The Day the Whistle Blew: The Life & Death of the Stansbury Coal Camp

The Day the Whistle Blew: The Life & Death of the Stansbury Coal Camp

By Marilyn Nesbit Wood

In tiny Stansbury, Wyoming, a 1940s coal town, the mine was the focus of the community. In many ways, Union Pacific Coal had created a model town. But demand for coal waned and anxieties mounted. Then one day, unexpectedly, the whistle blew and the author's young life was turned upside down. In this memoir, Marilyn Wood writes honestly and compellingly of mines and miners, company towns, coal camp kids, and miners' wives, providing a searing story of survival and acceptance.

• • 978-1-937147-08-2 • trade paper • 228 pp • $19.95 ORDER NOW

The Day the Whistle Blew: The Life & Death of the Stansbury Coal Camp

By Marilyn Nesbit Wood

"The Day the Whistle Blew captures the bittersweet essence of growing up in a Wyoming coal mining town. From the men laboring underground, to the company officials who rule their lives, to her own first love, Marilyn Nesbit Wood skillfully builds the setting for what is a tragic story of love and loss. Poignant and true, this book is one of the heartbeats of mining life."
•• Julie Whitesel Weston
author of The Good Times Are all Gone Now: Life, Death and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009)

"For anyone who lived in or near a mining camp in the mid-twentieth century, The Day the Whistle Blew is a family and community history. From the perspective of a miner’s young daughter, we experience the birth and death of Stansbury, Wyoming, home of a new bituminous coal mine predicted to be among the most productive in America and a new company town built as a model for the industry. We are witness, through Marilyn Wood’s memories, to one family’s life in a relatively prosperous and close-knit community where danger was always a whistle blow away."
•• This book is well-written, structured, and paced. A fine read!
Kathy M Karpan
Wyoming Coal Miner’s Daughter,
Wyoming Secretary of State (1987-1991),
Former Director, Office of Surface Mining,
U.S. Department of Interior

Marilyn Wood

Marilyn Wood, who lives in Laramie, Wyoming, retired from the University of Wyoming after twenty-four years of working for head football coaches Pat Dye, Al Kincaid, and Dennis Erickson, and in the College of Agriculture. She cherishes the time she spends with her three children, Anthony Windis, Debbie Buchhammer, and Johnny Wood, and four grandchildren, Anna Marie, Thomas, and James Buchhammer and Jordan Wood.

She loves music and enjoys playing the organ, knitting and quilting, reading, corresponding /visiting with Amish friends, traveling, and swimming with friends at the recreation center. She has never lost her love for dolls and enjoys searching antique stores for dolls of the 1950s to add to her collection.
Friends can reach her at mjw@uwyo.edu

The Day the Whistle Blew: The Life & Death of the Stansbury Coal Camp

By Marilyn Wood

2015 Wyoming Historical Society Non-Fiction Award