The Boncarbo, Colorado Photo Gallery

Boncarbo is one of those places on the map that used to be. A coal mining operation began here in the early 1900's with a portal at Boncarbo and another about 1 mile south at Dick's. Tracks were laid up Reilly Canyon from Cokedale to Boncarbo to carry the coal down to the ASARCO coke ovens at Cokedale. At the peak of operations, there were approximately 3,000 people in Boncarbo with another 1,500 or so at Dick's. The Dick's mine shut down in 1947, at the same time as the Cokedale mine. The Boncarbo mine closed in 1956 and by 1957, the population stood around 50. Today, the population is up from 50 but still...

...and these days, Boncarbo is in the heart of a major coal-bed methane development. All that coal in the ground is full of natural gas and with modern civilization's drive to burn fossil fuels and loose more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, well, we're now in the heart of a major industrial zone. The development at ground level receives major scrutiny from we who live here so the countryside and the wildlife are impacted as little as possible, but all those greenhouse gases being let loose at the other end of the pipelines... get in the face of your local governments: there aren't enough of us in Boncarbo to make any difference whatsoever, no matter how much money we have or don't have. The rest of America needs to speak up. In the meantime, I'm in the process of converting my home over to passive solar heat and full solar electric, using the funds I get from the gas royalty checks. And Colorado finally has a law on the books requiring the local power utility to purchase my excess power...