Photos: Black Diamond Mine Regional Preserve’s new coal mine experience opens

There was no canary in the coal mine Thursday.

But there was a host of dignitaries and media who attended the unveiling of Black Diamond Mine Regional Preserve’s “coal mine experience” in Antioch. Though construction was completed more than a year ago on the new exhibit, the East Bay Regional Park District held off on the opening due to the pandemic and social distancing mandates.

Now ready for visitors, the new exhibit aims to take visitors back in time to a realistic 1870s-era coal mine, using mannequins and special effects, including simulated voices of Welsh miners who came to work in California under extremely difficult conditions.

The immersive educational experience, which will also be open to school groups, will allow for greater understanding and appreciation of the area’s coal-mining past. Long abandoned, the park’s actual coal mine tunnels, are too dangerous for visitors, park officials say.

From the 1860s through the turn of the last century, five coal mining towns thrived in the Black Diamond area: Nortonville, Somersville, Stewartville, West Hartley and Judsonville. The area was California’s largest coal mining operation, with nearly four million tons of coal produced.

In the 1920s, underground mining for sand began near the Nortonville and Somersville townsites. The Somersville mine supplied sand used in glassmaking by the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company in Oakland, while the Nortonville mine supplied the Columbia Steel Works with casting sand. Altogether, more than 1.8 million tons of sand had been mined until operations ceased in 1949.

Today, people can tour the mine and visitor center, hike, camp and visit the Rose Hill Cemetery, a historic cemetery that serves as a monument to the lives of the former residents.

Thirty-minute tours of the new exhibit, called the Coal Mine Experience, cost $3 a person and are open to anyone 7 or older. Tickets for both the new exhibit and the long-standing Hazel-Atlas silica sand mine tours ($5) can be purchased at the park’s underground Greathouse Visitor Center, space permitting.

You can also make advance reservations by calling 888-327-2757 and selecting option 2 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays or  online at www.ebparks.org/parks/black_diamond.