Our History
Take a Walking Tour of the Town
New Castle Museum
Constructed in 1893 of unglazed brick, the building at 116 North 4th originally served as Town Hall, with a fire station located in the front. With the construction of the new Town Hall in 1984, the building became the town museum. The museum contains photographs, animal pelts, kitchenware and other household goods, old-fashioned medicines, a collection of oral histories and other relics of New Castle’s history. Behind the museum stands the town calaboose. The tiny jail, also built in 1893, has two-foot thick walls of rough quarried stone. Please call the Historic Society for a tour (970) 984-2142.
Town History
Before there was a New Castle, before there was a Colorado, before there was a United States of America, before Europeans knew that there was a North America: the Ute people knew this region. They called themselves the Nuche, which means “the people.” The Nuche hunted on the Flat Tops, and used it as a crossing between the east and west sides of the Rockies. The Colorado River Valley, along with tributaries like Elk Creek, provided a winter home, as well as a safe haven to raise their families and bury their dead. In 1881 the Ute Tribe were removed by force from Northwestern Colorado to the Uinah and Ouray Reservation in Utah. The other two Ute reservations are the Southern Ute Reservation and the Ute Mountain Reservation, both in southern Colorado. Soon afterward, white settlement of the area began.
1883 Jasper Ward, who had been operating a freight business with his brothers in Leadville, brought his wife Annie and daughter Netti to Carbonate, the original Garfield County seat on the Flat Tops. Carbonate was abandoned when the Flat Tops winters became unendurable, and the Wards made their way to the Colorado River Valley. Ward claimed a homestead site at the confluence of Elk Creek and the Colorado River, becoming the first white settler to build a home in New Castle in 1883. The Ute Chief Colorow had remained in his ancestral home, and became a frequent visitor and friend to Jasper Ward. New Castle honors Chief Colorow with the Colorow Trail, which loops through the hills just north of town.
1887 Memories of the Meeker Massacre in 1879 were still fresh, and in 1887 County Sheriff Jim Kendall instigated a small battle near Meeker with Colorow’s followers. Kendall requested help from Colorado Governor Alva Adams, who sent seven brigades of the Colorado National Guard. Jasper Ward joined this group hoping to negotiate a peaceful settlement with his friend Colorow. Unfortunately as Ward was approaching the Utes for negotiations, a shot was fired by a Guardsman. More followed, and Ward, caught in the open, was killed. He was buried in Linwood Cemetery in Glenwood Springs.
1887 Four years after Ward built his cabin, New Castle had over 1000 residents. The sudden growth was due to the vein of high quality coal which lies in the Grand Hogback. While coal was mined in other areas of the 100-mile-long Hogback, the place where it intersects the Colorado River Valley gave the easiest access. Coal was important because silver mining was already well established in the Rockies. Coal was converted to coke, which was then used to smelt the silver taken from mines near Leadville and Aspen. There were several mining barons who amassed huge fortunes from the Rocky Mountain silver mines and the associated industries. Walter Devereux came to Colorado to manage the Aspen Mining and Smelter Company for James Wheeler. He became president of the Grand River Coke and Coal Company with mines throughout western Colorado. Devereux was active in establishing Glenwood Springs, and he built the Hotel Colorado in 1891. In New Castle he purchased mining property on Burning Mountain and a lot of land in town. It was his work, beginning in 1884, that led to the incorporation of the town in 1888. There were five mines in New Castle: the Consolidated, the Keystone, the Coryell, the B&M and the largest of them all, the Vulcan.
1888 The Town of New Castle, which had briefly gone by the names Grand Buttes and Chapman, was incorporated in February 2, 1888.
1888 Highland Cemetery, which was at the time north of town, was established the same year the town was established. Among the earliest burials were Civil War veterans who settled in the New Castle area after the war.
1888 In October of 1888 the Colorado Midland Railroad reached New Castle from Glenwood Springs, Aspen, and Leadville to the east. The railroad provided both convenient passenger service and, more importantly, a way to move large quantities of New Castle coal to the coke ovens in Cardiff and Redstone. Both the Colorado Midland and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company were in a race to reach the Western Slope. James John Hagerman, president of the Colorado Midland, planned a route from Leadville over the mountains to Basalt. At the same time he planned the line from Aspen to New Castle. The Denver and Rio Grande route was through the Colorado River Valley and Glenwood Canyon, and the tracks reached New Castle shortly after the Colorado Midland. The Colorado Midland tracks terminated in New Castle, while the Denver and Rio Grande continued its tracks west toward Grand Junction. Both lines shared the tracks west of town.
1891 Congress authorized the establishment of forest preserves in March 1891. In October the White River Plateau Timberland Reserve became the second national forest in the country.
1893 Conditions in the mines were difficult for the miners. They worked long hours in darkness underground, in poorly ventilated mine shafts which were sometimes only three feet high. They had to buy their own tools. In October of 1893 the Vulcan Mine company had failed to give workers their paychecks for two months. The workers walked off the job for two days and the matter was quickly resolved. In the meantime, at the Consolidated, miners were ordered to cover their lamps to prevent possible explosions. Though safer, the miners would have to work in near darkness. The miners struck and demanded more pay and adjustments in working conditions. In the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, owner of the Consolidated, held firm and told strikers their pay would be cut. After three months the owners made some concessions, but only hired back a fraction of the miners and at lower pay. The long period with no pay forced the miners, lucky enough to get work, back into the mine.
1896 On February 18, 1896, methane gas exploded in the Vulcan Mine. Forty-nine Miners were killed that day. Many of the miners are buried in Highland Cemetery.
1897 Mine explosions weren’t the only disasters to plague the town. Two competing railroad companies shared tracks between New Castle and Grand Junction, and trains raced to make the journey without stopping at switches to allow an oncoming train to pass. Accidents were not uncommon. The most noteworthy accident occurred on September 10, 1897. Westbound Rio Grande no. 506 and eastbound Colorado Midland 22 collided head-on at GraMid (named for the two railroads) just west of New Castle. Casualty reports were wildly divergent after the crash, but at least 20 people were killed. Frightful Railroad Wreck, Followed by Fire.
1899 After the Vulcan explosion, mining continued in New Castle’s other mines, but in 1910 the Consolidated, located in Ward’s Peak (Burning Mountain) caught fire. Attempts to quench it failed, and the mine was closed.
1903-04 Attempts at unionization were vigorously opposed by the mine owners, especially Perry Coryell, owner of the Coryell Mine directly south of town. Coryell also owned one of the town’s newspapers and the residential property along 7th Street known as Coryell Town. Strikes had occurred previously, but the 1903-04 strike, involving 200 miners, erupted in violence. In December 1903 four homes belonging to leaders of the United Mine Workers were dynamited. Coryell’s newspaper accused the miners of blowing up their own homes, as well as other atrocities. In May 1904, miner and union official John Lawson confronted Coryell in a Main Street barber shop. The argument spilled into the street and Coryell grabbed a shotgun and shot Lawson in the leg. Lawson survived and Coryell left the state later in 1904.
1905 Teddy Roosevelt had hunted in Colorado before he became president, but his April 1905 trip was special. President Roosevelt came first to Glenwood Springs, where his aides set up a Western White House at the Hotel Colorado. Then a special train brought the President to New Castle, where he gave a short speech, and the set off on horseback with his guides up Divide Creek. As it often does, snow fell in April in 1905. Toward the end of the trip, a blizzard kept the hunting party close to camp for several days. The President spent three weeks up Divide Creek, and the party killed 10 bears, which were displayed in New Castle. Rather than take the train back to Glenwood Springs, Roosevelt rode his horse, stopping to talk to farmers and ranchers on the way.
1908 With coal mines closing, the discovery of gold in East Elk Creek Canyon brought excitement to the town. The Grey Eagle mine opened about 10 miles from town, and soon John Higdon struck gold further up the canyon. Unfortunately the gold veins proved insignificant and the gold rush ended in 1909.
1910 Billy Griffith was a former Town Marshall, a popular baseball player and a saloon owner. On November 9, 1910 he was convicted in court of assault, unfairly he believed. The next day, November 10, he accosted Frank Sample, one of the people who had testified against him, on Main Street. Town Marshall John Rennix came to the rescue, and Sample was able to escape. Griffith had two pistols out, and he shot Rennix in the stomach. Rennix was able to get off a couple shots before collapsing, and he managed to wound Griffith. All this happened in front of the Trimble building, and Griffith ran inside and up to the second floor. Meanwhile William Davis and Town Councilor Hugh Miller had rushed to Marshall Rennix to try to help. Griffith started firing from a second floor window, and hit Davis in the head, killing him. A posse of nearly 40 men arrived from Glenwood Springs and fired into the building. No one, however, dared to enter the building until Griffith’s girlfriend, Lelia McMichael, volunteered. Inside she discovered that Griffith had turned his gun on himself and shot himself in the head. Rennix died the next day at the sanitarium in Glenwood Springs. Griffith, Rennix and Davis are all buried in Highland Cemetery.
1913 The Vulcan Mine had been closed after the 1896 explosion. In 1910 new owners, the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, opened a new entrance and resumed mining. On December 16, 1913, the Vulcan exploded again, killing 37.
1918 Three mine workers who were cleaning a small area of the Vulcan Mine were killed in an explosion on November 3, 1918. Following this accident, New Castle’s most productive mine was permanently closed. The Vulcan coal seam is still burning in Coal Ridge, south of the Colorado River, and the Consolidated Mine still burns in Burning Mountain. The heat from the fires destroys vegetation and melts snow along the long scars in the Hogback.
After Coal After the boom brought by coal mining, New Castle experienced a bust when the mines closed. While other towns experiencing a similar bust simply disappeared, New castle survived. There is fertile land surrounding New Castle which gave rise to farms and ranches. We had peaches, sugar beets, potatoes, along with cattle and sheep that were sometimes herded down Main Street. Nearby forests provided additional economic support. Trees were harvested on the Flat Tops and the Clinetops and trucked down the Buford Road and the treacherous Clinetops Road to the railroad depot on Main Street. The local saw mill, operated by William and Earl Rippy, was on the Flat Tops, near the present location of Triangle Park.
1932 The National Forest Service created the Flat Tops Primitive Area, which was the first protected wilderness in the country.
1938 Garfield County’s first public library was installed in a room at the west end of the New Castle School on Main Street.
1967 Garfield County built the first county library building in New Castle, designating it the main library in the county system. Little remains of the 1967 building following extensive rebuilding and expansion in 2012.
1971 Interstate 70, paralleling the Colorado River and New Castle’s Main Street, was completed through town in 1971. Full interstate access to the east was delayed, however, until 1992, when the “final link” through Glenwood Canyon was opened.
1982 May 2, 1982 is known in Garfield County as Black Sunday, marking the end of the oil shale boom. During the 1970’s the search for a method to profitably extract oil from the shale deposits in Northwest Colorado boosted the area’s economy and population. A large influx of federal funds supported the efforts of several oil companies. The evening newspapers on May 2, 1982, reported that Exxon, the largest employer in the area, was shutting down its oil shale operations. 2,100 people immediately lost their jobs. Other companies followed suit, and between 1982 and 1985, nearly 24,000 people left Garfield and Mesa counties.
1984 The new Town Hall and the Community Center were built in 1984, using Oil Shale impact funds granted to the town. The old Town Hall on 4th Street, became the town’s historical museum.
1989 For most of New Castle’s history, the land north of Mt. Medaris was farm and ranch land. In 1989, 101 years after the town’s incorporation, ground was broken in Castle Valley Ranch, marking the beginning of the housing boom which brought the population to 4,500 in 2010.
1994 Storm King Mountain is located just east of New Castle. On July 2, 1994, a lightning strike sparked a fire which grew to create one of the most disastrous wildfires in Colorado history. On July 6, 20 Hotshots from Prineville, Oregon, joined the attempt to control the fire. In the late afternoon, flames rushed uphill toward firefighters, eventually overtaking and killing fourteen. Hot Shot Park in New Castle is named in honor of the firefighters, and a memorial trail up the mountain begins at the terminus of Route 6, east of New Castle.
2004 Lakota Canyon Ranch Golf Course opened in 2004. The course, rated among the top 20 in Colorado, was designed by James Engh.
2012 The original building in the Garfield County Library system, on Main Street in New Castle, was scheduled for remodeling in 2011. During the design and construction process, most of the original library was replaced and the floor space doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. The new library reopened on April 14, 2012.
