Coal Country - Clinton, MO - Missouri Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

"Coal Mining in Missouri
"Along the trail [Katy Trail State Park] between Calhoun and Clinton the landscape shows the barely visible signs of strip mining. If the Calhoun trail marker had not mentioned this history, I would not have thought to look differently at the landscape along the Katy Trail. There are several areas where the long, deep trenches created from strip mining have marked the landscape with open scars of earth still evident or filled with water. A satellite image of this area shows long, slender ponds outlining the areas of the strip mining.

"The Tebo coalfield in the area was used for locomotive fuel and later for energy production as noted by a 1984 "Missouri Coal" report.

Coal, sometimes nicknamed "the rock that burns," is a product of nature's continual growth and decay.

Although not a true coal, peat is considered to be its first stage of development. Further stages of development. Further stages of development are the soft coals lignite, or brown coal; subbituminous coal; bituminous coal; and finally, anthractie, or hard coal

The coal we use now is as much as 300 million years old, formed in an era when lush vegetation and steamy, tropical conditions existed over much of the world.

"On the Katy Trail near Calhoun, Missouri. This photo is an example of prominent signs of strip mining coal in this area, where a pond has formed in the deep trench created from the mining. "The report goes on to explain how productive the coal mine near Calhoun was: "The Tebo field was the largest producing area in the state before mining activity increased in the Bevier field in the late 1970s." Further, the Tebo field constituted 10 percent of Missouri's production.

"Most early coal mines in Missouri were underground. Interest in strip mining developed in the mid-1930s, and by the late 1960s, it was the only method used," the coal report states.