Rock Springs: A Coal Town And An Identity Crisis

A driver on Interstate 80 sees little evidence of Rock Springs’ coal mining past, even though shuttered mine entrances from a century-long boom are just a few hundred yards away. Today, some residents don’t know much about the town’s legacy industry, even though coal’s departure gutted the community nearly 70 years ago.  Until recently, unstable underground mines caused sinkholes that damaged city infrastructure. Now that clean-up is coming to an end with a project to shore up old coal tunnels under I-80.  As the threat of these old mines collapsing underneath parts of the city fades, Cowboy State Daily visited Wyoming’s fifth-largest town to see what’s left of these old tunnels and the work to shore them up. Photographs / Diagrams Courtesy of: Rock Springs Historical Museum, Rock Springs, Wyoming Sweetwater County Historical Museum, Green River, Wyoming wyomingtailsandtrails.com Western Archaeological Services  Hallman, David & Nuttall, Jeffrey & Zimmerman, Vicky & Locke, Bill. (2010).  History of Coal Mine Subsidence in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  Newspaper Archives: Casper Star-Tribune Billings Gazette Casper Morning Star Via newspapers.com