An Eight-Foot Seam of Coal Turns Up on a Pend Oreille County Ranch
The 'coal strike' on the Dieder place near Dalkena is bigger than first reported — eight feet wide instead of three — and Newport is already dreaming of a mine, a spur, cheaper fuel and a new town tributary to its own.
Reports received from Dalkena regarding the coal strike on the Dieder ranch indicate that Mr. Dieder has really discovered a good vein of coal. Instead of being three feet in thickness, as was reported last week, the vein is fully eight feet wide.
The quality of the coal is also said to be very good, and appearances indicate that there is a large deposit of the black diamonds. If future investigations of the vein prove as good as the past, a mine will be developed.
The ranch is located near the head of Priest Creek and is but about three miles from the line of the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad, thus affording shipping facilities. Some of the neighboring ranchers are prospecting on their own property to see if they can find evidences of continuance of the vein on their lands. Samples of the coal will be sent to some of the state colleges to ascertain its commercial properties and value.
The development of a good coal mine as close to Newport as the Dieder ranch is located would mean the building of another town in this section that would be tributary to Newport, as well as furnish cheaper coal to those who use it in this place.
“The development of a good coal mine as close to Newport as the Dieder ranch is located would mean the building of another town in this section that would be tributary to Newport, as well as furnish cheaper coal to those who use it in this place.”
This is the boom impulse in miniature: a rancher strikes a seam, the neighbours start prospecting, samples go off to the state college, and the newspaper immediately extrapolates a mine, a railroad spur and a whole new town feeding Newport's economy. Pend Oreille County's coal hopes never produced the metropolis imagined here. It is a reminder of how many towns in this corner of Washington were sold, planned and abandoned on the strength of one promising hole in the ground.
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