Hanna, WY
with others
As Union Pacific continued its path westward, particular towns played a different role in the railroad's growth. Hanna was one of them. First seen as a coal deposit by explorers in the 1840s, the region had 160 homes, a boarding house and two active mines by 1861. Reached by the railroad in 1868, coal to fuel locomotives would become important to Union Pacific as the railroad progressed through the wood-poor plains.
In 1888, 20 years after Union Pacific laid tracks there, Mark A. Hanna, a Cleveland, Ohio-based coal and shipping magnate, met with Union Pacific officials and convinced them that the railroad's future was inextricably tied to coal fields in the area.
Two years later in 1890, the Union Pacific Coal Company brought its first mine into production in Hanna — named after businessman Mark Hanna — and would open six in total by 1954. Hanna was a company town, and its coal miners and their families were defined by the industry. For instance, the treeless flood plain near the No. 1 Mine was simply called "One Town." As mines were added, new villages popped up, and so did the accompanying "Two Town" and "Three Town."