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Euro-American incursion into the azea. Removal of the Utes in 1881 allowed for agricultural <br />development, railroad construction, and permanent settlement in the valley of the North Fork <br />of the Gunnison. <br />By the mid-1880's this alluvial valley had been found suitable for fruit growing. <br />Valley hay production combined with summer range in the surrounding mountains aided the <br />establishment of a prosperous livestock industry until a severe winter kill in 1893 reduced <br />many of the herds. <br />The construction of an extension of the DBcRG Railroad into the North Fork Valley <br />by 1902 (as faz as Paonia) aided fruit growers and cattlemen. Additional track laid into <br />Somerset in subsequent years (by 1906) initiated the coal mining boom. <br />Somerset became the most famous of the valley's coal mines and mining towns. The <br />Somerset coal veins were discovered by Ira Q. Sanborn in 1883 and were subsequently sold <br />to ranchers including Ed Hanson, a pioneer investor and rancher friend of Enos Hotchkiss, in <br />1900. Making wnsiderable profit, Hanson sold the rights to the Utah Fuel Company in 1902, <br />the yeaz the railroad completed its spur from Delta to Paonia. The town below the mine was <br />begun in 1902 as a "tent" city. In 1903 the company began to erect the first of forty frame <br />houses for company employees. Somerset (named after Somersetshire, a prosperous coal <br />"count}' in England) remained a company town until the 1920s, when the homes were sold <br />off, new investors entered the city, and company ownership was phased out amidst an <br />industry depression. <br />Field Methods <br />All work was performed according to the guidelines set forth by the Office of <br />Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP) of the Colorado Historical Society. A 100 <br />percent, intensive, pedestrian Class III cultural resource survey of the 12 discrete study units <br />was conducted by a crew of two to five persons. The project area was limited by heavy <br />vegetation cover and steep slopes. Of the approximately 12,600 block acres that comprised <br />the project area as a whole, about 3,150 acres-which included open terrain on the main ridge <br />tops and benches, treeless meadows, and along existing roads, trails, and erosional azeas- <br />were selected for intensive survey. <br />Cultural resources were sought as surface exposures to be characterized as sites, <br />districts, or isolated finds. Sites were defined as the locus of previous human activity at <br />which the preponderance of evidence suggests either one-time diagnostically interpretable <br />use or repeated use over time, or multiple classes of activities. This would include isolated <br />thermal features such as hearths, single element rock art panels, isolated human burials, or <br />loci exhibiting ground stone and/or flaked stone. Isolated fords are generally defined as one <br />