Mining memories

These days a row of modern mailboxes stands across from the abandoned store. As Jewkes and Wilmonen sat on the store's steps, reminiscing, an occasional car drove up to the boxes. Otherwise, the street was empty. No one jogged by. No one walked a dog.

Mines began to close in Carbon County in the 1960s. Companies consolidated. Then the Kenilworth owners allowed people to buy their homes — for around $600. Eventually, people were allowed to buy their land as well. Finally, recalled Jewkes, everyone felt safe. The residents called a town meeting, sold stock and formed their own utility company to keep the water and the power flowing.

These days there are some younger people in the town — families, too, like Evelyn's son Paul Wilmonen and his wife and kids. The second generation of Wilmonens live here because Paul loved his childhood so much. He loved the games of kick the can, the tiny elementary school, the closeness. One Christmas, Paul recalled, all the kids in town got pogo sticks.

When he grew up, Paul became a miner. For a time he lived and worked in Grand Junction, Colo. But he moved back. "I've been to different places," Paul said, "and I like them. But me, I want to be home."

As for Deborah Brenske, she recently moved to Kenilworth from Arkansas, having spent years searching for just the right town. She traded green scenery for a view of buttes and cliffs. Brenske spent the summer, contentedly, fixing up her house but now wants to find a job in Price. "I need more human contact."

Ask 13-year-old Wendi Turner, who has lived in Kenilworth for six years, and she'll agree, "there's not really that much to do." But then she'll talk about riding her bike and hiking in the hills and playing with her cousins, who live down the street.

In the old days there was so much noise from the trains and tipple, said Jewkes, that he doesn't remember ever seeing a deer when he was a boy. But now he sees deer all the time. In winter, they walk along the streets of Kenilworth.

Here's another little irony about life in Kenilworth. During the mine layoffs in the 1960s, Wilmonen's husband got a job in Montana. And then, after years of longing, when it came time to move from Kenilworth, Wilmonen found she didn't want to go. She just about fell apart at the thought, she says. Her husband was already in Montana, working, and she made him come home.

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