Berwind: The Company's Canyon

Three miles southwest of Ludlow, in a canyon that still bears its name, sits Berwind, a town built from scratch by the Colorado Coal and Iron Company in eighteen eighty-eight. It was named for Edward Berwind, the company's president and a major figure in American coal. When Colorado Fuel and Iron took over in eighteen ninety-two, Berwind Canyon became one of the anchors of CF and I's southern Colorado empire, and coal cut here fed the steel mill in Pueblo.

At its height the camp held over a thousand residents. The mine ran from eighteen ninety to nineteen twenty-eight, pulling nearly nine million tons before the seams gave out. Berwind sat close enough to Ludlow that it was caught up in the nineteen thirteen to fourteen Colorado Coalfield War, and militia occupied the canyon, and fighting reached here in the months before and after the Ludlow massacre.

When the coal ended in nineteen twenty-eight, the town ended with it.