By David G. Robinson
When most people think of Texas and energy, oil and gas usually come to mind—but coal, specifically a type called “lignite,” once played a surprising role in Bastrop County’s story.
Lignite is a soft, brownish form of coal—one step up from peat, but not quite as efficient or energy-packed as the bituminous, or “soft” coal you might find elsewhere. Its burn quality isn’t exactly top-tier, but that varies depending on the deposit. Still, it was abundant and useful enough to spark interest here locally.
Bastrop’s lignite deposits are part of a much bigger picture: a vast lignite belt that stretches across Texas from Laredo in the south all the way up to Texarkana in the northeast. Geologically speaking, these lignite beds are tucked into what’s known as the Eocene Wilcox Group, particularly in the Calvert Bluff formation. This formation is made up of old sands, silts, and clays—left behind from ancient shorelines, lagoons, and river deltas. Over time, layer upon layer of plants grew and died here, eventually transforming into the carbon-rich coal buried underground.
In Bastrop County, coal mining officially kicked off in 1868, starting with the Goodman slope mine, where miners followed the coal seam exposed at the surface. The Bastrop Advertiser later noted some mining happening around 1874 between Elgin and McDade, but that activity was probably small-scale and informal. By 1892, though, deed records show a more substantial operation underway at the Mowatt mine in northern Bastrop County—likely the same mine the newspaper vaguely mentioned earlier.
Things really started to heat up in 1903, which became a boom year for coal mining here. With the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad already running through the county since the 1880s, companies were quick to lease land along its right-of-way and sink vertical shafts down into the coal beds. From there, they dug horizontal galleries to extract the lignite, with short rail spurs built to connect the mines to the main line. This central area of the county became the heart of local mining operations.
Some of the bigger players included mines and companies like Phelan, Glen Belto (or Glenham), Independence, Carr, Sayers, Calvin/Waugh, Denison, Consumers, Our Coal Company, and of course, the Mowatt mine. Others, whose names may have faded with time, also likely dotted the landscape.
Coal from Bastrop wasn’t just used locally. For example, the Glenham mine was still shipping lignite to the University of Texas as late as 1944, supplying fuel for its heating utilities. But by then, that era of mining was winding down.
The industry got a short-lived second wind in the 1980s, when the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) proposed a strip mine at Powell Bend, across the river from earlier mining sites. This plan came during a time of renewed interest in lignite as a power source for Texas’s growing energy demands. But unlike the underground shaft methods used in the early 1900s, this new approach—strip mining—involved scraping away the earth down to the coal seam, raising serious environmental concerns.
Local residents weren’t having it. They organized, studied up on how to challenge a big bureaucratic authority like the LCRA, and voiced strong opposition. Despite the pushback, the mine did open around 1983 but it didn’t last long. Global shifts in the energy market and the mine’s low productivity led to its closure shortly after.
Since then, coal hasn’t played a meaningful role in the county’s economic development. As we moved further into the 21st century, Bastrop County turned its focus to other industries and more sustainable growth, leaving lignite behind as a fascinating chapter in its energy history.