Remembering Hiawatha[0]
Little Carbon County coal town lives on in many hearts
By Carma Wadley
Deseret News senior writer
From start to finish, Hiawatha[0] was a company town. From top to bottom, it was owned and operated by U.S. Fuel Co. Hiawatha[0] was a coal town; and like so many of the little towns of the early 20th century, its fortunes rose and fell with the vagaries of the energy market.
Dan[0] Miller, left, and Wally Baldwin explore the post office, where magazines and papers still lie scattered.
Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
"I'm sure it was not the Utopian small town that I like to remember," says Wally Baldwin, who spent his adolescence in the Carbon County town.
And yet, it seems, something about Hiawatha[0] burrowed itself into the hearts and souls of nearly everyone who lived there. Once a Hiawathan, always a Hiawathan. Once a member of that small, tight-knit community, you could never, ever entirely leave it. The town was shut down in the early 1990s, when the last of the coal mines ceased operation. By then, only a handful of homes and buildings remained, and in 1992, 18 of those — deemed unsafe by the company — were bulldozed.
Eventually the area was sold by U.S. Fuels to the Hiawatha[0] Coal Co., which has other holdings in Carbon County. A few scattered buildings and offices still stand. A gate across the road announces that this is a "closed industrial facility," private property unaccessible to the public without permission.
"What they say, about you can't go home again — that's sure true of Hiawatha[0]," says Baldwin. "Everyone who goes up there comes back crying at what's been done."
And yet — even as he looks out over the weed-choked fields and empty hollows — he remembers the good times.
He's not alone.
Twice a month, a couple dozen or so men who used to live in Hiawatha[0] meet at the Grecian Gardens restaurant in Salt Lake, to have breakfast and reminisce about the time they spent in the little coal town.
Former residents of Hiawatha meet twice a month at a restaurant in Salt Lake City to have breakfast and reminisce.
Paul Barker, Deseret News |
"Hiawatha[0] is a town that won't die," says Baldwin. "We just can't seem to let it go."
The memories are like bits of brightly colored glass that fit together to form a kaleidoscopic design. As one man starts talking, the others chip in, adding details and richness to the story.
The men range in age from their mid-60s to their early-80s. Some are related, by blood or by marriage. They have divergent interests, yet they all share common bonds.
For one thing, they all have nicknames: Whitey (a k a Harold Mason), Blackie (Merlin Blackburn), Punjab (Clarence Allred), Touch (that was Baldwin's). "Somehow, everyone got a nickname while they were growing up," says Dan "Kiabab" Miller. "And they stuck. That's still how we know each other."
They talk of growing up in a town that was divided by ethnic and other boundaries, yet had a cohesiveness that was unequalled elsewhere.
"We had Swede Town and Greek Town," says Mike "Spudnut" Orphanakis. "There was String Road and Silk Stocking Row — that was where all the bigwigs lived. East Hiawatha[0] was actually north of West Hiawatha[0]. There was Tram Town and Flat Town and Railroad Town and others." Everyone was identified by where they came from, he says, but it didn't make any difference where that was.
"We had every nationality in the book," adds Pete "Petroff" Petrutakis. "But nobody felt segregated. All the kids just wanted to be buddies. That attitude is what built America, and we grew up in that atmosphere in this small town."
Railroad-crossing signal is a reminder of days not long ago when coal was regularly shipped out of Hiawatha[0].
Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
They talk of times when people made their own entertainment. Tom "Muggsy" Neilson remembers running the movie projector every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday night while he was in the eighth through the 12th grades. Orphanakis had a little dance band, with trumpet, sax and clarinet.
Every summer, remembers Glenn "Coogie" Davis, the kids would get together and build a swimming hole up the canyon, diverting water into the foundation of an old building and damming it off. "Every year the company would come along and blow it up, and every year we'd build it back. That water was so cold, but we sure had fun there."
Holidays had their special traditions, as well. "Some houses had indoor plumbing, but a lot still had outhouses," explains Don "Bud" Reaveley. "That made Halloween a lot of fun," interjects Neilson. "Say," asks Reaveley, "who was in that outhouse the last time we rolled it down the hill?"
Nothing, however, created quite the interest that baseball did. Norman "Tucker" Lowe actually came to Hiawatha[0] specifically to play baseball. "My brother came out first from Arkansas (he had seven brothers; practically had their own team in Coalhill, Ark.) and he told me Hiawatha[0] has the best team. I came two weeks later."
He got a job "picking bony," which meant sorting the rocks out of the coal. But he loved Hiawatha[0], he says. "I was only there for five years, but they were the best five years. I met some of the finest people in the world there."
All the little coal towns has a baseball team, and they played against each other. "We won the championship almost every year," says Lowe. "Everyone in town wore black and orange baseball caps," remembers Blackburn.
Weeds encroach upon the old company store, one of only a few buildings in the town that have not been razed.
Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
"That Tucker could play," says Orphanakis. "He was a catcher, and he could throw people out from the crouch."
"Yeah," laughs Lowe. "I was a catcher. That meant I had a good arm and a bad head."
But Orphanakis wasn't too bad, either. In fact, he signed a contract with the New York Giants — and broke his leg two weeks before he was supposed to report to camp.
But, he says, even if he didn't go on to fame and fortune, a lot of prominent people did come out of Hiawatha[0]. Doctors, lawyers, educators. One Hiawathan won the Medal of Honor as a Navy pilot in World War II; another flew with the Air Force Thunderbirds.
Archie "Arch" McCarrie became a school principal. "I was a hellion when I was in school there. I went back one time after I got appointed principal. I saw my fourth-grade teacher, and told him I was now a principal in the Granite district. He pointed his bony finger at me. 'God is punishing you for how you acted,' he said."
Baldwin has established a Web site, and he gets e-mails from all over the country from people who lived there or whose parents or grandparents lived there.
Every August, Price holds a "Hiawatha[0] Day" reunion. "But there are about more people that live here than there now," says Lowe.
Dan Miller looks out over today's Hiawatha[0] during a recent visit. "It's like MacArthur's old soldiers," he says "It's just fading away."
Dan Miller wanders through the cemetery in Hiawatha. He said the town is just "fading away."
Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
"It looks so decrepit, worn out, small," adds Baldwin.
To the outsider, it's hard to believe that so much activity, so many houses and buildings once filled the narrow valley. Nothing remains of String Row, where Baldwin used to live. Nothing is left of East Hiawatha[0], where Miller grew up.
The buildings that do remain evoke rich memories:
The Amusement Hall: "where we did everything," says Baldwin. One night, a dance; the next night a movie. "That's where we played basketball. The rafters were so low, we all had to learn to shoot straight. Other teams would come in and try to loft the ball and they'd hit the rafters. Gave us an advantage, I guess."
The post office: still filled with scattered magazines and canceled checks. "Mail was kind of self-service in those days. Anyone who was going to Price would pick up the mail for everyone," remembers Miller.
The old jail: "The rumor was that the guy who built the jail got paid off and got in a fight and ended up being the first prisoner," laughs Miller "Sure couldn't put anyone in here now; the ACLU would be on you," adds Baldwin.
The old mine entries, labeled 1909 and 1914: As a boy, Baldwin worked a day-and-a-half in the mine. "I couldn't stand the claustrophobia. They gave me a tipple job instead."
The tipple, where coal was sorted, once a major landmark in the town, is now gone. As is the old school. "We went to school through the ninth grade here, then we got bused to Price," explains Baldwin. "We'd always ride the bus in the morning, but we'd hitch a ride home after school. We always beat the bus."
There are a few houses left along Silk Stocking Row. The teachers dormitory still stands, as does the old bathhouse. That was where the men coming from the mines could wash off the coal dust before going home. "For some reason, my dad didn't ever use it," says Baldwin. "I remember him coming home covered in black, everywhere but his eyes."
Coal dust was a fact of life. One of the things Baldwin remembers most vividly was the contrast between the black dust and the white snow in the winter. "It, of course, transferred to your car, your clothes, your feet and your house. It was impossible to keep it out or off, but not many complained, because 'Coal was King.' "
Baldwin was actually born in Mohrland, but when that mine closed in 1938 his family moved to Hiawatha[0]. His dad had a teaching degree, "but he couldn't make enough to live on, so he got a job at the weigh shack. . . . He'd come home and tell us that a hundred coal cars left town on that day. Each car held 40 to 50 tons."
The men remember how everyone took their vacation at the same time. "The mine shut down for two weeks, usually in July, and the whole town went camping. It was called a 'miner's vacation.' And we also used to all go picnicking down on Hamburger Flats," says Miller.
Tumbleweeds play there now.
"I can't believe how all the vegetation has moved in" he says. "You'd hardly know there was a town here."
The twice-monthly breakfasts started last September. Miller called up Lowe and invited him out for a cup of coffee. "Then Pete retired, and we invited him. Then we just kept adding others." Somebody knew somebody else. They all wanted to come talk about old times.
Miller, left, and Baldwin pass by the old school, which students attended through ninth grade[0].
Chuck Wing, Deseret News |
They started out at Dee's on Highland Drive, but they soon outgrew their booth. "They offered to give us a special room here, and we've been coming here ever since."
At a recent breakfast, the men voted to have a luncheon and invite the wives — many of whom are from the area. "A lot of us married 'swamp angels.' That's what we called girls from the other towns," says Davis.
But mostly the men just want to share the camaraderie with each other.
"Remember deer hunting?" asks Clyde "Dopey" Reaveley. "Everyone went hunting. The whole town shut down. It was the biggest thing in town, like a national holiday."
"Remember when a lone car came down the tramway?" asks Neilson. "That was the terror of the town. You knew someone had been hurt or killed. The whole town would panic and run out to see what happened."
"I made that trip once," says Lowe. "Luckily I wasn't hurt bad. Quite a few got killed."
"My dad was on the rescue team at Castle Gate," adds Neilson. "He never liked to talk about it much though."
Life, death, love, sport. Ordinary topics that take on extraordinary meaning to the group.
"I loved that place," says Mason. "If it was still going, I'd move back."
"Everyone knew everyone; everyone took care of everyone," says Arthur "Ken" Allred.
"We're not living the past," says Davis, "but you can tell we all have happy memories."
"It keeps us young," says Orphanakis. "It was the funnest little town. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com
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