Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Coalville, IA

Coalville is an unincorporated census-designated place (CDP) in Webster County, Iowa — not an incorporated city — located on U.S. Route 20 on the bank of the Des Moines River just southeast of Fort Dodge.

Coalville takes its name from the coal mines of the area, and it began as one of the northernmost coal-mining towns in Iowa.

Settlers were digging coal from outcrops along the Des Moines River by 1860, and in 1870 a mine opened on Holiday Creek with a three-mile tramway to the railroad, while a shaft was sunk at Coalville itself that same year.

By 1883 the Fort Dodge Coal Company employed 350 miners around Coalville, producing 30 carloads of coal every day.

The Pleasant Valley Coal Company sank a 105-foot shaft at Coalville in 1895 that employed 100 men working a six-foot coal bed, and the Gleason Coal Company's 1899 shaft produced 200,000 tons of coal before it closed in 1907.

United Mine Workers Local 392 was organized in Coalville in 1899 and had 133 members by 1907, when miners there earned between $1.91 and $2.56 per day.

Despite the hundreds of miners who worked its pits, Coalville itself remained tiny in its mining heyday — its population was counted at just 26 in 1902 and 150 in 1940.

The 2020 census counted 651 people in Coalville living in 261 households, up 6.7 percent from 610 people in 2010.

Coalville covers about 2.26 square miles along the Des Moines River, and its children attend Fort Dodge Community School District schools, including Fort Dodge Senior High School.