Sited in the Red Deer River Valley, here better known as
The Badlands, and about 22 kilometres south of the city of Drumheller, the
Atlas No. 3 Coal Mine National Historic Site is today the best preserved and most complete coal mining site in Canada. Home to Canada's last remaining wooden tipple, the site also contains several of the original buildings, including managers' houses and a storage shed, as well as rail lines which connected the mine to the Canadian Pacific's main rail line. To the northwest of the mine site still stands a four span Howe truss wooden bridge first built by the CPR in 1936, only to be destroyed by heavy flooding and ice floes in April 1948, rebuilt shortly thereafter.
Of the 139 coal mines which once operated in the Drumheller Valley, The Atlas Coal Mines were the most successful, with the four, all operated by the Patrick family, producing about 20% of the coal mined in the valley. After barely a fifth of a century of operation the Atlas #3 mine itself had produced around 5 million tons of coal. The mine remained in full production for only 20 years, from 1936 to 1956. The mine soldiered on for another 23 years with reduced production, finally closing for good in 1979, making it the last coal mine in the valley to close, signalling the end of coal mining in the Red Deer Valley.
Today the Atlas #3 Mine site has become not only a
Canadian National Historic Site, but a
Province of Alberta Historic Place and a
Coal Mining Museum, as well.
In addition to the remaining infrastructure, the site contains a large collection of the machinery, motive power and rolling stock which enabled the production of a prodigious amount of coal over nearly half a century of operation.
Atlas Coal Mine
Description of Historic Place
The Atlas Coal Mine is a cultural landscape situated on 4.472 hectares of land near East Coulee, approximately 25 kilometres southeast of Drumheller. The site comprises a variety of buildings, structures, and landscape elements spread across the side of a bluff on the south side of the Red Deer River and over the valley immediately below. Significant site elements include: the vestiges of the mine entrance, the foundations of a rotary dump, traces of rail lines, traces of a trestle, remains of a rotary dump, explosives sheds, a blacksmith shop, a tipple, screening house, and covered conveyor belt shafts, a machine shop, a storage building, a wash house, a loading ramp, three former managers' houses, and a storage shed.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Atlas Coal Mine lies in its excellent representation of a major mining operation in the Drumheller Valley - one of Canada's most significant coalfields between World War One and the 1950s. The site is remarkable for its integrity and its association with the pioneering mining practices of Dr. Omer Patrick, the president of the Atlas Coal Mine.
The Atlas Coal Mine in East Coulee was an integral part of the coal industry in the Drumheller region and the site of several trailblazing techniques in coal extraction and processing. Created in 1910, the townsite of Drumheller quickly became a hub of mining activity; in 1912 alone, eight new mines were initiated and by 1921, there were 27 mining operations in the region. Active in the region since the late 1910s, the Atlas Coal Mine Company established its third mine (Atlas No. 3 Coal Mine) near East Coulee along the south bank of the Red Deer River in 1936. The original mine structures erected that year were razed by a fire in April 1937, they were immediately reconstructed and the mine recommenced operations later that year.
Unlike the large, well-financed mining operations in the Rocky Mountains, the Drumheller Valley mining projects were typically smaller enterprises bankrolled by businessmen of less substantial means. Dr. Omer H. Patrick, a prominent entrepreneur and Calgary civic figure, was the driving force behind the Atlas Coal Mine Company. An energetic and ambitious modernizer, Patrick employed pioneering mining technologies in his operations. Among the significant innovations introduced at the Atlas No. 3 Coal Mine were the use of a self-propelled coal cutting machine on tracks and the Cardox method of retrieving coal. The Cardox method was particularly significant. Employed experimentally in the mines in 1937, the method was non-explosive, using compressed carbon dioxide to dislodge coal. This extraction technique produced fewer "shatter cracks" and resulted in a higher quality of coal, less prone to degradation during processing and transport and able to burn longer. The Atlas Coal Company eventually obtained exclusive rights to use the Cardox method over much of the Drumheller field. Dr. Patrick's entrepreneurial vision and commitment to cutting-edge technology established the Atlas Coal Mine as one of the most productive and efficient coal operations in the province between World War One and the 1950s. The mine closed in the mid 1950s, as new energy sources became readily available. It is currently an interpretive site.
Character-Defining Elements
- location of, and spatial relationships between, each structure, building, and landscape element;
- trace of rail lines;
- rail staging yard;
- loading ramp;
- secondary shaft entrance;
- boxcar loader;
- vestiges of original miners' path to the mine entrance;
- network of power poles, transformer yard, and overhead wires leading from the valley up the hill near the blacksmith shop.
From the Alberta Heritage Register