The lure of riches has given rise to many historical events. Sometimes the promised boom happens, but often the lure leads to overly optimistic visions. One such event occurred in the late 1880s in Stoddard County.
Sometime in October 1888, boosters found a coal vein near Ardeola—a new town being laid out in northeastern Stoddard County. Immediately, local people saw the glimmer of a coal-fueled boom in their future. Boosters stated the coal was of superior quality and burned well. Ardeola was established on the Cotton Belt Railroad line, so transportation was ready made. The promoters of Ardeola had planned lot sales in the new town but quickly included the presence of the coal vein in their advertising. Ninety-five lots sold for an average of $70 in Ardeola on November 21. One immediate result was a strike for higher wages by eleven workers employed by the new town and mine. This first labor strike in the county resulted in the company refusing to meet with the strikers and the hiring of replacement workers.
A group of Bloomfield investors—Dr. J. S. Richardson, Col. T. H. Mauldin, George Houck, and M. S. Phelan—stepped in to develop the mine. They purchased 160 acres around the site and secured 50-year leases from additional local landowners. They also partnered with a company from Kenton, Ohio, that could provide six million dollars in capital to develop the mine.
The opening of the mine proved fraught with problems, however. A shale layer holding water in a bed of sand overlay the coal vein. Thus, a shaft to reach the coal was impractical because it would flood. Next, they tunneled under the slate layer, cutting the coal vein from the roof of the tunnel. They hoped to reach a better quality of coal but failed after extending the tunnel 150 feet into the hill containing the vein. The coal was abundant, but low quality, and the group ran out of money before finding much.
Despite claims by boosters, the quality of the coal and its limited extent doomed the venture. The coal in the area was lignite, or brown coal, which is soft, brownish in color, and formed from compressed peat. Lignite has a low carbon content, around 25 to 35 percent, and has low heat content. Today it is used almost exclusively for steam-electric power generation, and it produces less heat and releases more carbon dioxide and sulfur during burning in comparison to other types of coal. The extent of the vein was limited, and mining the low-quality coal was economically unfeasible. Within two years of the discovery of coal, mention of a mine disappeared from the local press.
However, talk of the coal mine resurfaced in 1905 from an unlikely source. A fortune teller in the Wayne County town of Taskee told several people there were rich beds of coal at Ardeola and that they should have sufficient faith to investigate thoroughly. Based on that slim hope, the survivors reformed the Bloomfield investor group. The flurry of excitement blew over quickly this time—fortune tellers are not geologists or mining engineers.
In the end, steady employment and the local economy at Ardeola benefited most from the abundant timber resources of the area, with establishment of a sawmill and stave mill being key components. Timber and eventually agriculture supported Ardeola through the early 20th century, not a coal mine.
