To be memorialized at Helper Museum
The old Carbon Plant no longer lights the night sky at Castle Gate, but the memory of its contribution to the community will shine on at the Helper Railroad and Mining Museum.
“I thought that since it pertains to coal and to railroads it should have a display at the museum,” explained Kirk Mascaro, who is nearing the end of his long term of service on the Helper City Council.
Mascaro, a retired 25-year veteran of the Carbon Plant, has been talking with PacifiCorp and the museum to create an indoor exhibit and an outdoor feature in the lot beside the building.
The plant will be taken down next spring, and PacifiCorp has agreed to give some artifacts for the display, he said. The exhibit will also detail some statistics about such things as megawatt-hours of generation and tons of coal consumed during the six decades of service.
The plant provided many jobs, not only for the power company but for coal mines and support industries.
“There are lots of community ties there,” Mascaro said. “My grandpa worked there as a painter.
One of the fund-raising ideas is the sale of bricks being removed from the plant. These are not common household bricks, but thick slabs – about 12 by 18 inches and more than an inch thick – that were used to shield the boiler.
For $100 apiece, a donor can have his or her name engraved, and the bricks will be laid in a walkway in the outdoor display. The donation will cover the cost of engraving and landscaping, he said.
Mascaro said Tuesday he’s still working out the details for a special account at a local bank.
Two bricks have been sold already. Terry Hill, who worked at the plant in the 1960s, and his brother John Hill both wrote checks.
The Carbon Plant was something of a pioneering venture by what was then Utah Power & Light Co. Earlier coal-fired plants had been built in the cities where demand was greatest.
Advances in transmission technology enabled the power company to build a plant close to its fuel supply instead.
The idea succeeded, and future plants such as Naughton in Wyoming, and Huntington and Hunter in Emery County were situated near coal fields.