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1~ ~w official mine records, has an extensive collection of photographs and newspaper clippings about the mine operation. Clinton Oliver was born in Pitkinr Colorado in 1884 and came with his parents to help run their Paonia orchard interests at the age of twelve. The family lived in the area now kno4m as Pitkin Mesa, and it is believed that this areal name originated with the Oliver family. In the early 1900'sr Oliver woxiced as a cleric with the Utah Fuel Canpany in the Somerset area. He also established the "Paonia Booster" (predecessor of the "Paonian" newspaper) and published the "Western Slope Fruit Grower". Mr. Oliver's publishing and public relations experience took him to various parts of Colorado and the Midwest until in 1971r he established his home in Paonia and began improve- ment of a coal tract east of Somerset. The Oliver Mine had opened in 1924, with its original portal north of the dirt surfaced forerunner to Highway 133• The first company officers were Clinton Oliver, President; F. D. Pelletierr Vice President; and E.T. Archer, Secretary- Treasurer. Mrs. Oliver's early pictures of the area showed the development of the Town of Oliver around the mining operation. The original tent mine office was re- •placed by a frame building in 1924, and by this time eight or nine "camp shanties" and company homes, a blacksmith shop and a boarding house had been erected. These small buildings existed on both sides of the river east of the mine, and it is this investigator's opinion that much of the structural rubble located during field inves- tigations is the remains of these structures. An early photograph of Oliver Mine employees, dated 1924, pictures twenty- three men, and it is Mrs. Oliver's opinion that more miners than those pictured may have been employed at this time. The mine opening on the north side of the canyon was connected to a wooden tipple that crossed the dirt road. Coal cars were hauled up the tipple by means of a Gabler and coal was weighed and screened into commercial sizes. In the 1920's, coal had to be trucked from the mine to Sommerset for rail transport. Mrs. Oliver remembered farmers driving up the frozen river in the winter months to replenish their supplies of "Red Glow Coal". Hy the end of 1927r the comparyy had signed contracts for more than one thousand cars of coal to be delivered in 1928• By the end or 1929r Red Glow Coal had a reputation of high quality through- out the Weste nr Slope, as attested to by a collection of letters from many satisfied • customers.