Located 7 miles north of Newcastle was the coal mining town of Cambria. In 1887, Frank Mondell, a future Congressman, found enough coal in the area to fuel the construction of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad across northeastern Wyoming.
In light of the abundance of coal, the Cambria Mining Company, later called The Cambria Fuel Company, was organized in 1891 and acquired 17,000 acres of land. By the turn of the century the company was mining 1500 to 1800 tons of coal daily.
To house its employees, the company created the town of Cambria. From 1900 and 1920 between 1000 and 1500 people of various nationalities lived here. The community supported many business and civic organizations, including three churches, an opera house, a school, a hotel, a sawmill, and a concert band.
Cambria was dependent upon the availability of coal. In the winter of 1927, no new coal seams were available. All work came to a stop at noon on March 15, 1928, and soon afterward, people began to leave Cambria. Within a couple of years the town site was abandoned, and the equipment and buildings were moved elsewhere.
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