Laserfiche WebLink
and 1890s, with some claims made as late as the 1930s. Within the Sage Creek project area, both <br />ranching and grain farming occurred. <br />By the early 20th century, energy exploration was an important part of the economy in this <br />corner of the state. Coal production boomed off and on in the Yampa Valley from 1900-1930, and <br />oil speculation was strong from about 1913 to 1930. Although Colorado, like the rest of the nation, <br />experienced difficulties during the depression years of 1930-1940 and during WWII (1941-1945), <br />oil and gas discoveries began to be developed in western Colorado in the late 1930s. By the late <br />1940s, the gas and oil fields of the area began to be exploited to their full potential. <br />Within the Sage Creek project area ranching, limited grain farming, and coal mining are the <br />dominant historic themes. Sites related to these show up in the files search and were expected <br />during inventory. <br />File and GLO Searches <br />Numerous files searches have been conducted through the Office of Archaeology and <br />Historic Preservation (OAHP) in Denver and the Little Snake Field Office (LSFO), BLM in Craig, <br />Colorado for Twentymile Coal over the last decade for several large block surveys and for many <br />small block and linear projects. <br />Table 2 List of previous cultural resource nroiects within or adiacent to nroiect area <br />CO OAHP Reference Number <br />MC.E.R17 RT.LM.NR17 RT.LM.R7 RT.LM.R73 <br />MC.LM.R2 RT.LM.NR38 RT.LM.R21 RT.LM.R74 <br />MC.LM.R319 RT.LM.NR39 RT.LM.R44 RT.LM.R84 <br />RT.CM.NR2 RT.LM.NR49 RT.LM.R54 RT.PA.R2 <br />RT.LM.NR3 <br />For the current project, a file search was conducted using the on-line database, Compass, <br />maintained by the OAHP in Denver on August 15, 2008 and at the BLM-LSFO on August 20, 2008. <br />According to those sources, '17 previous inventories (Appendix A, Maps 1 and 2) have occurred <br />within the current project area or overlap its boundaries (Table 2, above). One of these was a coal <br />mining planning study (Mehls and Mehls 1991), two were Class II sampling projects that included <br />some fieldwork conducted within the current project area and the remainder were Class III <br />inventories. The majority of the previous linear surveys were for seismic lines, coring sites, and <br />access roads related to coal exploration but there have also been several inventories for transmission <br />line right-of-ways that traverse Twentymile Park and the project area.. Because most of these <br />previous inventories were either small linear or block surveys or were conducted more than 20 years <br />ago (Arthur and Jennings 1975; Wheeler et al. 1981), no effort was made to avoid these previously <br />surveyed areas and they were resurveyed where they intersected this project. The exception was the <br />Peabody Coal Company. Yoast Mine Expansion Area Project (Travis and Shields 1994) which was <br />conducted in 1992 and overlaps the western edge of the current project area. Since this project was <br />conducted more recently, the previous project area was not resurveyed where it overlapped the <br />current project. However, because of the uncertainty of the effects of subsidence, one prehistoric <br />9