Railroad Commission Restores Somerset Abandoned Mine Site
Shallow coal mines are often associated with the English countryside in the 18th to early 20th centuries. But Texas, too, has its fair share of those types of mines, such as ones around the Somerset community south of San Antonio. These mines were initially dug in the latter half of the 19th century in the sandy Wilcox Formation, which has been causing problems more than a century after they closed.
TO P TO B OT TO M: Restoration in progress, before restoration, and after restoration.
Thanks to the Railroad Commission’s federally funded Abandoned Mine Land Program, hazards such as these are being methodically addressed.