Anthracite, Alberta had grown to 300 and most of the town's residents originated from the eastern United States. It consisted of one general store, one hardware store, one hotel, one pool hall, one restaurant and a barber shop. Anthracite became a hotspot for illegal activities; prostitution and the illegal consumption of alcohol were commonplace The local Justice of the Peace brought the most popular brothel owner in Anthracite before a court and fined her the then-extraordinary amount of $200 for liquor sale violations. After much bad luck during the local mine's operation, the Canadian Anthracite Coal Company closed the mine in 1890.
Anthracite times been futile, and several such combustion areas exist today. The existence of an underground combustion site can sometimes be identified in the winter where fallen snow is seen to be melted by the warmth conducted from below. Proposals for harnessing this heat as geothermal energy have not been successful. A vein of anthracite that caught fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1962 has been burning ever since, turning the once-thriving borough into a ghost town. Among current producers, Russia, China and Ukraine have the largest estimated recoverable reserves of anthracite. Other countries with substantial reserves include Vietnam and North Korea.