The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-29
FORA COAL NINE
Struggle For the Halliday Said to
Be Nearly Ended.
CARBON COUNTY EXCITED
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROP
ERTY MEANS A NEW TOWN.
Surveyors at Work In the Field Now
p. v. Coal Company Wants the
Ground-Shotguns Figure In the
History of the Property-Harvey
Hardy Buying Supplies.
tspecial Correspondenee.l


Price, Utah, Nov. 2S.-SurveyorS with
transit and level are just now thicker
in Carbon county and eastern Utah than
the proverbial fiddler in that country
where people, except they go from Ari-
IONA, do not send back for their Navajo
blankets. Out in WhitmOre canyon, forty
miles east of Price, there are five or SIX
surveyors with their assistants at work
under direction of Ware 81 Anderson of
Salt Lake City, who give it out to in
curing ones that they have the. contract
for surveying two sections OF school land
recently opened up to entry by the state
land board. On these lands there is said
to be the finest body of coking coal in
Utah. that at Castle Gate not excepted.
There is over a. mile and a quarter of this
vein DrosDected, and it varies in width
from five to twenty feet
The property has been in dispute be-
tween the Holiday Coal company and
r. A Kirker for several years, with the
Pleasant Valley Coal company wanting to
buy whenever title to the same can be
given. The case is now in the courts here
and will come up before Judge Johnson at
the February term of court The special
agent of the Pleasant Valley Coal COM
pany, Robert Forester, has during the
past few weeks made several trips there
from Castle Gate, which has at least set
the people to guessing at what may hap
pen. One thing is certafn-the Pleasant
Valley Coal company wants the property,
and once they are in possession of it, the
biggest and best town between Salt Lake
City and Denver is likely to be built
there.
The Rio Grande Western railroad is
ready to build a branch from its main
line, probably at Wellington OF Sunny
grade is easy, and it would not take a
great while for the track and ties to be
laid to the mines, about forty miles.
The properties of the coal here were
first discovered by Sam ellison about the
time of the building of the Rio Grande
Western through Utah. He spent over
$4,000 in development. and surface i'm
provements, and finally abandoned the
property. Then George c. WhftmOre, the
Nephi banker, tried his luck at it, with
no better results: The coal was there. but
father and son, began work on it and
claimed to have found cooking coal. They
allege they were in possession of the
property and had an offer of 100000 for
it. when R. A Kirker and party came
along and, the Holladays say, took shot
gun possession of the mines. LIE Grand
George Q. Cannon, Orange SeeIey and
others are stockholders in the Holiday
company. Old man Holiday got twenty
good. brave and true men together and
was determined to regain the possession
of it, but, on the advice of LIE Grand
Young, it was left to the courts to say
who. are the rightful owners of the prin-
cipal assets of the Holiday Coal COM
pany, and so the matter stands today.
Kirker is there with his men and they
with their Winchesters. The Holidays
are in Price and Salt Lake, and would
like to be where Kirker is safely en-
Sconced.
In the meantime, the Pleasant Valley
Coal company and the Rio Grande West
ern have surveyors out every now and
then. The rumor Is now that both sides
are willing to compromise and let the
corporations go ahead with the railroad
building, town building and coal mining
with their kindred interests and indus
tries.
Adjacent to this coal field is one of the
finest agricultural sections of Utah, and
town there. which is certain to come
sooner or later. will make a, market for
the products of the ranchers of this sec
ton such as they have never had. Three
fOurthS of the produce raised in Carbon
county and much of that from Emery
county now finds ready sale at good
prices in Scofield, Castle Gate and Win
ter Quarters. People here see in the work
of these surveyors a compromise. Wheth-
er they are to be disappointed remains to
be seen.
During the past few weeks there
stopped at enc of the hotels here two
gentlemen who took a northerly direc-
ton the following day, and were later
seen out on the line of an old railroad
survey some five miles south of Price.
They had their instruments out and were
taking levels and SO on from hill to hill
and knoll to knoll in the general direction
of Castle Dale, in Emery county. They
county. and what their mission was or
for whom they are working remains as
yet mystery. They were later heard
from on the line OF the Sanpete Valley
Gus actions, they asked the proprietor of
the hotel where they stopped to say
nothing about their being surveyors.
They did not register.
Harvey Hardy, formerly sheriff of
Salt Lake county and q surveyor by pro-
fession, was here the other day. and
after buying lot Of supplies left for
the east by wagon. He would not talk
when questioned.