Henry Cottle registered the first mining claim in what would become
northern Hot Springs County in the late 1880s. Henry Monro and Frank
Porter's Cedar Mountain "Cowboy Mine" followed in 1898. In 1906,
Burlington Railroad built its southbound line from Billings, Montana to
Frannie and Worland, Wyoming. The route was, in no small part, because
of the quality and quantity of coal near Kirby. With a rail contract for
a twenty-mile extension, Mormon pioneer Jesse W. Crosby, Jr. filed his
mining claim in 1910. Naturally, more entrepreneurs followed, including
Samuel Gebo. The coal camps of Gebo and Crosby were born, forming a
significant coal district that nurtured a true melting pot of
nationalities. Author Lea Schoenewald recounts the area's heyday and the
lives that powered its development.
