By LOU MALLORY - Chairman Wood County Historical Commission
Coal mining once boomed at Alba
(The following is an article that appeared some years ago, possibly in the 1960s, in one of the county newspapers. The article has no author's byline, and the photocopy does not contain the date it was written or the newspaper's name..)
Loretta Lynn is not the only woman who knew life as a coal miner's daughter.
In fact, several people still living in Wood County today, some of whom are daughters of coal miners, can remember a time when an area near Alba prospered on a lignite coal mining operation.
"It was supposed to be one of the largest, if not the largest, in the country at that time," according to Barbara Blount, a descendant of the family that owned and operated Consumers Lignite Company.
Blount, who has resided in Alba since she retired as a U.S. Army nurse in 1960, said coal mining operations near Alba originally began in 1902.
At that time, the company was known as Texas Lignite and Oil Company, a name which was changed to Consumers Lignite Company in 1924.
The mining operation encompassed about 4,000 acres, Blount recalled.
She said lignite coal deposits were located in a belt about 250 miles wide that extended approximately 650 miles through more than 50 counties from the Rio Grande to Arkansas.
"The coal was rather shallow here," she said, adding that its thickness ranged from four to 12 feet.
"But it had the potential to produce a capacity of 1,200 tons per day."
Blount explained that her grandfather, Frederick R. Blount, discovered the coal deposit belt through the Alba area and "persuaded his father, Henry Fitch Blount, to buy it."
She said her grandfather, who was "a promoter of sorts" was instrumental in developing the Alba area by also founding and owning the salt works in Grand Saline and by building the Short Line Railroad from Alba to Grand Saline.
Blount's father, Harold Blount, helped his family operate the mining operation from an office in Dallas, she said.
According to a report compiled by valuation engineer Arthur E. Scott in 1923, the mines produced 152,665 tons of coal yearly.
Mine No. 14, which Blount remembered as the most productive, was yielding 300 tons of coal per day, leading Scott to the prediction that the mines contained enough coal to last 48.5 years.
Blount said that the mining operation seemed to peak between 1909 and 1911.
At that time, the majority of mining activity centered around the present-day location of Alba and Hoyt, a small neighboring community that has since vanished.
"The two (Alba and Hoyt) combined had a population of about 1,500," she recalled.
In his report, Scott indicated five to seven mines usually remained in operation at all times. The company employed about 650 men and operated with two payrolls.
Coal was, for the most part, mined by the slant system, Scott said in his 1923 report.
With the slant system, tunnels were dug into the ground at an angle and rails were laid into each tunnel. Wagon-like cars, which were placed on the rails, were loaded with coal and pulled to the surface by mules.
Blount remembered the legend of one mule named Old Pete. "Pete could pull more than any mule, but he could also count," she said.. "He could hear the clank of the chain between each car as he began pulling. If he heard a fourth car, he wouldn't budge."
The primary users of the coal were cotton mills and gins, along with the Darco Corporation in Marshall, Morton Salt Works in Grand Saline, and the Fraser Brick Company in Ginger. The coal was also sold for industrial purposes in Tyler, Dallas, and Greenville..
The coal was shipped on both the Katy and the Short Line Railroads, Blount said, adding that freight rates ranged from 39 to 79 cents per ton, depending on the distance.
Blount admitted most of the people settling in Alba during its coal mining days were employed by Consumers Lignite Company.
When the management contracted for convict labor from the Texas prison system from 1902 to 1906, she remembered the uproar this caused among residents of the community.
"Nobody wanted prisoners here. They even got up a petition to keep them out, but it didn't work," she said.
Although Consumers Lignite Company still exists "at least on paper," Blount said, mining activity ended in the 1940s when the oil boom hit Wood County.
"The oil business simply put the lignite operation out of business," she said.
Scott's report described how the attempt by company officials to market charcoal briquettes just prior to World War II failed due to a lack of demand for the product.
Today (at the time this article was written), all that remains of the once prominent Wood County industry is a few "fall-ins," reminders of where each coal mining tunnel was located, plus an old cart that now rests on the downtown square in Alba and a few memories in the minds of those bygone coal miners, their children and their families.
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