Boomtown Blues

Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale, 1885-1985 (1989), a non-fiction work by American historian Andrew Gulliford, narrates the history of the Colorado River valley from the beginnings of Euro-American settlement to the present day, focusing on the exploitation of the region’s oil-shale by major corporations and the effects of the ensuing boom and bust on local communities. Gulliford’s account centers on the communities of Grand Junction, Rifle, Parachute, New Castle, and Silt. A resident of Silt from 1976-1983, Gulliford describes himself as a “participant-observer,” well placed to document the effects of Exxon’s notorious “Colony Project” of 1980-82, which caused widespread upheaval in the region without producing a single barrel of oil.

The Colorado River Valley was one of the last areas in the lower 48 states to be colonized by Euro-Americans. In the early 1880s, the Ute Native Americans were forced out of the area by the US Army and the valley was opened to white ranchers, coal miners, and farmers. During the early years of settlement, the pioneers’ way of life depended on reaching an agreement about the diversion of water. From this central economic fact, Gulliford argues, a way of life came into being which emphasized strong community ties. Local intermarriage, shared water and grazing rights and communal labor all helped to establish a deep-rooted and tightly knit community life.

The descendants of these pioneers were still living in accord with these values in the 1920s when the extraction of shale-oil first generated an economic boom in the region. The boom was small (at least compared to the boom that would follow), and it did not disrupt the valley’s communities. However, Gulliford argues that the boom of the 1920s constituted “colonial domination” of the local community by “eastern corporate interests,” pre-figuring the more destructive dynamic that would emerge in the 1970s.



For the next several decades, the residents of the Colorado River Valley continued to live much as they had since settlement: farming, ranching, and relying on a close-knit community united by shared values. Nevertheless, the writing was on the wall. The region’s oil-shale reserves have not been forgotten, and while Union Oil worked on methods for efficiently extracting oil from shale, private companies quietly acquired land in the Valley, betting on a future oil shortage.

That shortage came with the OPEC embargo of 1973-74. This crisis persuaded the federal government to seek energy independence and a dozen of the United States’ biggest oil companies seized on Western oil-shale as the solution. The stage was set for full-on conflict between the oil companies and the residents of the Valley, and the residents quickly found that their small, isolated communities had little influence in the face of powerful corporations.

In 1980, oil giant Exxon bought out all the claims in the region and began planning the “Colony Oil Shale Project.” The outline of this project was published in a “white paper” which would become infamous. It projected a $500 billion investment in strip mines, which would employ tens of thousands and, it was hoped, produce 15 million barrels of oil per day by the year 2010.



Locals reacted with incredulity and suspicion, but as Exxon pressed ahead with constructing a large new town, Battlement Mesa, to house mine-workers, local businessmen contracted a case of “boomtown euphoria,” recognizing that there was money to be made from the thousands of new arrivals to the region. In this atmosphere, the co-operative values of the Valley’s communities were quickly eroded.

As it turned out, locals’ original suspicions had been well-founded. In May 1982, Exxon shut down the Colony Project overnight. The 2,100 people already employed to work on the project lost their jobs, and more than 7,000 workers in the local economy suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Gulliford gives detailed and poignant descriptions of the aftermath. He argues that the residents of the Valley experienced the shutdown as something like a natural disaster, first grieving and later calling themselves “survivors.” He also suggests that the erosion of community values during the boom made the bust less survivable. During a few short years, as locals competed to make as much money for themselves as possible, century-old traditions of pulling together to face hardship were lost through mutual suspicion and disconnection.



Exxon failed to produce a single barrel of salable oil. Gulliford criticizes the company’s approach in-depth, although he only has access to publicly-available documentation (he notes that Exxon refused to provide him with access to their internal documents). Gulliford concludes that Exxon failed to commit sufficient resources to see the project through.

Meanwhile, in the Colorado River Valley, the locals are left trying to maintain the large, modern infrastructure built by Exxon with limited resources. Gulliford concludes that Exxon left behind only “economic instability and personal chaos.”