Eagle Pass Coal Mines

The DeBonas' mines lay on the Olmos Formation, a coal outcrop about four miles wide, beside the Olmos siding of the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway six miles northeast of Eagle Pass. A small community grew up around the workings, its laborers housed in what were described as small red houses. The mines, also called the Lamar mine, closed by the mid-1920s. In 1946 Olmos was a railroad siding, a group dwelling and a couple of houses, and by 1974 the site had been abandoned.

What the plaque says

Eagle Pass Coal Mines Although the Indian, Spanish, and early anglo-American inhabitants knew of this area's large bituminous coal deposits, commercial mining did not begin until 1885, when F. H. Hartz opened a hillside mine near the Rio Grande. For a time, it was the largest producing mine in Texas, but damage from an 1892 fire caused it to close several years later. Hartz then started another mine for the Maverick County Coal Co., which evolved into the Olmos Coal, coke, and Oil Company. Under direction of Pasquale and Rocco DeBona, this company reached a production peak of 1,200 tons a day. Another mining operation was the Eagle Pass Coal and Coke Company, formed in 1893 by Louis Dolch, J. B. Dibrell, and Emil Moshiem. Their mines (.25 miles south) supplied fuel for Southern Pacific Railroad locomotives until 1902. The town of Dolchburg, now called Seco Mines, was built in 1905, with housing for 90 workers. After Dolch's death in 1907, the International Coal Mine Company took over the operation. By 1910, this firm employed 350 men and produced about 1,000 tons of coal a day. Competition from oil, natural gas, and other fuels caused the mines to decline. The main Olmos Co. shafts closed in 1912, but Olmo's Lamar Mine (3.5 miles northeast) and the International Co. Mines were operating as late as 1925. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Duncan Museum — 3.7 mi
  The 1849 river post at Eagle Pass, where the first Black Seminole scouts enlisted in 1870, kept by the city as a park with its old headquarters as a museum.

More markers nearby

• Jesse Sumpter — 2.4 mi
• Maverick County — 3.2 mi
• Eagle Pass, C.S.A. — 3.2 mi
• California Camp — 3.3 mi