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Allison,
New Mexico, located on a coal
belt just northwest of
Gallup, once flourished as a
coal mining camp. Today there are just a few old company houses and
mobile homes to indicate that this was ever a town at all.
The mine was first opened by a man
named Gus Mulholland and later worked by Andrew Casna. However,
when Casna was killed at the mine, presumably by Indians, his
aggrieved widow fled to Germany. Her failure to keep up the
development work necessary to retain her husband's claim resulted in a
filing on the mine site by F. J. Allison and W. A. Patching in 1897. It was then that the town took its name for F.J. Allison. A post
office was opened in 1913 and the pair continued to work the mine
until 1917, when the Diamond Coal Company bought them out.
Allison was a company-owned town like
most of the others in McKinley County. Employees lived in the
small frame homes provided by the Diamond Coal Company. In
addition to providing a livelihood for Allison residents, the company
also furnished recreation for its employees in the form of tennis
courts and a company-sponsored baseball team. The town reported
a population of five hundred, a company store, a meat market, post
office, school, doctor and a sheriff.
Today the town has just a few
residents.
Clarkville, New Mexico
Though the town is long gone, during
its hey day it was an important lignite coal mining camp operated by
the Clark Coal Company. The camp, founded in 1898, was named for
its owner, W.A. Clark, a well-known mining magnate and millionaire.
Clarkville was reportedly a pretty little
place with comfortably-built houses. Among the town's features
were a two story brick commissary, a school building, a library and a
hospital. At the time, the town c laimed that it possessed so
many favorable characteristics that the miner and everyone living
there was happy and contented. Unique for these mining camps was
the fact that Clarkville never had a saloon and also prohibited the
sale of liqor on its premises.
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