Luscar, Alberta

Luscar was at one time a coal mining town in western Alberta, Canada, although nothing remains of the town today. It was situated in the foothills of the Northern Rockies about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) northwest of Cadomin along the Bighorn Highway (Highway 40), at the end of the CN Railway line.

History

Luscar lies in an area known as the Alberta Coal Branch, which has a long history of coal mining. The original underground mine at Luscar opened in 1921, and by 1922 the town consisted of about 25 or 30 homes, a small cottage hospital, a school, a general store and other shops. The mine worked the strongly folded Jewel Seam and produced steam coal, primarily for railroad markets. Surface mining began in 1945 and underground mining had ceased by 1954. Fire destroyed the briquette plant in 1956 and later that year all mining ceased due to lack of markets for steam coal, after which the town was abandoned.[1]

In 1970 the old Luscar townsite became the headquarters for an open-pit coal mine owned jointly by Luscar Ltd. and Consolidation Coal Company and operated by Cardinal River Coals Ltd. It produced coking coal for export to Asian steel mills.[2] That mine closed at the end of 2000.[1] Coal from the Cheviot Mine near Mountain Park is currently trucked to the Luscar site where it is cleaned and loaded into rail cars.[3]

References

1. Kyba, Daniel and Jane Ross (2001). Exploring the historic Coal Branch. Calgary, Alberta: Rocky Mountain Books, 336 p. ISBN 0-921102-83-6.
2. Tribe, John 1980. Luscar's coal mining operations. Bulletin of Canadian Mining and Metallurgy, January 1980, p. 97-100.
3. "Teck Cardinal River Operations". Archived from the original on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2014-01-24.

See also

• List of ghost towns in Alberta