Dragon, Utah
| Dragon | |
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| Ghost town | |
 Dragon
Dragon
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| Coordinates: 39°47′09″N 109°04′24″W / 39.78583°N 109.07333°WCoordinates: 39°47′09″N 109°04′24″W / 39.78583°N 109.07333°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Utah |
| County | Uintah |
| Established | 1888 |
| Abandoned | c. 1940 |
| Named for | Black Dragon Mine |
| Elevation | 5,771 ft (1,759 m) |
| GNIS feature ID | 1437547 |
Dragon is a ghost town located in Uintah County, at the extreme eastern edge of Utah, United States. Founded in about 1888 as a Gilsonite mining camp, Dragon boomed in the first decade of the 20th century as the end-of-line town for the Uintah Railway. Although it declined when the terminus moved farther north in 1911, Dragon survived as the largest of the Gilsonite towns. It was abandoned after its mining operations stopped in 1938 and the Uintah Railway went out of business in 1939.
Dragon lies on the tiny Evacuation Creek at the mouth of Dragon Canyon, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the Colorado state line and 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Vernal, the area's main city. This part of the Uinta Basin has been isolated and barren throughout modern times. The reason for the town's existence was the veins of natural asphalt called Gilsonite, found nowhere else in the world, that run southeast to northwest through this region. The present-day center of Gilsonite mining, Bonanza, is about 25 miles (40 km) to the north of Dragon.
As the commercial mining of Gilsonite began in 1888, a significant deposit was discovered some 1.5 miles (2.4 km) up Dragon Canyon. Observers said that the vein of the black substance formed the shape of a dragon along the surface of the ground, and the operation was named the Black Dragon Mine. The name Dragon was soon given to both the canyon and the mining camp that grew up in the flat area at the canyon's mouth.
The mine and town developed slowly at first, because of the difficulty of transporting the Gilsonite out of the area. The town received its first telegraph line, to Fort Duchesne, in 1901. In 1902, subsidiaries of the Gilson Asphaltum Company took over the Black Dragon Mine and began work on a narrow gauge railway to serve the mine. In 1904 the Uintah Railway reached Dragon, where it stopped. The company also built toll roads to Vernal and Fort Duchesne, ferries on the Green River, and a toll bridge over the White River at Ignatio, making Dragon the regional transportation hub.
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