In the 1870s, he began buying coal lands around town, mostly on credit.

The result was that valuable coal lands were sold for wholly inadequate prices, chiefly to big corporations.

By 1808, Abijah Smith secured a patent for coal lands on the east side of the creek.

This would soon change as large corporations, some affiliated with railroads, began to take control of much of the town's coal lands.

As a result of the Sweet case, states cannot claim coal land from the federal government at statehood.

To take advantage of the undeveloped coal lands, Page enlisted several friends as investors to help purchase the land.

He began to obtain huge tracts of coal land, and formed the Colorado Fuel Company in 1887.

The indigenous people owned this coal rich land till the British dispossessed them.

The bigger issue was the coal lands which both larger railroads, especially the N&W, had large investments in.

Transported from the coal lands to the heart of the markets, he had learned that his will was vast, and it was all imposed now.