As I was standing in the White River Museum, someone uttered the word “Gilsonite.” I thought about saying “Gesundheit!” This was the first time in my life I had ever heard the word Gilsonite. They patiently explained it was something mined in the Western part of Rio Blanco. I nodded and went home to Google it.
I discovered that this unique mineral is found in commercial quantities in only one place in the world: the Uintah basin in eastern Utah and western Rio Blanco County. Actually, Gilsonite is a trademarked name for the black rock named Uintaite. The White River Museum has samples in a display case. Come see them!
Early prospectors to the area turned in samples of this weird stuff to assayers in hopes of finding something valuable. The assayers didn’t have a clue what it was and pronounced it worthless. It is black and lightweight with a lustrous surface. It is a unique, naturally occurring hydrocarbon resin. It could easily be confused with coal. I can imagine some early hunter throwing some into his campfire. It would have either blown up or melted into an asphalt-like tar. Surprise!
In 1882, Samuel H. Gilson was an early pioneer to the area. In 1884, Sam took an interest in Uintaite and spent considerable time finding uses for this strange substance, buying claims, and finding his own. Sam enlisted a St. Louis mining engineer named C.O. Baxter. Gilsonite began to flow out of this rugged area from their claims.
Gilsonite is mined from the surface down in vertical deposits. Miners had to work in narrow trenches. Sometimes they had to stand sideways to swing a pickaxe. Gilsonite creates a lot of dust. This brown dust is explosive under certain conditions. The miners also complained of not being able to wash it off with normal soap and water. Gilsonite is not water soluble. One of the early uses of Gilsonite was in making a premium lacquer for fancy horse carriages. It makes a very shiny finish. It has been used to make electrical insulation, floor tiles, paving, high octane gas and coke for aluminum furnaces. Today, it is still an ingredient in lacquers, inks and paints. It is used as a binder in asphalt. Oil drillers use it in muds and cements.
Before Gilson and Baxter could get serious about mining, they had to solve a problem. The biggest claims were still inside the boundaries of the Uintah Indian reservation. They paid the Indian Trust $20 per acre for a wedge of the reservation. By 1901 Gilson Asphaultum Co. owned 300 claims. That was the majority control of all the Gilsonite in the world. The company also bought up mining claims in Rio Blanco County for over $100,000. That was serious money in 1901. It is believed one of the purchases included the Black Diamond coal mine above Meeker. James William Rector, a local pioneer, was instrumental in the development of both oil and Gilsonite in the lower White River Valley. The American Gilsonite company out of Bonanza, Utah, still owns narrow strips of land in RBC near the Utah border. Renae Neilson remembers her family running sheep near the deposits
Sources:
The Story of Gilsonite by Herbert F. Kretchman . Published by American Gilsonite Co, Salt Lake City 1957
Website of American Gilsonite Co. Bonanza, UT
The Uintah Railway The Gilsonite Route, by Henry E. Bender Jr. 1970
RB County Assessor, RBC county clerk, RBC treasurer
This is What I Remember, Rio Blanco Historical Society Vol I , page 125
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald times