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Sego is a ghost town in Grand County, Utah, United States. It lies in the narrow, winding Sego Canyon, in the Book Cliffs some north of Thompson Springs. Formerly an important eastern Utah coal mining town, Sego was inhabited about 1910–1955. The town is accessed via the grade of the Ballard & Thompson Railroad, a spur from the Denver and Rio Grande Western built by the founders of the town to transport the coal. ==History== Henry Ballard, one of the founders of Thompson Springs, discovered an exposed vein of anthracite coal here in 1908 while exploring the many canyons of the Book Cliffs. He quietly bought the land and began to hire local laborers to mine the coal. The coal camp was naturally called ''Ballard''. By 1911 Ballard had sold out to a Salt Lake City businessman named B.F. Bauer, who formed a corporation called American Fuel Company. The company began to expand mining operations far beyond Ballard's unambitious scale, installing a modern coal tipple and the first coal washer west of the Mississippi River. The Ballard & Thompson Railroad company organized in 1911, its officers including Bauer and Ballard, and started to construct a spur line from Thompson to Ballard. In its five-mile run up the winding canyon, the rail line crossed the stream thirteen times.〔 American Fuel Company also developed the town, renamed ''Neslen'' during the railroad construction for the mine's new general manager, Richard Neslen.〔 Soon a company store, boarding house, and other buildings went up, each with its own water system.〔 Neslen was a fairly typical company town, but in addition to building numerous company houses, mine owners took the unusual policy of allowing miners to build their own cabins wherever they chose. Shacks and dugouts dotted the canyon. When the railroad was completed in 1912, Neslen was granted its own post office. Coal began shipping in October 1912, most of it going to the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.〔 The next year the Ballard & Thompson became a subsidiary of the D&RGW.〔 The town's most serious problem, almost from the beginning, was a diminishing water supply. The water table was dropping, the creeks and springs drying up. One summer the water slowed to such a trickle that the coal washer could not even operate.〔 Paradoxically, the railroad was plagued by excessive water, flash floods frequently damaging the bridges and trestles.〔 The small train that served the mine was off the track as much as one fourth of the time.〔 By 1915 profits were low to nonexistent, and paydays very irregular. Like many mines, the company tried to enforce a system where miners were paid in scrip redeemable only at the company store. Miners who dared to shop in Thompson, where prices were half those at Neslen, were threatened with the loss of their jobs. The miners went on strike in April 1915, not having been paid in five months. Many of them returned to work with the company still owing them back pay. Employment was scarce in the region, and in October 1915 wages were cut by 12–20%.〔 Frustrated by the mine's unprofitability, Bauer forced a corporate reorganization in 1916. Richard Neslen was replaced, and the company renamed ''Chesterfield Coal Company''.〔 The town's name was also changed in 1918,〔 this time to ''Sego'' for the sego lily, Utah's state flower, which grew abundantly in the canyon.〔 The reorganization didn't solve the company's financial difficulties, however. Sego's miners were never paid regularly until they joined the United Mine Workers in 1933.〔 Some sources claim Sego's population grew as high as 500,〔 but the United States Census during the town's heyday in the 1920s and 1930s doesn't bear this out. In 1920 the census count was 198,〔 and in 1930 just over 200.〔Firmage, p.267.〕 Still, Sego was one of the major Grand County towns during this period.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sego, Utah」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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