Laserfiche WebLink
Discussion <br />The project area has been utilized historically for a variety of purposes. One of the <br />earliest usages includes the Salt Lake Wagon Road. The Salt Lake Wagon Road generally <br />followed the Denver Rio Grande Western Railroad through the Grand Valley to the Wasatch <br />Mountains in Utah. This was roughly the route that Captain Gunnison surveyed in 1853. <br />Very little of the original road can still be found. Along the northern periphery of the project <br />area lies Highway 6 (formerly the Colorado Midland Trail), as well as the Denver and Rio <br />Grande Western Railroad. <br />Homesteaders eyed the area early in the history of the Lower Valley, but these were <br />apparently unsuccessful. The following individuals filed within the project area: James T. <br />Allen (1889), Leonard R. Hill (1889), Benjamin U. Foster (1890), Charles D. Henderson <br />(1891), and Charles D. Egert (1895). No evidence was found of any land improvements or <br />habitation. Improvements to the land for agricultural purposes include the constriction of the <br />Loma Drain, which is classified as a canal. It runs east of Loma and west of the Gilsonite <br />refinery. <br />Later, the area was developed for industrial use. The Gilsonite refinery is located just <br />east of the project area, and its pipeline runs along the northern border. In 1956, the American <br />Gilsonite Corporation was built outside of Fruita, Colorado. A pipeline was built from the <br />mine in Bonanza, Utah to the refinery site. According to Time Magazine (12 August 1957): <br />"Under a blazing sun, the governors of Colorado and Utah last week took part <br />in a historic ceremony: the opening of the first privately financed U.S. plant to <br />make gasoline in quantity from a solid hydrocarbon. The place: American <br />Gilsonite Co.'s new $14 million refinery outside Grand Junction, Colo. There, <br />as Colorado's Steven L. R. McNichols and Utah's George Dewey Clyde each <br />pulled a handle, water gushed from a pipeline, turned black with particles of <br />Gilsonite ". <br />The first gilsonite actually arrived at the refinery on April 15, 1957. The pipeline was <br />72 miles long. It was built at a cost of 2.5 million dollars and would carry 700 tons of slurry a <br />day. The article goes on to state: "There the water is drained off and the dried gilsonite is fed <br />into retorts from which flow 54,600 gallons of gasoline and at least 250 bbl. [barrels of liquid] <br />of fuel oil daily. Some 275 tons of high -grade metallurgical coke are obtained from the <br />cracking process for sale at about $30 a ton to the coke -shy aluminum- smelting industry." In <br />1973, the refinery was sold to Gary Energy Company and it became an oil refinery. At its <br />peak, the refinery employed 300 people. The plant closed in 1993. <br />The isolates discovered during the present cultural resources inventory are consistent <br />with the local history of the area as described above. The artifacts noted in the field fall in a <br />time frame compatible with the Gilsonite refinery located adjacent to the project on its east <br />side. <br />10 <br />