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Delagua, Colorado

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Coordinates: 37°20′24″N 104°39′47″W / 37.3400°N 104.6630°W / 37.3400; -104.6630 (Delaqua)
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Delagua, Colorado
The Delagua site and County Road 44
The Delagua site and County Road 44
Delagua is located in Colorado
Delagua
Delagua
Delagua is located in the United States
Delagua
Delagua
Coordinates: 37°20′24″N 104°39′47″W / 37.3400°N 104.6630°W / 37.3400; -104.6630 (Delaqua)[1]
Country United States
State State of Colorado
CountyLas Animas
Elevation
6,686 ft (2,038 m)
Time zoneUTC-7 (MST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-6 (MDT)
Highwaysnone

Delagua is an extinct town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. The town site is about 5 miles (8 km) south of Aguilar. It served as a company-owned coal-mining town for the Victor-American Fuel Company.[2] The Delagua post office operated from April 30, 1903, until May 31, 1954.[3]

Delagua is a name derived from Spanish meaning "of the water" (and it refers to the 'canon of the water').[4] Delagua was incorporated as a town in 1903,[5] and its post office opened the same year. The Colorado and Southeastern Railway was extended to serve the mine and town.[2]

Delagua Mine

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Delagua developed around the Delagua bituminous coal mine, opened in 1903 and operated by the Victor American Fuel Company.[2][6][7][8] It was located in Canon Del Agua, situated approximately three miles west of the Hastings Mine, the site of a mine explosion in 1917, and 8 miles (13 kilometers) west of the site of the Ludlow Massacre, which occurred in 1914. As of 1922, it was the largest mine in Colorado,[9] and at its peak employed at least 900 men.[2]

Delagua Social Club

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In October 1917, the Delagua Mine was considered one of the "largest and finest 'mining camps' in the state".[10] By 1916, the saloon and dance hall had been converted into the Delagua Social Club, complete with "three first class pool tables and one billiard table", a soda fountain, bowling alleys, a stage that featured a motion picture show twice weekly and, at least, 250 members, in 1917.[10]

Mine explosion

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At the Delagua Mine on November 8, 1910, an explosion (loud enough to be heard three miles away in Hastings) killed 76 miners. Safety inspectors later determined that the blast was an explosion of gas and dust, caused by the open flame of a head lamp.[2][11] One month earlier, a similar explosion at the Starkville Mine claimed 57, which combined with the lives lost in the Delagua disaster resulted in 136 deaths in Las Animas County, in just one month.[2]

A smaller disaster on May 27, 1927, killed six.[12]

Delagua was also the site of armed conflict between strikers and strike-breakers during the Colorado Coalfield War[13] in 1914.[14][15][16] A Colorado House of Representatives subcommittee heard testimony that strikebreaking workers were lured to the Delagua mine, under false pretenses, and held there by force.[17]

The mine was abandoned in 1969.[2]

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1910958—
19201,0358.0%
19301,021−1.4%
1940422−58.7%
1950239−43.4%

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Delagua (historical)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Death at Delagua". Huerfano World Journal. Huerfano, CO. November 15, 2015. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  3. ^ Bauer, William H.; Ozment, James L.; Willard, John H. (1990). Colorado Post Offices 1859–1989. Golden, Colorado: Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation. ISBN 0-918654-42-4.
  4. ^ Dawson, John Frank. Place names in Colorado: why 700 communities were so named, 150 of Spanish or Indian origin. Denver, CO: The J. Frank Dawson Publishing Co. p. 17.
  5. ^ Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (1910), Volume II: Population, p. 202, footnote 17
  6. ^ ""47 Dead in Mine; 17 Saved So Far"". New York Times. New York. November 11, 1910. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  7. ^ "Dead and Living Taken From Ill-Fated Colorado Mine", Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1910
  8. ^ "Mine Dead Forty-Seven: Fourteen More Men Rescued Alive in Colorado Explosion", Washington Post, November 10, 1910
  9. ^ "Middle West News in Brief", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1922
  10. ^ a b Huskinson, Frank (October 20, 1917). "How a Western Coal-Mining Village Manages a Social Club". Coal Age. Archive.org: McGraw-Hill Company, Inc. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  11. ^ "Rescue Bodies in Mine Wreck", Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1910
  12. ^ "Six Killed in Colorado Mine", New York Times, May 28, 1927
  13. ^ "A History of the Colorado Coal Field War". du.edu. University of Denver, CO. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  14. ^ "30 Besieged in Mine May Be Suffocated; Mouth of Slope Blocked by Dynamite Explosions Caused by Strikers". New York Times. New York. April 23, 1914. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  15. ^ ""2,000 Strikers in Ambush for Troop Train"". New York Times. New York. April 24, 1914. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  16. ^ ""Must Surrender Colorado Arms; Secretary Garrison, in Proclamation, Makes Sweeping Demand on Both Sides."". New York Times. New York. May 3, 1914. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
  17. ^ ""Miner's Story of Peonage; Says He Was Brought to Work By Deception"". New York Times. New York. February 11, 1914. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
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