By Patricia H. Walsh
Photo by Joe Bertola Family
The Sugarite Coal Camp ran from 1912 to 1941, and its remains are visible at Sugarite Canyon State Park, six miles northeast of Raton.
Self-guided tour pamphlets are available at the park Visitor Center, formerly the home and office of the coal camp's postmistress. This brochure guides visitors up to the mine level andÂ
back about two miles total. The park also plans to develop a virtual cellphone tour.
Sugarite's human history goes way back.
Native peoples, such as the Jicarilla Apache, Comanche, Ute and Kiowa, have visited Sugarite Canyon for perhaps thousands of years seeking wildlife and plants both edible and medicinal.
In the 1800s, the area became part of the Maxwell Land Grant. Later, ranchers and homesteaders moved to the canyon. Around 1900, a "wagon mine" was launched in Sugarite, where locals could buy a wagonload of coal for home heating. In 1912, the same year New Mexico got statehood, the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain and Pacific Company began building a town for mining families.
As many as 1,000 people lived there, immigrating from Eastern Europe, Italy, Greece, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Mexico, Japan, etc. Miners were paid by the ton of coal they shoveled into narrow gauge rail cars, pulled by hard-working mules.
In the 1930s, a Sugarite miner might dig five tons of coal for about one dollar per ton or five dollars a day.Â
There was decent money during the Depression Era. But while miners worked long hours in fall and winter, they were laid off in summer, when demand for the home-heating coal dropped. Then they'd go into debt at the company store and try to pay it off the next winter. Although mining families had little money and paid rent for company houses, there were benefits. They could become U.S. citizens, and their kids attended free public school-something often unavailable to poor people in their home countries.
Also, the company sponsored baseball and soccer teams, and built a beautiful clubhouse to show movies and stage dances with live bands. The clubhouse served as an ice cream parlor, as well as a beer hall when Prohibition wasn't a factor, even church services took place there.
Meanwhile, the company store's butcher helped poorer families, donating unpopular meat such as liver and tongue. Miners' families tended gardens, kept chickens, hunted, and fished to boost their income. The kids sledded in winter and splashed in Chicorica Creek during summer.
Overall, former camp kid Lina Giampietri Cash says people took care of each other and enjoyed life, being rich in community and nature despite being poor in money. Although the miners were unaware of the climate changing impact of burning coal, Sugarite coal began losing popularity as people switched to propane or natural gas for home heating. In 1941, the company shut down, demolishing most Sugarite buildings and salvaging the materials.
In 1985, Sugarite Canyon State Park was established, and remains one of the few places where the public can explore life in an early 20th century coal camp.
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