History of the Gilsonite industry

In 1957 the American Gilsonite Company opened a revolutionary refinery near Grand Junction, Colorado, which had cost them $16,000,000 to build, and began reducing the gilsonite--a solid hydrocarbon--to high-grade gasoline and pure carbon-coke at the rate of about 700 tons per day. Just as incredible is the fact that gilsonite was and is conveyed from Bonanza, Utah, across the precipitous Book Cliffs to the refinery through a pipeline. The opening of this magnificent plant was eighty-eight years removed from the year 1869 when the blacksmith of the Whiterocks Indian Agency attempted to burn gilsonite as coal in his forge with rather dreadful results. During the interval so many human events occurred in relation to gilsonite--a rare bitumen closely related to grahamite and glance pitch--that it was felt to be an adequate and deserving topic for thorough historical treatment.