Mining town of Sunrise during its heydayFrom Sarah Ligocki at the Wyoming State Museum:
The history of Sunrise, the southeastern Wyoming mining town, will be brought to life by Mary Humstone and Sophia Beck at a presentation on Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne.
Humstone and Beck’s talk, "Remembering Sunrise Mine and its Community: Portrait of a Company Town," is presented by the Wyoming Humanities Council and sponsored by the Wyoming State Museum Lecture Series.
From 1899 until its close in 1980, the Sunrise Mine was the principal source of iron for the Colorado Fuel and Iron plant in Pueblo, Colorado. In addition to the mine itself, the company built and maintained a company town at Sunrise, which at its peak had an ethnically diverse population of more than 500 people, including Italians, Hispanics, Greeks, Japanese, Poles, Scandinavians, and British. Having conducted oral interviews with former residents of Sunrise, Humstone and Beck are able to present the history of this community through personal stories and contemporary photographs.
Humstone, a research scientist at the University of Wyoming, along with her graduate students, conducted extensive research of Sunrise and successfully nominated the property to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Beck, the office manager for the UW American Studies, grew up in Sunrise and has a personal connection with many former Sunrise residents.
Humstone and Beck’s presentation is offered by the Wyoming Council for the Humanities through its 2010 Humanities Forum. The Wyoming Humanities Council provides public humanities-based programs in partnership with local organizations and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The event is free and open to the public. The Wyoming State Museum is located in the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue in Cheyenne. For more information about this and other State Museum programs, please call 777-7022.
