Piedmont Charcoal Kilns (cont'd) From 1D According to family histories, Byrne met Catherine Cardon while crossing the plains in the same pioneer company, and married her six days after arriving in Utah; they lived in Slaterville. A few years later, fietook another wife, Anne Beus. In the early 1860s, Byrne contracted with the Overland Stage Company to build stations in Wyoming and Utah. Beus stayed in Ogden, and Byrne settled in the station at Muddy Creek, Wyo., with Cardon. "When Moses heard that the railroad was coming through, he decided to come up and do the kilns, so he called for my great-greatgrandfather to come and run the stage stop," said Wendy Peterson, who lives on the ranch that encompasses Piedmont. Peterson's great-greatgrandfather, Charles Guild, was married to Marie Cardon, sister of Moses Byrne's wife. "They named the town Piedmont, after Piedmont, Italy, where they (the Cardon sisters) were born," Peterson said. Byrne's burners It cost Byrne about $1,000 each to build his kilns, said Peterson, and he built five. "He had 50 teams of horses, at one time, hauling timber down out of the mountains for them," she said. Workers loaded wood into a kiln through a ground- level door, then added more through a window near the top. The door and window were sealed, and the wood set on fire. Small holes around the bottom of the kiln were opened and closed during the burning process, which took six to eight days. "They had to be regulated just right so that it wouldn't all be consumed," Peterson said. The end result was charcoal — carbon fuel that burned hotter, longer and ERIN HOOLEY/Standard-Examiner Many wooden structures remain in Piedmont, Wyo., including the schoolhouse (below) and the home of Charles Guild, built in 1893. His wife Marie Guild and her sister Catherine Byrne were natives of Piedmont, Italy. Their new home was named after their hometown, which means "foot of mountains." cleaner than wood. Most of Byrne's charcoal was sent to Utah, for the mining industry. "The mining industry was a real economic boon to the state of Utah," said Philip F. Notarianni, director of Utah's Division of State History. "The charcoal would be used as fuel to fire furnaces, to create heat to smelt the different metals down." Peterson says the charcoal was also used to fuel trains and stoves. "Some of it was so fine they even sent it back East for artists to draw with," she said. Wild, wild West Piedmont's population quickly grew to 500. In addition to tents for railroad construction crews and loggers, there were about 20 buildings. The town had a school, two stores, several wood and log homes, a roundhouse for trains, and a hotel. There was even a boot hiU. "There were five saloons here at one time," said Peterson. Calamity Jane lived in Piedmont for a while, and Butch Cassidy met his gang 213 in Piedmont before robbing a bank in Idaho, according to the signs placed in Piedmont by the state of Wyoming. Guild's store was robbed one evening, while most folks were at the school for a dance. "Some teenagers talked my (great-great-) grandpa into going and opening the store, and getting some candy out.... Just as he was unlocking the front door, an explosion went off," Peterson said. "They found out the safe had been blown and somebody had stolen their money." The heel of a shoe was left behind, so Peterson's great- great uncle hopped a train to Evanston. "He found a man without a heel, and made a citizen's arrest for the robbery," she said. Sometimes, vigilantes took over. "If they caught somebody, they would take them back here, where there are some cottonwood trees, and they would hang them there by their thumbs ... until the pain got so severe they would confess. Then they'd hang) them properly," Peterson said. Family stories, passed down through generations, tell of Moses Byrne's 2-year-old child being kidnapped by the Sioux and returned two years later by Chief Washakie of the