Даусон: Көмір шахталарының қасіреті мен қаланың тарихы

Dawson (also Mountview) is a ghost town in Colfax County, New Mexico, United States. Dawson is located approximately 17 miles (27.4 km) northeast of Cimarron, and was the site of two separate coal mining disasters in 1913 and 1923. In 1950, the mines were closed, and by 1954 the last residents had left and the post office closed.

Dawson and its area were part of the Maxwell Land Grant. In the late 1860s, Lucien B. Maxwell sold more than of land to John Barkley Dawson for $3,700. Dawson and his brother L. S. Dawson settled on the Vermijo River in 1867. In 1905, Eddy sold the mines and railroad to the Phelps Dodge Company. Phelps Dodge main interest was in the coking quality of the coal, which made it suitable for steelmaking, which was one of the company's business interests at the time.

On October 22, 1913, Dawson suffered its first major disaster. Stag Canyon Mine No. 2 was shaken by an explosion that was felt two miles (3.2 km) away in the town proper. Relief teams rushed in from surrounding communities and as far away as Pittsburg, Kansas and Rock Springs, Wyoming, but of the 286 men who arrived to work in the Stag Canyon mine that morning, only 23 survived. Most of 263 killed were Hispanics and foreign born Italians and Greeks. One of the surviving miners was George Mavroidis who witnessed 16 men around him lose their lives before he himself lost consciousness. He woke up the next morning in the mine office. Phelps Dodge sent a special train from El Paso, Texas, with doctors and nurses, but to no avail. Of the worker casualties, 146 were Italian and 36 were Greek. Two rescuers died during the rescue effort. It was later determined that the explosion was caused by a dynamite charge set off while the mine was in general operation, igniting coal dust in the mine. This was in violation of mining safety laws. The other mines remained productive after the disaster in Mine No. 2. In 1923, another mine explosion killed 123 miners: On February 8, Stag Canyon Mine No. 1 suffered an explosion. A mine car derailed, knocking down timbers and the electric trolley cable, causing sparks and igniting coal dust in the mine. many of them descendants of the men who died in 1913.

Dawson did not become a ghost town until 1950, when the Phelps Dodge Corporation shut down the mines. At closure, Mine 6 was the largest producer, and several other mines had been previously closed out because of declining demand. The closures were also due in large part to the completion of the twenty five year coal contract with the Southern Pacific Railroad. The entire town was sold or razed, with some of the miners' houses moved to other locations. The Southern Pacific branch to Tucumcari was lifted at about the same time. But in 1965 the northern portion of the roadbed was used by the Santa Fe Railroad, for new tracks continuing up the canyon through Dawson plus an additional 15 miles or 24.1 km (approximately) to a new mine in York Canyon. This open pit mine was initially operated by Kaiser Steel, with their output being transported to their steel mill at Fontana, California. The tall smoke stacks of the coking ovens were eventually demolished in the early 2000s because they represented a liability to the current owner of the property. The only significant landmark remaining in Dawson is the Dawson Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The cemetery is filled with iron crosses painted white, marking the graves of many miners who died in the mines. Other markers show the burial locations of other residents of Dawson. Dawson can be reached by taking Route 64 approximately 12 miles (19.3 km) east of Cimarron and then heading north onto A38 at the striped sign and proceeding on that road for another 5 miles (8.1 km). After A38 crosses the adjacent railroad tracks a second time, turn onto the dirt road on the right (which proceeds east of A38 for approximately 1,000 feet (304.8 meters)) to reach the site of the Dawson cemetery. The ruins of Dawson can be seen by continuing north on A38, which turns into Barus Road and then splits into Lauretta Road and Rail Canyon Road.

Dolores Huerta (born 1930), labor leader and activist and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, was born in Dawson.