Reply With QuoteAlice, I have searched all over looking for this same photo and have yet to find one so close with so much detail. You had said you saw the same photo.I could not find it in the Aultman Collection.
Sorry for the double post.....computer problems !? There was a Charles Rifenburg and a Washington G. Rifenburg (note that the name is used with only one "f"). Charles Rifenburg was a Justice of the Peace and Washington G. Rifenburg ran the United States Hotel at the corner of Main a First Street, here in Trinidad. This information was taken taken from "Trinidad Colorado Territory" by Morris F. Taylor and referred to these two men under the year 1871. I will see if I can find any information on the Rifenburg Mine.
Last edited by RR-Guy; 03-09-2010 at 01:24 PM.
Alice, I have searched all over looking for this same photo and have yet to find one so close with so much detail. You had said you saw the same photo.I could not find it in the Aultman Collection.
Last edited by RR-Guy; 03-09-2010 at 01:24 PM.
Yes, I seen the exact same photo that you posted on the forum. I will talk with the owner of the photo and try and get more information as to where he obtained it.
While doing other research I came across this little bit of information on W.G. Rifenburg and thought maybe it will give you more information about the mine. This is taken from the book, "Pioneer Steelmaker in the West" The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company 1872-1903 by H. Lee Scamehorn.
"Farther south, the company opened, in the autumn of 1877, a mine in the coking coal field of Las Animas County. On the site of a coal bank previously worked for the wagon trade by W.G. Rifenburg, a local merchant, parallel drifts were driven into an outcrop at the base of Fisher's Peak four miles southeast of Trinidad and six miles south of El Moro at the end of newly constructed branch of the narrow gauge.
Although officially known as the El Moro Mine, it was popularly identified with George U. Engle, the first superintendent who retained that position for six years. The name was altered officially to Engleville in 1892, making the mine conform to the designation of the adjacent town: three years later, both were called Engle."
In 1878 a law suit was filed against W. G. Rifenburg for fraud in acquiring 153 acres from the public domain near Trinidad.
Does the location of this mine sound near the location that you are concerned with ?
Last edited by RR-Guy; 03-09-2010 at 01:23 PM.
The above cropped 1907 postcard photo, by A.R. Allen, is taken from
the same direction, as IFLYJEEP's photo, but from a further distance.
(Trinidad's Carnegie Public Library is located at the bottom right-hand corner.)
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