Price tells Carbon County's story on two clocks

Price makes more sense with two very different clocks running. One measures Carbon County’s railroad-and-coal era. The other reaches through the fossils and archaeological materials held by the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum into a past long before the county existed.

Railroad development and coal discovery drove Carbon County’s growth. Coal companies built company towns and recruited workers from several countries, shaping the county’s migration and labor history. Mine disasters and repeated cycles of expansion and contraction are part of that record, not a footnote to a decorative “coal country” identity.

The museum grew from a different community project. It opened in a Price city building on June 3, 1961, with artifacts and fossils supplied by local residents. In 2003 it became a state and federal repository for archaeological and paleontological materials.

Those stories meet in Price, but they are not one collection. The Prehistoric Museum is not a mining museum, and its exhibits do not establish the condition of an active mine, a historic mining site, or the county’s current economy.

Use the state history page for the coal-and-railroad sequence and the museum’s page for its collection history. Before visiting, check the museum’s current hours and exhibits; before approaching any mining place, identify its present owner or manager and confirm whether public access is allowed.