The town of Anthracite, located out Slate River Road and above Nicholson Lake, was incorporated in September 1881. The mine, locally referred to as Smith Hill after Howard Smith, the founder of Crested Butte, opened the following spring with The D&RG Railroad arriving the following December.
The only anthracite breaker west of Pennsylvania was erected below the town near the Slate River. The coal crusher, over 80 feet high and built with some 360,000 feet of lumber, filtered the product into different sizes…fist, orange, nut, pea, and slack or waste.
At it’s peak, Anthracite was home to 200, complete with post office, school and library. Winters were severe…at 4:00 AM on the morning of January 31, 1883 an avalanche swept down into one of the boarding houses at the mouth of the mine, killing six men and injuring fifteen.
The mine “in the clouds” pretty well stopped production in 1903…little is left today. We still know it as Smith Hill or Cloud City.
Source: “The Gunnison Country” by Duane Vandenbusche
Rob Quint