There’s still a part of life during Minnesota winters that’s based on “gopher wood.” And just what is this wood? It’s wood burned in stoves and fireplaces to produce heat. And it isn’t very long before it’s time to “go for” more wood to feed the fire.

Maybe this is a different way to emphasize the advantage coal once had over wood as a fuel source. Once a wood fire was burning in a stove, fireplace or even furnace, adding coal made the blaze last much longer and give off more consistent heat.

As the railroads came into this area, coal started to both replace and supplement wood as a source of heat.

This coal for other parts of the nation, mostly from Illinois and south Iowa, and even from Pennsylvania, could be transported in open gondola cars to firms with railroad sidetracks. Here the coal was placed in large storage bins for later delivery to customers. Most of this coal was bituminous. Anthracite, a much harder coal from Pennsylvania, was the premium grade fuel.

Evidence from older city directories clearly shows there were once four basic types of businesses in Albert Lea selling coal. One was a firm specializing in this rather seasonal product. Another was a grain elevator which added coal to its line of sales items for customers. The third was a business with the rather distinctive combination of selling ice in the warmer parts of the year and coal during the colder months. And the fourth was a lumber yard.

Proof for this can be found in the 1938 city directory which listed the following retail coal dealers: Albert Lea Ice & Fuel Co., 804 S. Broadway Ave.; Atlas Lumber Yards, corner of South Washington Avenue and West College Street; Benson Coal Co., 605 S. Broadway Ave.; Botsford Lumber Co., 416 Bridge Ave.; Donovan Grain and Fuel Co., 628 S. Pearl St.; Minnesota Lumber Co., 302 S., Washington Ave.; G.W. Moore, 302 E. Fourth St., and Speltz Grain & Coal Co., 502 E. William St.

By 1948, Minnesota Lumber Co. and G.W. Moore were no longer selling coal. However, the Lampert Lumber Co., at the corner of Elizabeth Avenue and East College Street and next to the railroad tracks was added to the local list of retail coal merchants.

In the era after World War II, the advent of electric refrigerators and stoves and natural gas and fuel oil stoves and furnaces created a real decline in local coal sales and usage. Thus, by 1958, the city directory showed just one firm with a changed name, Albert Lea Fuel Co., as the city’s last coal retailer.

Coal was delivered to homes and businesses by the ton by horse-drawn wagons and later by trucks. This coal was either placed in a special bin in a woodshed or barn. Some coal was also delivered to basement rooms or bins in home and businesses with a chute and the use of simple gravity. To make this last delivery system possible, a local foundry made and sold a special casting called a coal door.

Coal has always been an important fuel for the creation of electric energy. For many years this was the prime fuel for both electrical and heat at the Interstate Power Co. generation facility on South Newton Avenue near the railroad tracks and at the Wilson & Co. plant.

Today, a good portion of the power for the customers of Freeborn-Mower Cooperative Services comes from Dairyland Power Cooperative plants in Alma and Genoa, Wis., and for Alliant Energy customers from a large plant at Lansing, Iowa. All three plants rely on barges on the Mississippi River for their coal.

Trainloads consisting of gondola cars filled with coal pass through Albert Lea on a daily basis. However, this coal is in transit from Wyoming on the Union Pacific Railroad and destined for several large electrical generation plants in the Twin Cities area.