The Company Doctor: Promoting Stability in Eastern Utah Mining Towns

By TROY MADSEN

Eastern Utah's early social landscape portrays the volatility characteristic of mining towns in the western United States. Known across the state for their rampant disorder and untamed energy, the coal mining towns of Carbon County departed dramatically from the ecclesiastical, agrarian societies dotting the rest of Utah's map. Raucous taverns and seamy brothels lined Main Street in Helper. Violent union strikes shook the foundations of the communities' coal companies. Dark clouds of imminent danger hung above the portals of the region's somber, murky mines. Deeply rooted ethnic distrust abounded. In the midst of the chaotic atmosphere of Utah's coal fields, though, stood a figure whose presence seemed to calm the communities' tensions: the coal camp doctor. The company physicians of the Carbon County mining towns provided stability to the coal camps through their work as healers, their efforts as intermediaries, and the psychological force of their presence in the camps.The camp doctors' presence in coal communities can be traced to the beginnings of coal production. With the emergence of coal mining in Wales, doctors became part of the dangerous industry, providing medical care to the injury-plagued miners. Mining companies in the United States maintained the tradition of hiring coal community physicians; coal towns in Ohio and West Virginia were among the first to employ camp doctors.1 The mines of the western United States instituted the camp physician as well, and the earliest records of eastern Utah's Clear Creek and Winter Quarters mines refer frequently to the company doctor. As mining towns spread throughout eastern Utah, company doctors became more and more visible within Utah's coal communities.

Eastern Utah's camp physicians lived and worked in the region's numerous isolated mining towns. These coal camps developed as a practical response to the inadequate transportation and roads of the early twentieth century. Because the portals to rich coal deposits were typically nestled in the extreme reaches of winding canyons, company-owned towns formed near the mines. Consisting of between 500 and 2,000 residents, the mining towns housed single males as well as families, all representing a variety of ethnic origins and religious backgrounds. By 1900 the towns of Winter Quarters, Castle Gate, Clear Creek, and Sunnyside had surfaced near the portals of Carbon County's burgeoning mines, and the communities of Kenilworth, Hiawatha, Storrs, Standardville, Rains, Wattis,Consumers, Columbia, and Dragerton soon followed.2 Coal companies in each of these communities employed physicians in order to provide ready medical care to the towns' residents.

In return for his agreement to provide "adequate and efficient medical and minor surgical services," the camp physician received a monthly salary. The miners contributed to this salary through regular deductions from their paychecks, and the coal company provided additional money for the physician's wages. The Spring Canyon Coal Company payroll documents from 1929 record that the company withdrew $1.50 per month from miners' paychecks in order to cover routine medical expenses. Dr. LaVille Merrill worked as the camp physician for Standardville and Hiawatha, and he reported on his 1946 income tax return that he was paid ten thousand dollars by the company. 3 Doctors generally received an additional payment of thirty dollars from the miners for obstetrical cases, answer emergency telephone and agreements between companies and doctors stated that company compensation did not cover "contagious cases, tuberculosis or mental diseases, fights or brawls, drug addiction, attempted suicide, sane or unsane [sic], [or] venereal disease."4 Camp doctors interacted with all segments of the coal camps by treating miners and their families, superintendents and their families, vagrants, prostitutes, and even house pets. Common procedures for community members included immunizations, sutures, broken-bone casting, and disease treatments. 5

The stable income from the companies served as perhaps the most prevalent motive for doctors' decisions to work at the camps. Typically, the camp doctors were not originally from the Carbon County area. Dr. Roy Robinson and his wife both came from Salt Lake City. Dr. Eldon Dorman was raised in Greeley, Colorado, and attended medical school in Lorna Linda, California. A few of the camp physicians, though, were naturally drawn to eastern Utah because of family ties to the region. Dr. Anthony R. Demman, a son of Italian immigrants, and Drs. William and Frank Gorishek, both of Slovenian descent, were all raised in the coal camps of Carbon County, and returning to serve their communities seemed a logical choice. Most camp physicians came to Carbon County having recently finished medical school and a one-year general care residency, and the company's timely pay in cash provided a tempting alternative to the pay in produce and goods of the agricultural communities of Utah. 6 Physicians also relished the opportunity to gain experience in nearly every aspect of medical care. Because of the stable salary and the opportunities for varied work, many young physicians coveted medical positions in the coal camps.

The camp doctors generally intended to remain in the communities for a few years then return to a medical internship to receive training in a specialty area.7 However, the attachment to the community that soon developed often meant a lifetime of service in the region. When Dr. Roy Robinson and his wife, Marion, arrived in Kenilworth in 1926, they planned to stay in the area for no more than a year. Thirty-three years later, Dr. Robinson and his family finally left the community, but only because the Kenilworth Mine closed. Even then, the Robinsons moved to the neighboring town of Price, where Kenilworth residents continued to seek the doctor's services. After decades of commitment to miners and their families, doctors like Roy Robinson became symbols of the bonds physicians frequently developed with the coal camp communities. 8

Coal camp doctors interacted with all segments of the eastern Utah coal camps, but their principal function was that of healer to the communities' miners. The hazards of mining meant that the camp physician treated frequent crushing and burn injuries. The monthly injury reports from the Spring Canyon and Royal coal companies provide a picture of the types of injuries incurred in the mines. On January 30, 1930, Mike Dintzis experienced a severe injury: "Top coal fell on man. Fracture of skull, neck, ribs, rt [sic] arm, left leg." On April 6 of that same year, M.C. Brennan faced the injuries workers frequently incurred from the mines' heavy equipment: "Caught between two cars. Contusion of chest." Joe Rossi suffered a tragedy when gases in the mine exploded on April 12, 1924, leaving him with a "burned head, face, neck, and arms." The industrial injuries incurred by the miners were not always crushed limbs or burns from gas explosions; Melvin Higgenson required medical attention on November 22, 1930, for an acid burn: "Acid covered screw driver slipped. Puncture—acid burn left hand." As miners suffered the devastations of mine cave-ins, explosions, and injuries from equipment, the company physician was called upon to treat the various wounds. 9

In such an atmosphere of injury and disaster, the camp physician contributed to the stability of the Carbon County mining communities by aiding the miners' recovery from injuries and helping them return to work more quickly. Coal companies were familiar with the dangers of the mining industry, and they understood that an effective camp physician contributed to the success of their mines by maintaining the health of the workers. Knowing the nature of coal mining, A. Philip Cederlof, a superintendent in the Peerless Mine, often repeated the advice he had received from a friend: "If we are going to be in heavy industry we are going to have accidents, and if we can't stand up under it we don't belong in the industry."10 Camp doctors helped the mine superintendents to "stand up under" the dangers of the industry by healing the injured workers. Miners also were familiar with the perils of mining, and when they suffered an accident their principal goal was to recover as quickly as possible and return to work. 11 By providing effective medical care to the miners, the camp doctor satisfied both the superintendent's desire to maintain a healthy workforce and the miners' desire to again provide for their families.

Because of the location of the mining camps, the doctor was essentially on his own, without access to specialists or top medical facilities, when treating industrial injuries. The deep wintertime snows and winding canyon roads made passage difficult in the vehicles of the 1920s and 1930s. Dr. J. Eldon Dorman, who worked for the mines of Sweets, National, and Consumers, paid fifty dollars for a well-used 1929 Model A Ford with snow tires, on which he placed heavy chains to facilitate wintertime travel among the three camps. Getting out of the camps and into the area's larger cities of Price and Helper often proved impossible, however. Luella Tryon, a resident of the Sweets coal camp, remembered that in the wintertime "snow would drift five, six, seven feet deep and you couldn't even get through." Even when roads were passable, transporting patients to larger hospitals along the Wasatch Front was not an option until the patient's health had stabilized somewhat. When Ruth Kantor's husband, Stanley, was working at the Castle Gate Mine, "a big chunk of coal came down [and] hit him right on the top of the head. It crushed his skull." Dr. Long, the community's doctor, realized that Stanley's condition required better facilities and specialized medical attention, but he knew he could not allow the miner to be transported the 120 miles through winding canyons to Salt Lake City. Instead, he treated Stanley in the company hospital. The following day, once the miner had reached a stable condition, Dr. Long sent him to St. Mark's Hospital. 12

Camp doctors often risked their own safety to help the workers. Chloe Merrill remembered that her father, Dr. LaVille Merrill, frequently entered the mines to treat injured miners. "It was nothing for him to go in the mine on an accident instead of waiting until they brought it out.... My dad was one who would...get his hands dirty. He put his life on the line a lot for these miners, and he wasn't above them." Dr. Eldon Dorman s experiences with injured miners also demonstrated his willingness to put his own safety at risk to treat the workers. When a cave-in occurred at Sweets, he boarded a coal car and rode deep into the mine. There he found three miners who had been buried by the falling coal. As the workers tried to dig the miners out, "more coal kept falling from the roof and the rib...[and] for a time it seemed that the rescue team and all might be buried in a massive cave-in." Dr. Dorman eased the miners' pain by administering morphine. The rescue team eventually removed the workers from the mine, and the doctor was then able to further treat their injuries. 13

Because of the dangers of the mining industry, company physicians came to provide more to the miners than medical treatment. Community members witnessed firsthand the traumatic fate of friends and relatives, and miners entered the murky portals each day aware that their own fortune might soon expire. Coal companies also knew very well the dangers of their industry, and they hired physicians in part because of the psychological security the doctor offered to the injury-threatened miners.14 The camp doctor's psychological influence attracted workers to the industry and helped retain experienced miners, contributing to the success of Carbon County's coal mines.

The coal mines paid their workers fairly well; in fact, according to Paul Madrigal, whose father worked as a miner in Columbia and Kenilworth, mining was the "best paying work for an uneducated man." But for many Carbon County residents even the higher salaries of the mines were not enough to persuade them to enter the dangerous profession. The presence of a physician, however, seemed to make miners more willing to face the dangers of coal mining. Max Robb, the son of a miner, was raised in the towns of Dragerton, Hiawatha, and Castle Gate, and he worked as a miner and mine manager in Consumers, Spring Canyon, Hiawatha, and Gordon Creek from 1939 to 1982. His interaction with the communities' workers confirmed to him the important psychological role of the camp doctor. "I know of several men who would not have taken coal mine employment without the company having services of a resident doctor and small hospitals and offices on the property," he said. According to Dr. Dorman, miners "figured they were going to get hurt," and they wanted a physician who would be readily available to treat their wounds. 15

Coal companies contracted with physicians with the understanding that the doctor would provide psychological comfort to the miners. The key to this comfort was the doctors' constant presence at times of accidents or injuries; if a camp physician failed to fulfill this duty, the company promptly released him. The Gordon Creek officials offered Dr. Dorman his job after the previous doctor had left for two weeks to inspect gold-mining property in California: "In the meantime they had a bad accident where a man lost his leg in the mine, so when this guy came back they fired him and hired me." Although the absent doctor may not have been able to save the man's leg anyway, he had failed to retain the trust of the miners. A Peerless Coal Company document described a similar situation that resulted in the release of the camp physician and the hire of Dr. Anthony R. Demman: "Since Dr. Elliott got mixed up in the Mutual Coal Company deal, he has neglected his practice and has spent much time in Salt Lake City. There is no doubt some dissatisfaction has been brewing ever since Tony Girodo died." 16

The camp doctor's presence at the scene of accidents and disasters fostered the trust between him and the communities' miners. According to Tom Grundy, whose father mined coal at the Castle Gate Mine from 1933 to 1948, "[The camp doctor] was always there when [the miners] needed him.... He was present when one of my uncles "was killed in the mine, and also when my father was injured." Jack Woodward's father worked as a miner in Royal, and Jack's memory of the camp doctor also centered around the doctor's presence at a time of community disaster. When an explosion occurred in the Royal Mine, "[the camp doctor] was at the portal with all the families." According to Louis Pestotnik, a miner and union leader in Hiawatha and Sunnyside, the doctor's presence at the mines "would give [the miners] a sense of security, and that's why they looked up to him so much." At times, their esteem even bordered on a sort of worship. Mary Buffo, a nurse in Standardville and the daughter of a Royal miner, related the statement her mother often repeated: "Next to God, there was the doctor." 17

Besides their involvement in the industrial aspects of the mining towns' medical care, the camp physicians also took on numerous social roles within the communities. The social disorder of the coal camps cried out for a stabilizing force; doctors' positions as trusted healers poised them to become intermediaries within the camps' conflicts between unions and companies, between ethnic groups and native miners, and among the miners themselves. Each of the coal camps dotting the eastern Utah landscape represented a microcosm of the region's unrest and disorder. The coal companies, with their interest in production and their frequent conflicts with unions, proved inept at quelling the communities' contentions. Democratic government was not an element of the coal camps; coal companies owned and governed all aspects of the community. Each town did have a company-paid marshal, but as a social mediator the marshal proved inadequate. Disputes between community members did not fall under the jurisdiction of law enforcement officials until a law had been broken, and at that point the marshal acted to punish the offender rather than to mediate the conflicts. 18

Religious leaders did provide some stability to the coal camps by intervening in many of the smaller conflicts involving members of their ecclesiastical communities. As a Winter Quarters Mormon bishop and mine superintendent, Thomas Parmley used his religious and economic influence to resolve the grievances of the Mormon miners in the community. After the Winter Quarters Mine disaster of 1900 and the subsequent influx of non-Mormon miners, however, Parmley's influence diminished.19 Within the Greek segments of the coal camps, patriarchs and matriarchs often intervened in disputes involving members of their ethnic community. 20 The efforts of these religious leaders were less effective, though, when the disputes extended to members of other cultural groups. Ecclesiastical leadership did play an important part in resolving numerous conflicts within the coal camps, but religious diversity often prevented these authorities from expanding their influence to many of the communities' large-scale disputes.

Because many of the traditional social institutions proved incapable of calming the larger conflicts of the eastern Utah communities, coal camp physicians emerged as intermediaries within the mining camps. During the 1930s the eastern Utah camp doctors assumed a heightened role as stabilizing forces in their communities. During this time, the inherent instability of the coal camps increased with the stronger presence of unions after 1932, a presence that deepened the polarization between companies and miners. An additional element, the nationwide depression of the 1930s, led to economic uncertainty within the camps.21 In these circumstances, the stability the camp doctor offered contributed to the survival and success of the coal camps.

Many doctors found that in their stabilizing role in the coal fields they could help to resolve issues between the mining communities' most powerful elements: the union and the company. Because of their relationship with both supervisors and miners, they were able to help resolve the inherent conflicts between the two groups. Community members were willing to heed a doctor's advice in company—union disputes because of the doctor's loyalties to both sides of the conflicts; the coal company paid part of the doctor's salary and maintained his medical facilities, yet the physician's primary interest in the community was the physical and emotional well-being of the miners. 22 This perspective allowed the camp physician to advocate positions that would benefit both the management and the union, especially in conflicts centered on medical issues.

In mediating between miners and management, doctors often involved themselves by playing more of a preventive role. A physician might propose to company officials policies that would forestall future strikes. The correspondence of Dr. LaVille Merrill, for instance, provides evidence of his attempts to balance union and company interests. In a letter to Walter Cochrane, superintendent of the Spring Canyon Coal Company, Dr. Merrill wrote about the problem of having a miners' residence located above the hospital. The boisterous miners living there entered and left at all hours of the night, disturbing the sleep of the injured miners in the hospital below. Dr. Merrill stated, "Patients as they leave the hospital dislike to complain as most of them are afraid for their jobs in the mine and also feel that they don't want to create a disturbance." Acting to avoid future union conflict, Dr. Merrill concluded, "I realize that the situation at the present time is not the opportune time to make radical changes. The Union are talking of medical chang [sic] they would like. I believe a satisfactory program can be worked out." 23 By working with mine officials on potential union concerns, Dr. Merrill and other camp doctors helped mitigate tensions within the communities. Because of the companies' respect for their doctors, they frequently heeded the physicians' advice and implemented programs that benefited the miners.

The perspectives of many camp physicians did not allow them to act solely as advocates of the miners' interests; in their mediation, they also proposed policies that may not have benefited miners but that satisfied the fiscal needs of the companies. In doing this, physicians recognized their roles as healers to all members of the community, yet they also understood the practical fiscal side of medicine and the burden upon the coal company. In a letter addressed to D. V Shurtleff of the Spring Canyon Coal Company Welfare Medical Department, Dr. Merrill referred to a highway automobile accident involving a miner and his family. The miner's wife was killed in the accident, and both the miner and his son were treated at Spring Canyon Hospital. Dr. Merrill recognized the practical aspect of the company's inability to pay for non-mine accidents: "The question involved is rather [whether] or not we are responsible for these hospital bills or not. I feel that if possible we should take care of them but yet I do not feel that we are responsible for all accident cases that happen on the high way. We should have a definite set ruling on this case." Dr. Merrill went on to note that he had recently treated two employees who had been drinking and had been involved in an automobile accident. He stated that he did not feel the company should have to pay for their medical care. 24

In an extreme case, the doctor even stepped in to support the company's position in an accident involving a nurses' aide of the camp hospital. Ronald Jewkes, whose father managed the Kenilworth company store, recalled that while his mother was crossing the railroad tracks, she was struck by a coal train. According to Jewkes, "The only thing that saved her life was she was wearing a big heavy fur coat. The train knocked her right down...but the cow catcher caught her and rolled her right down the track." Witnesses urged the woman to sue the company for negligence, but Dr. Richard Dowd, the company physician, saw the situation differently: "Dr. Dowd helped talk her out of it because he said, 'You know we're all going to lose our jobs.'"25 Dr. Dowd recognized that his medical assistant had suffered significant emotional distress, but her physical injuries "were limited to minimal scrapes and bruises. He apparently considered a lawsuit's potential damage to the community and his own medical practice as well, and he urged a course that would maintain the prosperity of the Kenilworth mining community. His actions may not have been completely altruistic, but Dr. Dowd's understanding of both company and community perspectives seemed to prompt him to seek solutions that would continue to promote the stability of the mining community.

Besides assisting in conflicts, many company doctors also sought to promote a relationship of cooperation between the union and company. In Hiawatha, Dr. Merrill ventured to establish a congenial association between union and company officials by avoiding any show of favoritism toward either group. Chloe Merrill recalled, "The mine bosses would come in and they'd eat at our house...and my dad would say, If you're going to eat here then get some union representatives and they eat here too.' It was never separate." When the officials were together at the doctor's home, Dr. Merrill "would never let them talk business." The physician's encouragement of a general equality between union and company created an environment conducive to cooperation. 26

The doctors' medical position also placed them as general mediators within the coal camps' medical committees. As part of a delegation consisting of both union representatives and mine officials, the doctor was frequently able to provide his perspective on medical issues and propose policies that would serve the interests of both the miners and the company officials. Dr. Eldon Dorman sat on the committee for the mines of Sweets, National, and Consumers, "a committee made up equally of company and union personnel." Topics facing the committee directly affected the doctor, so both parties naturally valued his opinion and perspective on medical issues. Through the general relationship the doctor sought to facilitate, the unions and companies were able to improve their communication and avoid potentially explosive conflicts. 27

In mediating between company and union interests, physicians seemed to search for solutions that were fair to both parties. At times, though, the company did not see the wisdom behind its doctor's recommendations, and in these moments some doctors put their loyalty to the miners over their sense of duty to company officials. Eldon Dorman relates the story of Dr. Claude McDermid's reaction when a Castle Gate Mine official proposed a policy with -which he disagreed. According to Florence Reynolds, who was waiting for her appointment with the doctor, a new mine official stormed into the office, warning Dr. McDermid that he was going to turn off the electricity to the miners' homes in order to decrease the coal company's overhead costs. Knowing the potential effects of the cold winter weather on the families without electricity, Dr. McDermid asserted his opposition to the official's proposal, only to hear the economizing superintendent repeat his intentions. Sparked by the official's blatant disregard for the needs of the miners and their families, "Dr. McDermid rose to his full six-foot-six, hit the manager with his fist and sent him sprawling."28 Although reactions such as Dr. McDermid's did not necessarily characterize the typical work of a camp physician as a mediator, a desire to see fair treatment of community members seems to have existed among camp doctors.

The company doctor also played a significant role in integrating the immigrants into camp society. Many physicians were able to calm the tensions inherent in these multi-cultural communities. Ignorance often breeds fear, but through their trusting medical relationships with the immigrants, many doctors learned to understand the people within the communities' various ethnic groups; doctors saw their sicknesses, -witnessed their pain, and felt their joys. Camp physicians typically did not allow ethnicity to dictate differences in medical treatment; they provided equal, dedicated care to the immigrants, and through this care doctors and patients formed lasting friendships. Community members recognized the doctors' acceptance of immigrants, and this recognition prompted many to follow a similar course of tolerance and understanding.

Immigrants were a part of the Carbon County community from the beginnings of the coal camps. Foreigners came to the United States in search of employment and prosperity, and the relatively high wages of the mining communities provided incentive for an influx of immigrants into eastern Utah. Ethnic groups arrived at the Utah mining towns in distinct stages: "Northern Europeans, such as Irish, Welsh, and Cornish, arrived in the coal and metal towns first, followed by southern and eastern Europeans, Japanese, and Mexican."29 Within the Carbon County area, a group of Chinese arrived at the Winter Quarters coal camp in the 1880s, followed by a mass immigration of Finns, who by 1903 "accounted for more than one-third of the miners at Clear Creek and Winter Quarters."30 This influx of ethnic groups led to an incredible diversity of language and culture within the coal camps.

With so many different ethnic groups in the Carbon County area, biases and differences were bound to exist. Many native miners saw the immigrants as a threat to their own positions in the mines. In the early twentieth century, when unions had not yet established their presence as advocates for miners, mine officials were more apt to favor those miners willing to work long hours for low wages. In an extreme case in the Clear Creek Mine, Dr. Dorman recalled, "The Chinese people lived right in the mine. They cooked and slept and everything in the mine." As a result of the immigrants' eagerness to perform their work as miners, the competition for reasonable wages was keen. Anti-immigrant groups such as the Ku Klux Klan developed in Carbon County. Frances Lamph, a resident of the Hiawatha and Standardville coal camps between 1912 and 1933, recalled that "the KKK was active in sewing the seeds of ethnic hate." Chloe Merrill noted that the Ku Klux Klan "was still active" as late as the 1950s. As A. Philip Cederlof explained the situation simply, "The immigrants were not assimilated readily into the community life." The Carbon County area, then, experienced a certain level of ethnic distrust and tension. 31

In the midst of this ethnic unrest, the doctors' equal treatment of immigrants eased tensions, both softening the foreigners' transition to the community and providing an example that other community members noticed. Dr. Dorman recalled trips up Sawmill Canyon to treat an Austrian family who spoke very little English: "I could drive my car as far as the tipple [the coal unloading area located near the entrance to the mine], then walk the remaining half mile. The shacks these people lived in were terrible: leaky roofs, poor floors (some dirt), broken windows and walls that let the cold in and heat out." 32 He also remembered interactions with Japanese immigrants: "[Their] boarding house at Sweets was always a fascinating place for me to go.... There was a Japanese man who...always called me when one of the Japanese miners became ill, and he could interpret for me and talk to them." 33

Ruth Beech Kantor, a member of the Kenilworth coal camp, noted, "Dr. [Roy] Robinson was friendly, and I don't think he chose between nationalities. They all got treated the same.... He wasn't partial. If there was a hurt person needed his attention, they got it. He was just a good camp doctor, and for everybody." Similarly, Luella Tryon of the Sweets coal camp recognized that many immigrants did not even speak English, yet "they trusted the doctor and they knew he -would be there for them." 34 Because the community members noted the unbiased medical treatment that the immigrants received, they, too, may have been more inclined to impart equal treatment to the foreign miners.

Children of immigrant families spoke highly of the doctors in the camp communities. Louis Pestotnik s parents emigrated from eastern Europe in 1901. Louis recalled with admiration the treatment he and his family received from the camp doctors: "I admired them and almost worshiped them, I guess." Remo Spigarelli, a miner whose parents had emigrated from Italy before he was born in Hiawatha, expressed similar feelings. He stated, "Our doctor was regarded as a very special person.... [He] looked out for the patient and was our friend." Perhaps the strongest evidence of the immigrants' appreciation of the camp physician was the number of immigrants' children who entered the medical profession. As J. Eldon Dorman noted, "A large number of Carbon County immigrants' sons became medical doctors and dentists.... Second-generation Italian-American Charles Ruggeri Jr. became an ophthalmologist.... A. R. and John Demman were another pair of Italian immigrant sons who practiced medicine. Drs. Nick and Mike Orfanakis were sons of Greek immigrants. The Austrian [Slovenian] Gorishek brothers, William and Frank, opened their practices in Carbon County." 35

Doctors worked to ease the tension among ethnic groups, but perhaps a doctor's greatest challenge was to calm the disputes among the miners themselves. With the mining community came the inherent unrest and fights between miners, and many company doctors quickly found that their role included emotional healing as well. While providing medical care to men injured in the communities' frequent brawls, camp physicians used their positions to prevent future brawls and quell the antagonisms between fighting miners. Chloe Merrill remembered her father's simple response to the fights. Dr. Merrill -would get involved in the disputes between miners "only if he had to patch them up, and he told them they were both idiots and they needed to shake hands.... He didn't believe in violence." 36

Because of their responsibility to heal, camp doctors interacted directly with fighting miners. Dr. Dorman remembered the surgery he performed at the beer parlor at Sweets. Not wanting to take a bleeding man back to his office, he sutured the miner's sliced neck as he lay on the pool table. Luella Tryon recalled the many efforts of the camp doctor to heal the wounds of the pugilistic miners. She remembered one man in particular: "This guy, he'd get drunk every Saturday night, and he'd go and camp at Dr. Dorman's until the next morning because he either had a cut or a broken arm or something that Dr. Dorman had to fix up."37 Max Robb recalled a unique call for the camp physician: "I remember one time he was called to keep a man from bleeding to death from a bleeding nose. Not the incidental nosebleed. This man had been in a fight and his opponent had bitten off a chunk of his rather large nose." 38

Community members were familiar with the doctor's efforts to heal the wounds of battered miners, and miners regularly turned to the doctor for those injuries inflicted outside of the portal of the mine. Often, though, the doctor's role went beyond a simple case of sutures. When tension arose between a Sweets miner, Osby Martin, and another man, the miners naturally sent for Dr. Dorman. Martin had suffered slight injuries to his chest and leg, but the weightier issue "was the fact that Martin was poised "with his ".30-.30 upright between his legs," ready to retaliate against the miner who had caused his wounds. Dr. Dorman took advantage of his role as a trusted healer, easing the discomfort of Martin's wounds with "some 'pain' pills -well laced with sleeping pills." Taking his gun away, Dorman tucked the sedated miner into bed. As he reflected on the situation, Dorman recalled that he "never understood why they didn't call the sheriff, the mine superintendent or the mine foreman in these situations. Perhaps they thought my services were about to be needed and that I should be handy."39 As this intervention illustrates, miners called on doctors to ease the emotional tensions of the conflicts as well as the physical wounds.

After nearly fifty years of interacting -with the camp communities, the company doctors gradually left the Carbon County mining towns. Following the return of men from World War II, the need for communities around the base of the mines gradually waned, and former camp residents moved to the larger cities of Price and Helper. A few coal camps, such as Hiawatha, continued to exist well into the 1980s because of their relative isolation from major cities. Such camps, though, became mainly homes for retired miners, while the new generation of workers commuted from the county's larger cities. 40 Mortar walls and rotted wood frames soon stood as the sole reminders of many of the camps. The silent snows and sagebrush covered foundations left only slight hints of the booming camp activity of years past.

When many of the old camp physicians died, their personal relationships with the coal communities became apparent. Dr. Merrill of Hiawatha passed away on May 17, 1966, and word of his death spread quickly through the county. Letters from former patients arrived, filled with phrases such as wonderful doctor," "beloved," "willing to look past the element to what was going on," and "no one was quite comparable." Hundreds crowded the church for the funeral. 41 When Dr. William Gorishek died in 1980, his years of camp service evoked high praise from local residents and physicians, 42 and Dr. Anthony Demman s death four years later precipitated similar reactions. 43 Former camp members considered the doctor a friend as well as a physician, and the doctors' deaths left many with deep sentiments of sorrow and loss.

The eastern Utah company physician has disappeared from the world of medicine, but his memory lives on in the minds of those with whom he interacted. Many camp doctors played a significant part in the success of Carbon County's coal camps through their contributions both within and beyond medical practice. They healed miners and their families of the -wounds and illnesses common to the industrial setting, and their very presence provided a psychological comfort to the community. Company doctors also mediated in the communities' conflicts, whether between unions and companies, immigrants and the native camp members, or among the miners themselves. Through their various roles in the coal camps, company physicians provided stability to the eastern Utah mining communities, ultimately contributing to the success of Carbon County's clusters of social volatility and ethnic diversity.

A native of Price, Utah, Troy Madsen completed a degree in history at Brigham Young University and is currently attending medical school at Johns Hopkins University He wishes to express his gratitude to the history department of Brigham Young University and to the many current and former residents of Carbon County who assisted him in preparing this article

1 Winter Quarters and Scofield register of deaths, January 1921—March 1937, Western Mining and Railroad Museum, Helper, Utah

2 Allan Kent Powell, "Land of Three Heritages: Mormons, Immigrants, and Miners," in Carbon County: Eastern Utah's Industrialized Island, ed. Philip F. Notarianni (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1981), 13

3 Chloe Merrill, interview by author, October 10, 1998, Ogden, Utah; notes in possession of author.

4 Spring Canyon Coal Company Statements, May 1929, in possession of Stanley Davis, Price Peerless Coal Company physician agreement between Ezra P Thompson, A P Cederlof, and A R Demman, December 30, 1937, Peerless Mine Collection, 2:8, Special Collections, Harold B Lee Library (HBLL), Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

5 Josie Gordon Nielsen, interview by Marvel Nielsen, September 27, 1998, Scofield, Utah; copy in possession of author Chloe Merrill interview Ronald G Watt, A History of Carbon County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society and Carbon County Commission, 1997), 309.

6 Dr Eldon Dorman related the contrast between his work in the town of Spanish Fork and his employment in the Carbon County mining towns After working for six months with Dr Samuel W Georges of Spanish Fork, Dr Dorman accepted an offer from Terry McGowan of the Blue Blaze Coal Company. On his first day in Consumers, he delivered a baby boy. He recalled his impressions that day: "Many of my fees were collected down there [in Spanish Fork] with a box of potatoes or some apples or some other poultry maybe. Before I hardly got the umbilical cord cut and tied up, this man, Reavely [the father], put a twenty dollar bill in my hand.That was unknown to me, I thought, boy I've came [sic] to the right place." (J Eldon Dorman, interview by Madge Tomsic, February 4, 1994, Western Mining and Railroad Museum, 2.)

7 J Eldon Dorman, Confessions of a Coal Camp Doctor (Price, Utah: Peczuh Printing Co., 1995), 69 Dorman's collection of stories from his days in the Gordon Creek coal camps provides a colorful, candid look at the many facets of the camp doctor's life

8 Marion Nottage Robinson, "Reminiscences of a Doctors Wife in a Coal Camp," Western Medical Journal 136 (January 1982): 3

9 Employees Injured by Accidents Arising out of and during Employment," Royal Coal Company injury report, Spring Canyon Records, 3:14; Spring Canyon Coal Company injury report, Spring Canyon Records, 3:16, Special Collections, HBLL.

10 A Philip Cederlof, "History of the Peerless Mine," Peerless Mine Collection, 1:2, MS, Special Collections, HBLL

11 Ruth Beech Kantor, interview by author, September 25, 1998, Price; notes in possession of author

12 Dorman, Confessions, 42 Luella Tryon, interview by author, September 25,1998, Price; notes in possession of author. Kantor interview.

13 Merrill interview Dorman, Confessions, 32

14 Cederlof interview

15 Paul Madrigal, telephone interview by author, November 1998; notes in possession of author. Max Robb, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author J Eldon Dorman, interview by author, January 26, 1998, Price; notes in possession of author

16 Dorman interview by author "Request for Release of Dr Elliott and hire of Dr Demman," Peerless Coal Company medical correspondence, Peerless Mine Collection, 2:8, Special Collections, HBLL

17 Tom Grundy, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author Jack Woodward, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author Louis Pestotnik, interview by author, September 26, 1998, Price; notes in possession of author Mary Buffo, interview by author, September 25, 1998, Price; notes in possession of author

18 Pestotnik interview Although it may seem that the town marshal might serve as a cause of contention because he was paid by the coal company, this was not the case The marshal played an important role in enforcing the law in the coal camps, and the miners seemed to respect his position and authority. Louis Pestotnik stated,"They observed law and order... His word was fair."

19 Allan Kent Powell, The Next Time We Strike: Labor in Utah's Coal Fields, 1900-1933 (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1985), 46 Powell's book provides an excellent overview of the tension between unions and companies that existed in Carbon County He outlines the early attempts at unionization, the rise of the unions to prominence during the 1920s, and the impact of the union presence on labor conditions in Carbon County coalfields

20 Helen Z Papanikolas, "Women in the Mining Communities of Carbon County," in Notarianni, ed., Carbon County, 85-86 See also Helen Z Papanikolas, ed., The Peoples of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976): 430

21 Powell, Next Time We Strike, 196.Thomas Alexander, "From Dearth to Deluge: Utah's Coal Industry," Utah Historical Quarterly 31 (1963), 241. Alexander's article touches on the impact of the depression on the Carbon County coal mines He notes the decrease in production, which was remedied a decade later by the onset of World War II

22 Stanley Davis, interview by author, September 25, 1998; notes in possession of author Spring Canyon Statements

23 LaVille Merrill, letter to Walter Cochrane, March 20, 1939, Spring Canyon Collection, 3:11, Special Collections, HBLL.

24 L H Merrill, letter to D.V Shurtleff, November 23, 1938, Spring Canyon Collection, 3:11, Special Collections, HBLL

25 Ronald W. Jewkes, interview by author, September 26, 1998, Western Mining and Railroad Museum, Helper; notes in possession of author

26 Merrill interview

27 Merrill interview27 Dorman, Confession, 3.

28 Ibid., 21

29 Philip F. Notarianni, "Utah—A Pretty Great Mining State," in Beehive History 16: Mining and Minerals (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society 1990), 5 Notarianni's article gives a general overview of the development of the various mining communities in Utah.

30 Powell, Next Time We Strike, 10-11

31 Dorma n interview by Tomsic Frances Lamph, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author Merrill interview

32 Dorman, Confessions, 59

33 Dorman interview by Tomsic

34 Kantor interview, Tryon interview

35 Pestotnik interview. Remo Spigarelli, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author

36 Merrill interview

37 Dorman, Confessions, 15-16 Tryon interview

38 Robb interview.

39 Dorman, Confessions, 17-18

40 Robb letter.

41 Merrill interview

42 The community's praise of Dr. Gorishek may be noted through letters from former camp residents who interacted with the physician: Darlene Howard, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author; Merrill Newren, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author; Anne Palletta, letter to author, October 1998, in possession of author Dr. Eldon Dorman died during preparation of this article, on March 22, 2000

43 Sun Advocate (Price), November 7, 1984