There were actually two Ideal Mines. The Ideal mine and the New Ideal mine was just north of the original Ideal Mine. In the 20 Year history of the mine there were 2,507,301 tons of coal that was taken from the original mine and an additional 12,740 more tons from the New Ideal mine.
What remains of the mining activity is a very large pile of tailings that was discarded during the mining process. The top picture is looking towards the tailings pile, the lower left is at the top of the tailings pile looking down.
Then
Now
Courtesy of the Bessemer Historical Society
The Tipple was a very important component of the mining operations the tipple allowed the miners to load the rail cars with the coal.
When a mine car entered the upper level of the tipple, its contents were dumped through a chute leading to a railroad hopper car positioned on a track running beneath the tipple. At some facilities, each car was tipped over manually—thus the name, “tipple.”
The image of the Ideal tipple clearly shows cars waiting for there load of coal. in the background a box car can be seen.
