Redstone Coke Ovens Historic Park brochure

This interpretive guide was funded in part by a 2008 Preserve America grant (grant number 08-08-PA-2004) to Pitkin County, Colorado for the project Redstone Coke Ovens Education and Interpretation Program. The grant provided for the development of an education and interpretive program for the Redstone Coke Ovens Historic Park. The program was designed to educate the public, direct foot and car traffic, and promote the site throughout the community. From the introduction: "These ovens comprise part of the Redstone Coke Ovens Historic District, where men at the turn of the century “coked” some of the country’s finest metallurgical coal, turning the coal into coke, or pure carbon. Brought by narrow gauge railroad from the mines above Redstone at Coalbasin, the coal was loaded into the top of the 249 beehive-shaped ovens. Redstone cokers cooked the coal for two days, steamed it off with ice-cold water, then shipped it to Colorado Fuel and Iron in Pueblo, Colorado, the biggest steel mill west of the Mississippi. There, the Redstone coke, limestone and iron ore were dumped into blast furnaces to create steel, which made the locomotives, steel rails and barbed wire that settled the American West."

Redstone Coke Ovens Historic Park brochure

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