Richard Immel Mine, Paris, Stark County, Ohio, USAi

Regional Level Types
Richard Immel Mine	Mine
Paris	- not defined -
Stark County	County
Ohio	State
USA	Country

The Richard Immel strip mine is an abandoned coal strip mine located in the NE ¼ of Section 16, Paris, Paris Township (Township 17, Range 6), Stark County, Ohio. The locality exploited the Middle Kittaning Coal Formation, Allegheny Group. The Middle Kittaning is known locally to coal miners as the No. 6 coal vein. This locality was referred to as an “abandoned coal mine” by Carlson (1991) and Carlson (2015).

Prior it to being a strip mine, the locality was an abandoned underground coal mine called the Crescent Mine operated by the Crescent Mining Company. The Crescent Mine exploited the No. 5 coal vein in the Lower Kittaning Formation, known today to local miners as the No. 5 coal vein. The vein was approximately 3.5 feet at this location and produced approximately 120 tons a day (Rose, 1910) with a shaft approximately 275 feet going into the mine. The mine had access to the Lake Erie, Alliance & Wheeling Railroad, itself controlled by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and eventually the rail line became part of the New York Central Railroad. The Crescent Mine operated from the early 1900s to approximately the 1920s or the 1930s.

Seaman and Hamilton (1950, p. 50) reported that microcrystals of wurtzite-4H or wurtzite-6H were found in shrinkage cracks in clay-ironstone concretions in clay below the No. 6 coal vein (the Middle Kittaning). In their paper, Seaman and Hamilton reported that Professor William A. Rice of Mount Union College, presented a short talk on the occurrence at an Ohio Academy of Science Meeting at the University of Toledo (Rice, 1948). In their paper the locality was called the “Richard Immel Mine”, southwest of Alliance in Stark County. William Rice (1977, pers. communication) informed Ernest Carlson that this locality was in fact the Richard Immel Mine. It is unknown when mining stopped at this location.

There is little visible evidence today that this locality was either an underground or a strip mine, as the land has been reclaimed. The railroad line where the mine was located on was abandoned by the Penn Central Railroad in the early 1970s and the rails and ties from Minerva, Ohio to Phalanx Station, Ohio were removed shortly thereafter.

Note: Kaolinite localities were only listed in the second edition of Minerals of Ohio. Kaolinite was also found at this locality according to William Rice (1977).

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References