Castle Gate is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 located in Carbon County

Carbon County, Utah

Carbon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. Named for the major coal deposits in the area, the county seat and largest city, is Price. Carbon County is the second largest natural gas producer in Utah , with 94 billion cubic feet produced in 2008. As of 2010 the population was...

 in eastern Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, USA. Castle Gate was a mining town approximately 90 miles (144.8 km) southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

. The name of the town was derived from a rock formation near the mouth of Price Canyon. This formation features two sheer sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 walls on either side of the Price River

Price River

The Price River is a river in the state of Utah, in the United States. The river originates in the Wasatch Plateau in central Utah and flows southeastward through Price Canyon, alongside U.S. Route 6, to the cities of Helper and Price...

, which appear to open like a giant gate as travelers approach this narrow section of the canyon.

Coal mining origins

The first coal mine, named the Castle Gate Mine #1, opened around 1886, after the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad

The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to Rio Grande or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, is a defunct U.S. railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado in 1870; however, served mainly as a transcontinental...

 constructed its Utah Division

Utah Division (D&RGW)

The Utah Division of the former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad is a rail line that connects Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah in the Western United States. It is now incorporated into the Union Pacific Railroad system as its Green River and Provo Subdivisions, forming a...

 over the Wasatch Plateau, from the town of Springville, Utah

Springville, Utah

Springville is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 20,424 at the 2000 census, while the 2008 estimates placed it at 28,520. Just minutes south of Provo, Springville is a bedroom community for...

. The mine produced high-quality coal for the steam trains. In 1914, Castle Gate was incorporated as a town, which was owned and tightly controlled by the Utah Fuel Company and the D&RGW. Castle Gate Mine #2 opened in 1912, and was found to have the finest coal in the region. A third mine opened in 1922.

Historic events

The town is most famous for two historic events. On April 21, 1897, Butch Cassidy

Butch Cassidy

Robert LeRoy Parker , better known as Butch Cassidy, was a notorious American train robber, bank robber, and leader of the Wild Bunch Gang in the American Old West...

 and Elzy Lay

Elzy Lay

William Ellsworth "Elzy" Lay was an outlaw of the Old West best known as being a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, gang, operating out of the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in Johnson County, Wyoming...

 held up an employee of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company in a daylight robbery at the busy railroad station in Castle Gate, making off with $7,000 in gold.

On March 8, 1924, the Utah Fuel Company's Castle Gate Mine #2 exploded

Castle Gate Mine disaster

The Castle Gate mine disaster occurred on March 8, 1924, in a coal mine near the town of Castle Gate, Utah , located approximately southeast of Salt Lake City. All of the 171 men working in the mine were killed in the series of three violent explosions...

, killing 172 miners. It was the third-deadliest disaster in the history of coal mining in the United States at that time, and remains the tenth deadliest at present.

Deconstruction of the town

Castle Gate was dismantled in 1974, and residents were relocated to a new subdivision at the mouth of Spring Canyon, west of Helper

Helper, Utah

Helper is a city in Carbon County, Utah, United States about 120 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and northwest of the city of Price. It is also known as the "Hub of Carbon County". The population was 2,025 at the 2000 census....

. The former townsite was cleared by May 1974, and replaced with coal-loading facilities neighboring the railroad line.