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Hanna Basin Museum - Old Carbon Study by the University of Wyoming

Page by Bob Leathers, archived from Hanna Basin Museum - Old Carbon Study by the University of Wyoming.

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.CARBON STUDY. JULY 6, 2022 (IMAGE BY BOB LEATHERS, 2022) 2

Year 1

2021 June 11: Alexandra Kelly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, History and Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, announced plans to study the Carbon area and the Carbon Cemetery.

I have a joint appointment at UW in History and Anthropology and have been developing an archaeological project at Carbon with my colleague, Jason Toohey. We also have a MA student named Katie Maag, who is mapping and geo-referencing the cemetery. We will all be out at Carbon from June 28-July 7 with our field school, and I thought you might be interested in stopping by if you are around this summer. ​(Alexandra Celia Kelly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, History and Anthropology, University of Wyoming)

2021 June 28 - July 7: Phase 1 of the Old Carbon City Study took place.
2021 August 12: Katie Maag described her part of the Carbon Study.

"Through this project, I intended to create a functional digital map of the Carbon cemetery using GPS mapping, drone imaging, and analysis of historical document such as cemetery and census records and hand drawn maps. This digital map will then be used to examine burial patterns within the space of the cemetery such as ethnic distinctions, documented vs. undocumented burials, and dates of burial within the cemetery. These patterns will help to show the cemetery at Carbon as a central aspect of the community both in the past and continuing into the present. This project also serves as a potential starting point for future investigations at Carbon and lays some of the groundwork for an analysis of the community as a whole.

My faculty advisor for this project is Dr. Jason Toohey and my committee members include Dr. Alexandra Kelly, Dr. Phil Roberts, and Dr. Rick Weathermon, all from the University of Wyoming. I have received funding from the A&S Dean’s Graduate Scholars grant through the University and the June Frison Memorial Fund of the George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology." (Kathryn Maag Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology University of Wyoming)

2021 August: When considering burials in the Carbon, Cemetery by ethnicity the following comments were provided by Katie Maag:

I also wanted to let you know about some other stuff that I've been finding re: 1903 burials by ethnicity.

I searched the census records, and of the 12 miners that died in the disaster buried at Carbon, 5 of them were in the 1900 census as residents of Carbon: John Deacon Jones, listed as a Drayman who owned a home; Henry Reese, listed as a coal miner living in a rented home with his parents Elizabeth and Thomas who are buried at Carbon; Joseph Sheffield and James Smith, both listed as coal miners who owned a home in Carbon; and James Watson Jr, who is listed as a part of his father James Watson Sr.'s (a coal miner) household, living in a home they owned. Watson Jr appears to have a sister Emily buried in Carbon and who I assume is a brother John who died in 1891 who he shares a gravestone with. John Deacon Jones also appears to have had family that was buried in Carbon before his death, though I didn't find them in the census - this might be because there is no 1890 census available to search through, as it was destroyed entirely in a fire in DC in 1921. I did not find any of the While family in the census either, possibly for the same reason.

I also found Mat Hakomaki, listed as a Finnish boarder in Carbon in 1900 as Matt Hakomaki who was buried in a marked grave in Hanna. From the Finnish people buried in unmarked graves, I found Henry Oja/Ojala, listed as Henry Ojala, also a boarder. John Alahuta/Huhta might be there as well, listed as John Anala whose wife was named Huhta, and they rented a home in Carbon; and also possibly Andrew Koski/Andry Korkiakaski listed as August Koski in the census who was a boarder in Carbon (this one is a bit more of a stretch).

Either way, it seemed to me from this data around half of the miners buried in Carbon from the UK had family ties to the town or to the cemetery (though not all of them), while the 2-4 Finnish miners I could find in the Carbon census who theoretically would have had ties to the town were mostly single boarders with no apparent family or monetary ties to Carbon, or John Alahuta who might not actually have any be the person I found in the census at all, and if he is, it was only him and his wife in a home they did not own. (Katie Maag)

2021 September 7:

​A cemetery can be an archaeological site. The Carbon Cemetery located nine miles southwest of Medicine Bow, Wyo., in the ghost town of Carbon, contains 239 marked gravesites, 43 of which are workers killed in the Old Carbon coal mines. A stable boss searching for stray mules, who was attacked and killed by Native Americans, is considered Carbon Cemetery’s first burial in 1869. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. (#WyoArchaeologyMonth)

2021 October: Dr. Alexandra Kelly's talk for the June Frison chapter of the Wyoming Archaeology Society.
2021 November 12:  Kathryn Maag - Master's Thesis Defense based on her study of the Old Carbon, Wyoming cemetery.

Carbon, Wyoming, occupied between 1868 and 1902, was the first established coal mining town along the Union Pacific Railroad in the state. Within the context of industrial expansion in the western U.S., the community at Carbon was intimately connected to larger 19th-century labor and migration processes. Today, all that remains are the ruins of a few of the larger buildings in town and the cemetery, which has recorded burials spanning from 1868 to 2018. The cemetery’s continued usage allows it to serve as a locus point tying the community of the past to the descendants of the present. Through the combination of census and cemetery records, as well as drone imaging and GPS data collection, a digital database and a GIS map were constructed that allowed for an analysis of cemetery records to discern patterns of familial ties, local tragedies, and the construction and growth of the cemetery over time. The results of this project highlight the value of cemetery archaeology and the creation and use of digital maps in contextualizing historical sites today and in the larger setting of the historical archaeology of the American West. This thesis also emphasizes the importance of descent communities in the preservation and continued utilization of historic cemeteries. (Kathryn Magg)

When viewing Kathryn Maag's master's thesis presentation video posted below, be aware they experienced some technical difficulties at the beginning. The sound will come on approximately a minute and a half after the start. If you like Old Carbon history, you will enjoy the video.

​​View at: Kathryn Maag's Master’s Thesis: Understanding Community Construction Through The Cemetery: A Spatial and Cultural Analysis of Burials in Carbon, Wyoming.

Year 2

2022 July 6: Year 2 of the University of Wyoming Carbon Study.

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.CARBON STUDY. JULY 6, 2022 (IMAGE BY BOB LEATHERS, 2022)

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.CARBON STUDY. JULY 6, 2022 (IMAGE BY BOB LEATHERS, 2022)

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.CARBON STUDY. JULY 6, 2022 (IMAGE BY BOB LEATHERS, 2022) 2

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.CARBON STUDY. JULY 6, 2022 (IMAGE BY BOB LEATHERS, 2022)

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