By Ian Holmes

100 years of coal has shaped modern day Lantzville

Sep 16, 2016 | 4:19 PM

LANTZVILLE — The Lantzville we know today is based on what happened 100 years ago.

Lynn Reeve of the Lantzville historical society says it was 1916 when the first coal operation started in Lantzville, which had previously only been farmland until the minors started showing up.

“Without the coal Lantzville wouldn’t be here. We’d be just a bunch of farming communities. There were people here before the mine but they were farmers and farmers don’t start stores and hotels and things like that,” says Reeve.

Reeve says there were two notable mines with as many as 197 men working in 1921 in an operation founded by Jack Grant.

“The big mine that was operating from 1916 to 1926 at the bottom of Jacks Road, and there’s still pilings out there from the wharf. There was a smaller mine in the 30’s that operated as a co-op and didn’t make a lot of money; that was at the bottom of Harper (Road).”

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Reeve says Lantzville’s big mine, which included financing from the United States, covered a large portion of present day lower Lantzville, including mining shafts that went under Pioneer Park.

A few other smaller operations in the small seaside community followed, but nothing significant, according to Reeve.

She notes that provincial government records indicate coal was extracted in Lantzville every year between 1916 and 1943.

On the heels of the annual Minetown Days celebration, a much brighter light is about to shine on Lantzville’s rich coal mining history in the form of a pending expansion to Costin Hall.

Reeve says more room in the hall will allow the Historical Society to store archived mining records and photos in one place.

She says the historical society has over 1,000 pictures related to Lantzville’s coal mining days.

“Its very, very critical,” emphasized Reeve of the project to improve Costin Hall.