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• cannot be disputed, the haulage distance from some of its points being <br />over 6,000 feet, on dip grades from two degrees to four degrees." Coal <br />Creek N] closed in 1888. <br />Also in 1888 the ATBSF opened the Brookside Mine. During the late 1890's <br />it was the largest producer in the area but it closed in 1911 due to <br />water. Wagon mining leases continued to work it after that but it never <br />regained the prominence it had under Santa Fe. In 1940 it was finally <br />shut down because of a coal outcrop fire. <br />In 1896 the Atchison's dominance in the Canon City field came to an end <br />as CF&I obtained leases on the ATBSF Rockvale and Brookside Mines, the two <br />largest in the county, and bought the Fremont Mine, the fourth largest, <br />from Oak Creek Coal Co. According to Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. historian <br />H. Lee Scamehorn, "With this acquisition, all of the large producers in <br />the area came under the direction" of CF&I. The Pueblo firm held this <br />position until the mid-1920's. The CF&I era was the time of the country's <br />• maximum coal output. Peak production was achieved from 1917 to 1920, when <br />over 800,000 tons were produced annually. <br />During the first part of the period, CFBI was operating the Rockvale, <br />Brookside, Fremont, Chandler, Radiant, and Coal Creek p2. As the results <br />of a 1904 management fight, though, the Radiant and Chandler Mines were <br />split off from CF&I control and were given to John Osgood's Victor Fuel <br />Company. To take their place, CF&I quickly opened the last large mine in <br />the district, the Nonac (Canon spelled backwards), or CF&I N5. In <br />December 1969, the Nonac's main slope caved in, opening up a hole 40 feet <br />long and 40 feet deep on Prospect Heights south of Canon City, only 12' <br />from the Oak Creek Road. <br />CFBI operations stayed relatively stable throughout the first two decades <br />of the 20th century. Then gradually its mines closed: the Emerald in <br />1926, Coal Creek p2 and the Fremont in 1927, and the Brookside in 1937. <br />By then the Rockvale - that old standby - was the only CFBI operation <br />• still open. <br />2.04.4-3 <br />