Anthracite, Alberta It was reopened the next year when W. H. McNeill agreed to finance the coal company, but after a series of floods and more bad luck, McNeill moved his operations to nearby Canmore. It was deserted in 1904 and in the 1930s mining in the surrounding region was banned by the government. Anthracite is located at approximately . In 1997, John Pearson, a former Parks Canada employee and last living resident of Anthracite revealed to a Banff newspaper that he had heard a rumour in the 1960s that a child had drowned in the nearby Cascade River in 1883 and
Anthracite difficulty of igniting it. This was a particular concern in smelting iron using a blast furnace. With the invention of hot blast in 1828, which used waste heat to preheat combustion air, anthracite became a preferred fuel, accounting for 45% of US pig iron production within 15 years. Anthracite for iron smelting was later displaced by coke. From the late 19th century until the 1950s, anthracite was the most popular fuel for heating homes and other buildings in the northern US, until it was supplanted by oil-burning systems and more recently natural gas systems. Many large public buildings, such as