Dragon, Utah
1904 to 1939

Within these canyon walls, history was made unlike anywhere else in America. This is the site of the railroad and gilsonite mining town of Dragon. This historic place and the nearby town of Watson along with the gilsonite mines and the famous narrow gauge Uintah Railway did more for the progress and welfare of Vernal and Uintah County for many years than anything else. These communities were serviced solely by the railroad and when it shut down they ceased to exist almost overnight.
(text of a sign on site by the Uintah County Historical Society, 2009)

Welcome to Dragon, Utah

Dragon was as remote a settlement as it could be during the early years, and with a mix of miners, railroaders, ranchers and Ute Indians, as well as being situated in wide-open isolated country, it had a Wild West atmosphere, much like a scene taken from the pages of American West lore some thirty years earlier. The town’s heyday occurred during the years before the expansion of the railroad to Watson and Rainbow in 1911. However, even after the railroad was extended, Dragon continued to be a center of activity for both the Uintah Railway and the mining companies into the 1930’s. By the mid-1930’s, though, all mining in the Black Dragon Mine had ended and the small communities that supplied Dragon, with the limited commerce it had left (Rector and Country Boy), grew smaller and less significant with each passing year. (Rodger Polley, Uintah Railway Pictoral page 241)