Delagua, Colorado

Delagua is a ghost town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. The town site is about 5 miles (8 km) south of Aguilar. It served as a company-owned coal-mining town for the Victor-American Fuel Company.[2]

Delagua, Colorado
Delagua
Delagua
Coordinates: 37°20′24″N 104°39′47″W[1]
Country United States
State State of Colorado
CountyLas Animas
Time zoneUTC-7 (MST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-6 (MDT)
Highwaysnone

Delagua is a name derived from Spanish meaning "of the water" (and it refers to the 'canon of the water').[3] Delagua was incorporated as a town in 1903,[4] and its post office opened the same year. The Colorado and Southeastern Railway was extended to serve the mine and town.[2]

Delagua Mine

Delagua developed around the Delagua bituminous coal mine, opened in 1903 and operated by the Victor American Fuel Company.[2][5][6][7] It was located in Canon Del Agua, situated approximately three miles west of the Hastings Mine, the site of a mine explosion in 1917, and 8 miles west of the site of the Ludlow Massacre, which occurred in 1914. As of 1922, it was the largest mine in Colorado,[8] and at its peak employed at least 900 men.[2]

Delagua Social Club

In October 1917, the Delagua Mine was considered one of the "largest and finest 'mining camps' in the state".[9] By 1916 the saloon and dance hall had been converted into the Delagua Social Club, complete with "three first class pool tables and one billiard table", a soda fountain, bowling alleys, a stage that featured a motion picture show twice weekly and at least 250 members in 1917.[9]

Mine explosion

At the Delagua Mine on November 8, 1910, an explosion (loud enough to be heard three miles away in Hastings) killed 76 miners. Safety inspectors later determined that the blast was an explosion of gas and dust, caused by the open flame of a head lamp.[2][10] One month earlier, a similar explosion at the Starkville Mine claimed 57, which combined with the lives lost in the Delagua disaster resulted in 136 deaths in Las Animas County in just one month.[2]

A smaller disaster on May 27, 1927, killed six.[11]

Delagua was also the site of armed conflict between strikers and strike-breakers during the Colorado Coalfield War[12] in 1914.[13][14][15] A Colorado House of Representatives subcommittee heard testimony that strikebreaking workers were lured to the Delagua mine under false pretenses and held there by force.[16]

The mine was abandoned in 1969.[2]

Historical population
CensusPop.%±
1910958—
19201,0358.0%
19301,021−1.4%
1940422−58.7%
1950239−43.4%

References
  1. "Delagua (historical)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
  2. "Death at Delagua". Huerfano World Journal. Huerfano, CO. 15 Nov 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  3. Dawson, John Frank. Place names in Colorado: why 700 communities were so named, 150 of Spanish or Indian origin. Denver, CO: The J. Frank Dawson Publishing Co. p. 17.
  4. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (1910), Volume II: Population, p. 202, footnote 17
  5. ""47 Dead in Mine; 17 Saved So Far"". New York Times. New York. 11 Nov 1910. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  6. "Dead and Living Taken From Ill-Fated Colorado Mine", Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1910
  7. "Mine Dead Forty-Seven: Fourteen More Men Rescued Alive in Colorado Explosion", Washington Post, November 10, 1910
  8. "Middle West News in Brief", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1922
  9. Huskinson, Frank (20 Oct 1917). "How a Western Coal-Mining Village Manages a Social Club". Coal Age. Archive.org: McGraw-Hill Company, Inc. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  10. "Rescue Bodies in Mine Wreck", Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1910
  11. "Six Killed in Colorado Mine", New York Times, May 28, 1927
  12. "A History of the Colorado Coal Field War". du.edu. University of Denver, CO. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  13. "30 Besieged in Mine May Be Suffocated; Mouth of Slope Blocked by Dynamite Explosions Caused by Strikers". New York Times. New York. 23 April 1914. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  14. ""2,000 Strikers in Ambush for Troop Train"". New York Times. New York. 24 April 1914. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  15. ""Must Surrender Colorado Arms; Secretary Garrison, in Proclamation, Makes Sweeping Demand on Both Sides."". New York Times. New York. 3 May 1914. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  16. ""Miner's Story of Peonage; Says He Was Brought to Work By Deception"". New York Times. New York. 11 Feb 1914. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
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