page_title: Coal mining in Mexico
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Coal mining in Mexico / History
caption_attribution_description: Southern Pacific Company Atlantic System
context_page_description: Industrial coal mining in Mexico first dates to the year 1884 at the Sabinas basin, in the northern border state of Coahuila. The vast majority of the nation's known reserves remain in this relatively small Región Carbonífera.
  The nation's coal resources were first systematically developed in the 1890s by American industrialist Collis Potter Huntington and others. The mining operations were notable for their poor working conditions, high accident rates and large numbers of worker fatalities. After a wave of foreign investment and exploitation in the early 20th century, annual coal production peaked in 1925.
  Production continues today. As of 2013 Mexico ranked 25th among nations in terms of proved recoverable coal reserves.
context_section_description: Exploitation of coal resources was known since the days of Spanish rule, as European methods of resource extraction crossed the Atlantic.  The first identified coal field in the country in the country is the Rio Sabinas basin, west of the old capital city of Monclova.  The first Mexican mine to produce coal on an industrial scale was the Alamo Mine, in San Felipe, Coahuila, in 1884.
  American railroad magnate C.P. Huntington established the Mexican International Railroad in 1882, running south from Piedras Negras, Coahuila, as part of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  In Coahuila Huntington bought his coal supplies from local landowners, including Evaristo Madero, for local use, and to ship back north to the U.S. to supply Southern Pacific trains.  A bitter contract dispute in 1886 disrupted that relationship and changed the market.  Within a few years Huntington himself controlled at least four local producers (the Sabinas Coal Mines Company, the Coahuila Coal Mine Company, the Alamo Coal Company, and the Fuente Coal Company), with his Mexican International and its spur lines serving as transport for the mines, and his mines fueling the railroad.
  In the same years, Porfirian mining reform laws in 1884 and 1892 scrapped colonial-era doctrine and established mineral rights for landowners, which revived the entire industry and attracted more foreign capital.  In 1905, after Huntington's death, the largest producer in the region had become William Ludlow's Mexican Coal & Coke Company, incorporated in New Jersey.  That firm owned Las Esperanzas mines, the "most important mines in the Republic." 
  British industrialist William Broderick Cloete was also active in the region as an owner of land, rails, and coal mines.  After Cloete died in the Sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May 1915, the mining town Cloete in Sabinas, Coahuila was named for him.
caption: 1893 South Pacific railroad network, showing Mexican International Railroad route
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