike 2 to 5 miles, and I don’t see another soul,” Rose Holman says.
It’s the land that similarly captivated Harris and his wife when they moved here after retirement. “And land is inexpensive down here,” Harris says. “Like we died and gone to heaven.”
Cokedale, though, was born in hellish times.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the mining industry had garnered a notorious reputation. Working conditions were dangerous, hours were long, pay was poor, and sanitation and overall health was disregarded. Southern Colorado would be a bloody battleground for unions. The Ludlow Massacre in 1914 would turn heads nationally.
A year later, before a federal commission, the president of Cokedale-owning American Smelting and Refining Co. voiced a progressive attitude.
“I do not think there can be too much legislation among humanitarian lines,” Daniel Guggenheim said. “Surely no man who has been successful can be happy when he realizes the conditions of the workers. We must see that the worker not only gets sufficient wages, but also gets some of the comforts and luxuries of life.”
With the perspective of time and changing standards, the extent to which he made good on that in Cokedale could be contended.
Holly Barton, author of “Cokedale: 1907-1947,” wrote in 1976 that sanitation — the way waste from outhouses and ashcans was dumped into a river — “were primitive by today’s standards.” Water was free, fetched from several hydrants, but electricity was not.
“These coke ovens ran 24/7, and the pollution had to be unbelievable,” Harris says.
Work was not without death; 17 perished in a 1911 explosion. And the camp was not without prejudice, Harris says. “Black miners were not welcome. Asians could not live in company housing. They could live up in a tent colony with the mules.”
Harris continues: “I’m not saying the Guggenheims walked on water. But they were a lot better than most of the other mine owners.”
A reporter in 1907 remarked on the workers’ food being “of the best” and the homes being “finished with all the attention to detail of a model stone cottage.” They ranged one to eight bedrooms, complete with porches.
The paper read: “When one sees the fine houses, rows upon rows, observes the space between ... the feeling of envy arises, for the humblest employee of this camp will be housed as well as many a man in the city enjoying an income 20 times as much.”
The company hired a resident doctor, along with maintenance men. Rent — remembered as affordable and unchanged for 40 years — was said to be loosely collected in hard times. Based on several interviews and newspaper clips, Barton’s book recounts a company man going home to home on occasion, checking for any grocery needs.
“The company wasn’t the only concerned parent during the Depression,” Barton writes. “Everyone in Cokedale looked out for each other.”
Produce was shared from a community garden. Eggs were shared from backyard coops. One woman remembered her mom baking fragrant bread: “Everybody got some. You’d never had to knock on the door. It was just one big family.”
They gathered for “all nations suppers,” in which the Italians, Slavs, Germans, Welsh and others brought traditional dishes and sang traditional songs. That was sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Association, which also organized plays and collected clothes for kids.
Unlike a lot of other camps around, Cokedale had yet to unionize by World War II. But pressures had mounted over the years.
In 1947, the company called it quits. Houses were eventually put up for sale — reportedly $50 for plots, $100 per bedroom.
“Cokedale’s mines and coke ovens are not operating,” wrote The Denver Post, but “a new community spirit is definitely manifesting itself. Cokedale isn’t likely to become a ghost town.”
The same year work stopped, residents rallied to incorporate the town. And for decades more, the families feel they have prevailed.
“They say it takes a village to raise a child. This town did that,” says Tish Saccomanno, who raised her kids here, representing the fourth generation of the family in Cokedale.
It’s different now, she says. “I don’t know everyone in town like I used to.”
Now there’s not many kids around. Along with retirees, it’s a mix of young people who have moved to work in Trinidad’s marijuana industry and, more recently, an influx of miners hired by an Australian company. Newcomers have struggled to find a place to live.
“That’s because there’s generally nothing available,” says Kathy Kumm, the town clerk.
Growth would be good, some say. Growth would be bad, others say. “We don’t want to go in a negative direction, ruining the environment and the way of life,” Kumm says.
It’s a slow way of life. Comfortable. Despite the elements, the houses manage to provide more than 100 years later. No need for air conditioning, the Holmans say.
“They’re very nice and cool,” Bob says. “And then they warm up in the winter.”
You can smell it, those old heaters working. It’s an old, familiar smell, perhaps unpleasant to outsiders but somehow welcome here: burning coal.