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.

Delagua developed around the Delagua bituminous coal mine, operated by the Victor American Fuel Company. As of 1922, it was the largest mine in Colorado.[1]

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

On November 8, 1910, an explosion in the mine killed 76 miners.[5][6][7][8][9] A smaller disaster on May 27, 1927, killed six.[10]

Delagua was also the site of armed conflict between strikers and strike-breakers during the Colorado Coalfield War in 1914.[11][12][13][14] 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.[15]

The mine was abandoned in 1969.[16]

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

References

  1. ↑ "Middle West News in Brief", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1922
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (1910), Volume II: Population, p. 202, footnote 17
  4. ↑ "Death at Delagua", Huerfano Journal, November 15, 2015
  5. ↑ "Death at Delagua", ibid.
  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. ↑ "47 Dead in Mine; 17 Saved So Far", New York Times, November 10, 1910
  9. ↑ "Rescue Bodies in Mine Wreck", Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1910
  10. ↑ "Six Killed in Colorado Mine", New York Times, May 28, 1927
  11. ↑ "30 Beseiged in Mine May Be Suffocated", New York Times, April 23, 1914
  12. ↑ "2,000 Strikers in Ambush for Troop Train," New York Times, April 24, 1914
  13. ↑ "Colorado Appeals for Federal Troops", New York Times, April 26, 1914
  14. ↑ "Must Surrender Colorado Arms", New York Times, May 3, 1914
  15. ↑ "Miner's Story of Peonage", New York Times, February 11, 1914
  16. ↑ "Death at Delagua", ibid.

Coordinates: 37°20′24″N 104°39′50″W / 37.340°N 104.664°W / 37.340; -104.664


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