RonnieAdventure #0433 - Hiawatha, Elmo, Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, Utah

Tipple at King Mine (Historic Web Picture - Photographer Unknown)

Hiawatha is a ghost town located about 15 miles south of Price, Utah. When settled, this was a company town that once had a population of over 1500 people. A few of the town improvements can be seen from the road, but the townsite is now fenced because it is on private property. 

Elmo (2010 census population 418) is a small farming community with limited services. The town received its name by using the first letter from the last names of the first four families that settled in the area - Erickson, Larsen, Mortensen, and Oviatt. 

When I arrived in Elmo I was really amazed at the town's wide streets. The security guard at the dinosaur museum in Price had recommended that I stop in Elmo and visit the Cleveland-Lloyd dinosaur quarry, but when driving through town I did not see the quarry. A woman was working in her front yard, so I stopped and asked her where the quarry was located. Much to my surprise, the lady said that the quarry was not in town, but located 30 miles east from Elmo on a dirt road out in the "middle of nowhere." Since I was driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and had almost a full tank of gas, I decided to drive out to the quarry.

Along the way to the "middle of nowhere" I passed a memorial to Winder-Mills family and other families that were part of the Mormon pioneer handcart companies that had settled in the area. In this area, the soil is poor and the vegetation is sparse, so I'm not sure how they made a living.

Continuing down the road I drove by the Desert Lake Waterfowl Manage Area. A sign stated that this was a good place for birding; but the lake was not adjacent to the road, so I did not drive over to the lake. I did, however, find a picture of the lake on the web.

Desert Lake (Web Picture by Eric Huish)

Although it is only 30 miles from Elmo to the "middle of nowhere," due to road conditions the trip to the Dinosaur Quarry took almost an hour.  

The Quarry's visitor center contains a number of interesting exhibits and explains that "Something unusual happened here!" In other dinosaur quarries around the State, about 90% of the bones discovered are from herbivores and about 10% are from carnivores. However, in this quarry 75% of the bones are from carnivores and only about 25% of the bones are from herbivores. Paleontologist are trying to understand why there were so many carnivores at this location. Even more confusing is that about 50% of all the bones found are from Allosaurus, while the combined other 50% is composed of about 5% each of bones from Stokesosaurus, Glyptops, Stegosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Marshosaurus, Barosaurus, Camptosaurus, Tervosaurus, Crocodilia, and Camarasaurus. Bones from an Allosaurs look very similar to bones from a Tyrannosaurus.

Allosaurus

Camarasaurus

Segosaurus

Diplodocus

Allosaurus

The quarry is only a short walk from the visitor center and has been enclosed in a large metal building. Many of the bones that have been extracted, or are being extracted, have been labeled to help visitors understand what types of bones they are looking at.

From the visitor center it is possible to hike to the top of Raptor Point, which provides spectacular views of the surrounding area. Along the way there are Pinyon-Juniper trees that rarely grow higher than 15-20 feet tall in this area. The higher you go, the shorter the trees. Also found along the walk are yucca, cacti, rabbitbrush, snakeweed, and a variety of other plants.

The Rock Wall nature trail is about 1.5 miles long and contains markers along the way to explain the geographic features found along the trail.

Partial rib of a Sauropod

USGS - 4 section corners marker

Morrison Formation - Primary source for dinosaur bones

Rocks covered with "desert varnish"

A Sauropod was excavated from this knoll - some bone fragments are still visible.

Mound of bentonitic clays

BONUS HISTORICAL STORIES & PICTURES 

One time when I was in grade school we had to make a farm safety poster. Since I was not a very good artist, I had a great idea to just take pictures with Wileta's Kodak. (That's what camera's were called because Kodak made almost all cameras sold in the U.S. Kind of like when people call facial tissues "Kleenex," when Kleenex is just the brand name.) 

I decided that my pictures would show safety things that kids should not do around the farm. I recruited my brothers to help me as I posed for the dangerous situations. 

We built a raft and floated it on the pond, but the raft was really unstable and kept sinking below the water level. This was the first picture and I entitled it: "Do not play around stock dams."

Since the bulls were in the stock yard, I got up as close as I could for a picture. This picture was entitled: "Do not play around livestock."

For the third picture we raised the Booster-Buck on the Farmall and then got on top of the forks. I thought this would really be a great safety picture because the hydraulic system on the Booster-Buck was unreliable and the forks could fall at any time. If you left the forks in the air at night, the hydraulic fluid would leak past the control valve and the forks would be on the ground in the morning. This picture was entitle "Do not play around farm equipment."

For some reason, the teacher did not like my safety poster!

However, I thought I would make up for it one day in class when we were discussing an article in the Weekly Reader. The article was about how land owners in India would leave some of their crops in the corners of the fields and people that need food could come to the fields after the harvest and gather the remaining corner grains left standing.  

Since I had observed that when swathing our grain, the turn angle of the swather was less than the turn angle of the tractor pulling it; thus, there was a small amount of grain left standing in each corner of the field. I told the teacher that we also left grain standing in the corners of our fields, but I had never seen any people that needed food come out and collect the grain.  

The teacher thought I was really a weird kid. I think she considered failing me that year!

RonnieAdventure #0432 - Spring Glen, Kenilworth, Carbonville, Price, Utah

The old Spring Glen High School

Spring Glen is adjacent to Helper and if it were not for a sign on the side of the road you would not even know when you passed from one town into the other. Until 1881 Helper was actually part of Spring Glen.

Spring Glen (2010 census population 1,126) was founded in 1876 by Mormon Pioneers and was the first settlement in what is now Carbon County. Water was supplied by a spring, so the community was named "Spring Glen."

With the discovery of coal deposits in the area, miners and immigrants soon arrived from many different parts of the world. Due to the diverse population, the community was slow to develop as a cohesive group. However, the one thing everyone in the community did agreed upon was education for the children. The first public school opened 1883. 

When I visited Spring Glen there were a number of vacant buildings in town, but at one occupied house there was a friendly woman on the front porch that waved to all of the cars as they drove by.

Kenilworth (2010 census population 180) is just east of Spring Glen and is close to being a ghost town. The coal mining town was laid out in 1908 and was given the name Kenilworth by British miners who thought the surrounding mountain peaks looked like the spires of Kenilworth Castle.

Old Company Store in Kenilworth

 

Carbonville (2010 census population 1,567) is just a short distance from Spring Glen and was first settled by Caleb Rhoades, who build a dugout here in 1877. As other settlers and miners arrived, the community was called "Rhoades Meadow," but was later changed to "Carbonville" because of the large coal deposits in the area. After WW II there was in influx of people into Carbonville, but the water quality in Carboville was of such poor quality many people moved down the road to the town of Price.

I stopped by the Halfway Club in Carbonville, but it was closed. Unaware that the club was now being used as a house, I stopped and took a photograph of the building. I was just getting back in my vehicle when some man ran out of the building and started waiving his arms and hollering at me. By the tone of his voice I presumed that he did not want to have a friendly conversion, so I just waved to him and as I drove off  I yelled back "I'm not wearing my hearing aids." ( I accidentally lost one of my hearing aids when I removed my COVID-19 mask somewhere.) I also stopped by the drive-in movie theater but apparently it was closed for the season - well, maybe for the decade since there was a tree growing in the parking lot.

Price (2010 census population 8,715) is the county seat and the largest city in Carbon County. This is one of the most religiously and ethnically diverse communities in Utah. Early mining in the area brought an influx of people from all over the world and trains with new immigrants arrived daily. The California Zephyr still passes through Price in each direction once a day.

There are several educational facilities in Price, including Utah State University Eastern that is home to the world famous USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum. When I stopped by the museum for a visit, I was surprised to find the museum closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I could see a security guard through the glass door, so I kept knocking on the glass until he opened the door. The guard explained that the museum was closed and I could not come inside. After pleading with him and explaining I had driven all of the way from Las Vegas just to see the museum, he agreed to allow me to come into the lobby and take a few picture. However, I was not allowed to tour the museum. The security guard suggested that I drive down the road to Elmo where the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry was open.

BONUS HISTORICAL STORIES & PICTURES 

In September 1949 my Grandpa Welty (Wileta's Father) passed away, so the entire family went to Kansas for the funeral. All of Wileta's brothers and sisters also attended the funeral. This was the first time their entire family had been together in years. Everyone was there, except for Nelson who had passed away in 1947.

Badk: Quinton, Harry, Gerhard, Walter, Albert  Front: Mary, Kenneth, Ralph, Wileta, Herbert

After the Grandpa Welty's funeral, someone took a picture of our family. Little did we know at that time that this would be the last picture that would be taken of our family together. 

Eldon, Wileta, Jerry, Merl & Ronnie

After Grandpa Welty's funeral, we stayed in Kansas for a few days to visit relatives. One afternoon Eldon wasn't feeling well, so Grandpa Hawkins and Wileta drove him to the Hospital to see a doctor. The three of us boys stayed with Grandma Hawkins at her house in Newton and waited for everyone to return.  

There was a large porch on the front of Grandma's house with a porch swing, so we three boys sat in the swing and waited. To pass the time, we would guess which next car that passed the house would be Grandpa's. We typically picked a number between 1 and 10 and then we would count cars that drove by the house to see who had the closest number. We did this the entire afternoon. Finally, when it was getting dark Grandma came out and said that we should come in and eat dinner because Grandpa had called and said that they were going to admit Eldon to the hospital. After eating dinner, we went to bed at Grandma's house.

The next afternoon we were allowed to go the hospital to see Eldon and when we arrived he had an oxygen tent over the top part of his body. My older brother said that he also had a WW II type oxygen mask that he also wore, but I do not remember the mask. 

We had a short visit with him and then we had to leave. That was the last time I saw my Father alive. Eldon was 37 years old when he died of heart failure and was buried in the Halstead Kansas Cemetery. I can not imagine how hard it must have been on our Mother to loose her Father and Husband within 10 days of each other

After the funeral, we went back to South Dakota and Wileta had to decide what our family was going to do without Eldon. She considered selling the farm and moving into town, but friends and neighbors convinced her that it would be better if she stayed on the farm. Eldon had just built a new house for the family and a hired man could be found to help run the farm until the three boys were old enough to assume farming responsibilities. 

At some time before our family purchased the farm, the old Canning Train Depot had been moved onto the farm and converted into a house for seasonal field workers, but was currently vacant. Also, Mr/Mrs Morse, an older couple, still lived in the original farm house that was on the property. 

John Hillmer had worked for Eldon in the past and agreed to work for Wileta and move his family into the old train depot. After a few years, the Morse family moved to town and the Hillmer family moved into the farm house where the Morse family had been living. After Hillmers moved out of the train depot it sat vacant for a number of years, but was eventually torn down.  

Fortunately, Wileta, although quite small in stature, was a very strong-willed person. She lived to be 97 years old and never remarried. Wileta was well known for her kindness and generosity and a strong supporter of young people and there activities. In later years Wileta was a avid fan of girl's sports, since she had almost all granddaughters. 

I remember when growing up there was often an extra young man living at our house that needed a place to stay because of difficult situations in his life. Wileta was always doing something for someone. Although she did not have any daughters, she often made dresses for many of the neighborhood girls and sometimes she made shirts for the boys. I remember one time we had some curtains in our room (at that time all three boys slept upstairs in a large room) that had hunting pictures on the material. We really liked the material so we talked Wileta into removing the curtains and using the material to make us matching shirts. There was enough material that she also made shirts for some of our friends.  

In later years she traveled to various places around the world to visit friends and relatives. When Wileta moved into a senior apartment complex, the apartment manager said she was the unofficial social director because she was always planning activities and trips for the other people. Wileta was an amazing person and I am proud that she was my Mother!