Dempseyville from: Utah Place Names

DEMPSEYVILLE* (Carbon County). See Coal City* below.

COAL CITY* (Carbon County) was up Consumers Wash, nine miles west of Spring Glen* and eight miles north of the coal-mining town of Wattis*. The area was grazing land until 1885 when the town was laid out and settled by George Storrs. Oak Springs Bench* was the first town name; the name was later changed to Cedar Mesa Ranch*. In 1921 it was called Great Western* after the mining company operating in the vicinity, then the name was changed to Coal City. The town began to slow down in 1935 and was completely abandoned by 1940. At one time, the famous boxer Jack Dempsey lived and trained in Coal City and the town temporarily adopted the name Dempseyville*. It was hoped that Dempsey would invest in local coal properties and consideration was given to permanently changing the town name to Dempsey City*. Dempsey decided not to invest, however, and the name Coal City was retained. >S3,T14S,R8E,SLM; 7,050' (2,149m). Bibliography: Carr, Stephen L. The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns. Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1972. Our Pioneer Heritage, 17 vols. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. (v17). Writers' Program. Origins of Utah Place Names. 3d ed. Comp. and written by Utah Writers Project, Work Projects Administration. Sponsored and published by Utah State Department of Public Instruction. Salt Lake City, 1940. Zehnder, Chuck. Coal Camps and Ghost Towns. n.l.: C. Zehnder, 1984.

EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS... 1. An asterisk (*) following a place name indicates past or present inhabitation. 2. When a series of letters and numbers are present towards the end of an entry after the ">" symbol, the first group indicates section/township/range as closely as can be pinpointed (i.e., S12,T3S,R4W,SLM, or USM). A section equals approximately one square mile, reflecting U.S. Geological Survey topographic map sections. Because Utah is not completely mapped, some entries are incomplete. In this case, whatever information is available will be provided. The second group, when present, is altitude in feet followed by meters in parentheses [i.e., 6,000' (1,829m)]. Altitude is not included with canyons or deserts with varying altitudes.

______SOURCE... Utah Place Names. Salt Lake City, Utah : University of Utah. University of Utah Press, 1990.

AUTHOR... Van Cott, John W.

USE RESTRICTIONS... The contents of this article may be repurposed for non-commercial, non-profit, educational use.

______Distributed by the Utah Education Network eMedia service: http://www.uen.org/emedia Original digital conversion by UCME: Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia project: http://www.uen.org/ucme File ID = t_002149 A softbound copy of the original book may be purchased online from the University of Utah Press at: http://www.uofupress.com

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