Melmont, Washington facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Melmont, Washington
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|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| State | Washington |
| County | Pierce |
| Founded | 1900 |
| Time zone | UTC-8 (Pacific (PST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
Melmont is a ghost town in Pierce County, Washington, USA. A ghost town is a place where people used to live and work, but now it's mostly empty. Melmont was started in 1900 by a company called Northwest Improvement Company, which was part of the Northern Pacific Railway. They opened a coal mine there.
The town had important buildings like a school, a train station, a saloon, and a hotel. The hotel was also where the post office, a butcher shop, and a store were located. There were rows of small houses for the miners. Miners from different countries often lived in separate rows. The coal dug up in Melmont was only used by the Northern Pacific Railway. When the railway stopped using steam locomotives and switched to diesel and electric trains, the town's main reason for existing disappeared.
Melmont's History
Early Days and Coal Mining
By 1902, the coal mine in Melmont was busy. It sent coal about 3 miles (5 km) by train to a place called Carbonado for processing. Over 16 years, the mine produced around 900,000 tons of coal. This was about 750 tons every day! This amount made up 4% of all the coal produced in Pierce County at that time.
Changes and Decline
In 1915, the Melmont Post Office closed down. After that, mail for the town came through Fairfax. The Northwest Improvement Company stopped working in Melmont in 1918. However, a few other mines were opened by the Carbon Hill Coal Company, which operated from 1917 to 1919. The miners in Melmont were part of a group called the United Mine Workers, local #2963.
By the early 1920s, all the mines in Melmont were closed. Soon after, a big forest fire destroyed most of the buildings that were left in the town. The very last person to live in Melmont was Andrew Montleon. He lived in the remaining basement of the second schoolhouse.
What's Left Today
In 1920, the second schoolhouse in Melmont was taken down. A man named Steven Poch bought it to use the wood to build his own house. Today, if you visit Melmont, you can only find a few things left. These include part of a bridge's foundation, a small building that was used to store explosives, and the foundation of the schoolhouse.
