Trump’s “Freedom Cities” Are a Devious Scam
Coal jutted from the hills and badlands in the area. Union Pacific, or UP, didn’t hesitate to lay tracks, dig mines, and set up a network of mining camps. By the early 1900s, Rock Springs grew into a proper town that was, for all intents and purposes, owned by Union Pacific. The company built shoddy housing with paper-thin walls for workers who toiled in mines where they were as likely to get mangled by runaway pit cars as they were to die in cave-ins or explosions. One former resident recalled visiting his uncle in company housing: “The UP coal houses were stark. They were clapboard, and I remember the linoleum being all worn out. The lighting was simply a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.” Meanwhile, Union Pacific Coal raked in a fortune.
Then, as now, my hometown had crushing rates of addiction and suicide. With miners regularly dying at work, the experience of living there was defined for many by despair. As if that wasn’t enough, Union Pacific evicted families from their meager homes whenever miners got killed. Former inhabitant Les Georgis told me about an explosion near Rock Springs that killed several miners. Following a mass funeral, where “the miners were laid out like cordwood,” Union Pacific evicted surviving family members from their homes, leaving them to fend for themselves.
“My wife’s grandma had been living in a coal camp house, and she had a little baby,” Georgis said. “The coal company told her that, since her husband wasn’t around to work the mine anymore, she had to move out. They put all her stuff out on the street. I knew another family that happened to as well.” Such cruelty combined with harsh conditions in the mines to push miners to organize and strike.