Settling the West:  Union Pacific Coal Company and Cumberland, Wyoming

Does this look like a place where dreams come true?

Hardly! Yet, this is what greeted Luisa and son Tony when they arrived from Italy to the place Marcello had carved out a life for them—Cumberland, Wyoming, the setting for my historical fiction novel, Marcello’s Promise, (Five Star Cengage, December 2019).

As happy as Luisa was to be reunited with Marcello after years of separation, you know her heart must have dropped at the sight of this desolate mining town. How does Luisa learn to cope with this harsh environment? What demands does Marcello place on himself to make this a place where his family will thrive? What happens if Luisa doesn’t adjust to this often lawless frontier town of immigrant coal miners?

Cumberland was in fact the town that presented itself to my own grandmother as her new home when she arrived in America in 1912 where my grandfather worked for Union Pacific Coal Company. At first glance I often wondered if she considered turning around and heading back to Italy the first chance she got. I’m sure she didn’t—that’s just me imposing my own reaction onto her. But believe me, my character Luisa has second thoughts about Cumberland, and they are only part of the obstacles she and Marcello face if his promise of the American dream is to come true.

Cumberland Yesterday

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century Union Pacific Coal Company owned and operated a series of coal mining camps in southwest Wyoming. The houses, the company store, the schools and the public hall belonged to the company. Cumberland, originally called Camp Muddy, was four separate camps. Cumberland No. 1 and No. 2 (where my grandparents lived) opened in 1900 and closed in 1930 and 1927 respectively. They were located a mile and a half apart, with a Catholic church standing halfway between, bridging the two camps. Three hundred and fifty people lived in each town, young immigrants from Italy, Russia, Austria, Poland, Finland, Wales, and Scotland, a lively and sometimes volatile mix of people. At its height, Cumberland produced a million and a half tons of coal in 1905.

Both towns had a company store, an LDS church, and a school with grades kindergarten through twelve.  Most of the sons went to work in the mines before they finished high school, to help support their families. In the early years, the camp foreman acted as doctor, eventually replaced by a company doctor who served both towns. The nearest hospital was twelve miles away in Kemmerer, impossible to reach in winter except with horses. A source of civic pride in many of the mining towns was the community band. With uniforms and fifty-three brass and reed instruments, Cumberland’s first band was organized in June, 1925 and played at the Union Pacific Coal Company Old Timers’ Association.

Cumberland Today

The mines that dipped 2000 feet below the surface of the valley are covered with sandy hills where the town once stood. The mine office, the tipple, the railroad tracks, the miners’ houses all disappeared long ago. The only visible remainder is the Cumberland Cemetery. An arched sign bearing the town’s name guards the entrance to the graves, some with headstones, others unmarked and forgotten.

Years ago, I walked those deserted hills with my sister and cousins. Pieces of metal and broken crockery poked through the sandy soil, ghostly remnants of a once vibrant community. I retrieved a square piece of iron, possibly the damper from an old kitchen range that sits on my kitchen hearth today, a reminder of my father’s childhood home.