Analysts see a future for coal under the new Trump administration despite mine and energy plant closures, and federal regulations.
HELPER, Utah—Roman Vega Jr. had just graduated from high school when he first encountered the underground “long wall” at the coal mine where his father worked in Colorado.
It was not a place for the timid or the claustrophobic, Vega recalls. The work was loud, dusty, and hazardous.
“You could see how big it was and how deep underground you had to go to get to these places,” said Vega, who is from Helper, Utah. “You watched these [machine] blades just tear through the mountain.”
Eerily, he could hear the mountain vibrate or “sing” through the large bolts driven into the stone to prevent the mine’s roof from collapsing.
Vega said the experience overwhelmed him and he told his father, “I can’t do this” for a living. “I’d prefer to jump out of airplanes and get shot at.”
He then enlisted in the Army and served four combat tours in Iraq.
Now, as the director and curator of Helper’s Mining and Railroad Museum, Vega preserves the town’s rich, and at times tragic, history of coal mining in Carbon County.
The town, established in 1881, was named after the “helper” locomotive that helped trains climb Price Canyon’s sheer slopes. It remained a significant hub for coal transport well into the 20th century.
“I’m not a coal miner, but I do know the history of coal mining in this area,” Vega said. “There’s a lot of coal—a lot of value in these mountains.”
Today, the coal mining rail cars still rumble through Helper (population 2,126), but the town is no longer the same diverse coal community it once was.
At one point, more than 20 different languages were spoken there.
Although the town looks largely the same in photos and postcards from nearly a century ago, its focus has shifted toward tourism, history, culture, and the arts.
More than a dozen shops and restaurants line Main Street, set against the backdrop of the steep shale and sandstone Book Cliffs mountains over Helper.
“The great thing about Carbon County is it has some of the purest, cleanest coal out there. But, there’s the difficulty getting to it,” Vega told The Epoch Times.
Much of the coal remains deep underground, requiring expensive heavy equipment as well as highly trained workers to extract it.
By Allan Stein
