A caption written on the back of this postcard reads: “The Toller boys of Tollersburg (sic).” It’s likely that the three lads pictured here are Giacomo, Hendrick and William Toller, sons of Austrian immigrants Giacomo and Angelena (Zanpedri) Toller.
The senior Toller, for whom the town is named, emigrated from the Tyrol region of Austria in 1888 and became a well-known businessman in the Trinidad area. He acquired property in Berwind Canyon, located in the front range some 20 miles to the north and west of Trinidad. Through an agreement between Giacomo and the Cedar Hill Coal and Coke Company, the company furnished the equipment for what became the Toller coal mine. Mining started in July of 1909, four months after the opening of the Tollerburg post office, of which Giacomo was the first postmaster.
In January of 1918, the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I) bought Toller’s mining operation. CF&I was a coal and steel company whose steel mill was located in Pueblo. Production from the mine ended in April of 1931, and in May the Tollerburg post office closed. At the time the mine was closed, it had produced 2,350,271 tons of coal for the CF&I.
In addition to Tollerburg, other coal mining towns in Berwind Canyon which owed their existence to CF&I were Berwind and Tabasco. Today, all three are ghost towns.
REFERENCES:
- Colorado Encyclopedia at https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-fuel-iron
- Colorado, County Marriage Records and State Index, 1862-2006 (ancestry.com)
- “Giacomo Toller’s home in Tollerburg,” Denver Public Library Digital Collections at https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll21/id/10473/
- Mapcarta at https://mapcarta.com/23172784
- “ Toller Coal Mine, COLORADO FUEL AND IRON: COMPANY MINES,” by Christopher J. Schreck at http://scalar.usc.edu/works/mines-of-the-colorado-fuel-and-iron-company/toller-coal-mine.7
- “U.S., Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, 1832-1971, Colorado (at ancestry.com)
- “Walking into Colorado’s Past – 50 Front Range History Hikes,” by Ben Fogelberg and Steve Grinstead, 2006, published by Westcliffe Publishers, at https://books.google.com/books
- 1910 Census (www.ancestry.com )
