Dawson (also Mountview) is a ghost town in Colfax County, New Mexico, United States. Dawson was the site of two separate coal mining disasters in 1913 and 1923. Dawson is located approximately 17 miles northeast of Cimarron.
Dawson and its area were part of the Maxwell Land Grant. In the late 1860s, Lucien B. Maxwell sold more than of land to John Barkley Dawson for $3,700. The Maxwell Land Grant Company later attempted to evict Dawson but his ownership of the land was confirmed by a court in 2001. Coal was discovered on the land in 1895 and in 1901 Dawson sold the land to C.B Eddy for $400,000. Eddy and associates created the Dawson Fuel Company and constructed a railroad to the site of the mines. In 1905 Eddy sold the mines and railroad to the Phelps Dodge Company. Dawson grew to have a population of 6,000 in 1913. In that same year an explosion killed 263 workers, most of whom Hispanics and foreign-born Italians and Greeks. In 1923 another mine explosion killed 122 miners. In 1950, the mines were closed.
History
In 1906, the mines were purchased by the Phelps Dodge Corporation. The corporation needed to attract workers to the remote location, so they built homes for the miners, along with numerous other facilities including a hospital, department store, swimming pool, movie theater, and a golf course. With these amenities, Phelps Dodge was able to maintain a stable employment rate despite the inherent dangers of mining and the isolation of northern New Mexico. Many of the miners were recent immigrants.
In total, the Dawson coal operations had ten mines, numbered 1 – 10 in the immediate vicinity of Dawson. The mines are generally referred to as "Stag Canyon #", a reference to the operating company, but they are also often referred to as "Dawson Mine #", in reference to their locale. Different web pages which use GNIS data have the Dawson Mine No. 5 as being located eight miles north of the other mines. In looking at other source documents found in Google Books, this appears to be an error. The actual Dawson Mine No. 5 was located along the Vermejo River, near the town of Lauretta.
Several of these mines were connected to the coal processing and loading facilities in Dawson by means of an electric powered narrow gauge (36 inch gauge) railroad. This railroad was apparently 6,600 feet in length, running along Rail Canyon from the entries of Mines 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Mines 5 and 7 also connected to this line through underground connections to the other mines, but they also had their own tipples. Cars would be loaded inside the mines, taken outside and then transported in trains of cars to the facilities in Dawson proper. This line served the No 1 & 2 Tipple, located in Rail Canyon.
Mines 8, 9 and 10 are located to the SW of the town of Dawson, and early research indicates that they had their own mine tipple for coal cleaning and loading into standard gauge railroad cars for delivery to customers. These three mines also had an electric powered railroad inside the mines which led to their own tipple, but they apparently were not connected to the other mines.
The coal was cleaned of non-combustible debris and sorted into general sizes for different uses. In addition to the coal processing facilities, there also were coking ovens which processed the coal, transforming it into coke which was used for metal processing by Phelps Dodge at other facilities. The coking ovens produced carbon monoxide gas, which was captured and then burned to create steam for generating electricity for mine machinery and electric lighting, both in the mines and in the towns around the mines.
The Dawson Railway was purchased by Phelps Dodge at the same time and made part of its El Paso and Southwestern Railroad system. The EP&SW was later purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which also purchased long term contracts for the coal production from Dawson. The SP used steam locomotives which were mostly fueled by oil, but the operating division located at Tucumcari utilized coal fueled steam engines, the only group of such locomotives on their roster.
In 1912, Dawson was home to minor league baseball. The Dawson Stags became members of the four–team Class D level Rocky Mountain League during the season. The league started the season with the Cañon City Swastikas, Colorado Springs Millionaires, La Junta Railroaders and Pueblo Indians beginning Rocky Mountain League play. During the season, the Colorado Springs franchise relocated to Dawson on June 15, 1912. The Rocky Mountain League permanently folded after the 1912 season.