San Rafael Swell, Utah

Overlook from Book Cliff trail

Boot Hill cemetery

Sego is a ghost town. It lies in the narrow, winding Sego Canyon north of Thompson Springs.

Formerly an important eastern Utah coal mining town, Sego was inhabited about 1910–1955. The town was accessed via the grade of the Ballard & Thompson Railroad, a spur from the Denver and Rio Grande Western built by the founders of the town to transport the coal.  Henry Ballard, one of the founders of Thompson Springs, discovered an exposed vein of anthracite coal here in 1908 while exploring the many canyons of the Book Cliffs. He quietly bought the land and began to hire local laborers to mine the coal. The coal camp was naturally called Ballard.

By 1911 Ballard had sold out to a Salt Lake City businessman named B.F. Bauer, who formed a corporation called American Fuel Company. The company began to expand mining operations far beyond Ballard's unambitious scale, installing a modern coal tipple and the first coal washer west of the Mississippi River. The Ballard & Thompson Railroad company organized in 1911, its officers including Bauer and Ballard, and started to construct a spur line from Thompson to Ballard. In its five-mile run up the winding canyon, the rail line crossed the stream thirteen times. American Fuel Company also developed the town, renamed Neslen during the railroad construction for the mine's new general manager, Richard Neslen. Soon a company store, boarding house, and other buildings went up, each with its own water system. Neslen was a fairly typical company town, but in addition to building numerous company houses, mine owners took the unusual policy of allowing miners to build their own cabins wherever they chose. Shacks and dugouts dotted the canyon. When the railroad was completed in 1912, Neslen was granted its own post office. Coal began shipping in October 1912, most of it going to the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The next year the Ballard & Thompson became a subsidiary of the D&RGW.

The town's most serious problem, almost from the beginning, was a diminishing water supply. The water table was dropping, the creeks and springs drying up. One summer the water slowed to such a trickle that the coal washer could not even operate. Paradoxically, the railroad was plagued by excessive water, flash floods frequently damaging the bridges and trestles. The small train that served the mine was off the track as much as one fourth of the time. By 1915 profits were low to nonexistent, and paydays very irregular. Like many mines, the company tried to enforce a system where miners were paid in scrip redeemable only at the company store. Miners who dared to shop in Thompson, where prices were half those at Neslen, were threatened with the loss of their jobs. The miners went on strike in April 1915, not having been paid in five months. Many of them returned to work with the company still owing them back pay. Employment was scarce in the region, and in October 1915 wages were cut by 12–20%. Frustrated by the mine's unprofitability, Bauer forced a corporate reorganization in 1916. Richard Neslen was replaced, and the company renamed Chesterfield Coal Company. The town's name was also changed in 1918, this time to Sego for the sego lily, Utah's state flower, which grew abundantly in the canyon. The reorganization didn't solve the company's financial difficulties, however. Sego's miners were never paid regularly until they joined the United Mine Workers in 1933.  On November 1,1947, the mine was closed and the property sold at auction.

The stone company store

The former Sego boarding house

Sego Canyon Rock Art

The canyon contains rock art from three different Native American cultures.

Behind the Reef Road

Wild horses at McKay Flat.

 Wild horses and burros have occupied the San Rafael Swell area since the beginning of the Old Spanish Trail in the early 1800s. Early travelers would lose animals or have them run off by Indians or rustlers.

Wild horses near Eagle Canyon

Eagle Canyon trail

Known as the Icebox, a narrow cave-like formation, deep and tall with a shaft up top, where the Swasey brothers and other cowboys used to keep their perishables cool during the late 1800's and early 1900's.  The alcove in the rock is what’s known as Joe’s Office.

The Swasey brothers, Joe, Sid, Charley, and Rod, were some of the early cattlemen that explored the San Rafael Swell while running cattle there in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  In 1921, Joe Swasey built what is known as Swasey's Cabin in the heart of the Swell. The cabin was to be used as shelter by the Swasey's and other cowboys when running cattle in the area. 100 years later the cabin is still  standing.

 Lone Warrior pictograph

Crossing under Highway 70

Head of Sinbad pictograph

Wild roaming burros

Love those white faces

Molen Reef area of the San Rafael Swell 

Ascending Sheep panel

Ascending Sheep pictograph

The panel consists of a number of Barrier Canyon Style images that depict a parade of bighorn sheep ascending from both sides up to another interesting figure that has the head of a sheep and a snake in its mouth.

Mc Donald Hole

How did we miss these on the way out?

Retrieving an old mylar balloon

Looks like someone took the curve a little too fast