Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Mystic, IA

Mystic is a city in Appanoose County, Iowa, whose name is derived from Mystic, Connecticut.

Coal made Mystic: A. M. Elgin opened the first coal mine in the area in 1857, about a mile and a half north of town on Little Walnut Creek, where the Mystic coal seam lay exposed at the surface.

Isaac Fuller opened a large mine at Mystic in 1858, shipping coal for domestic use in nearby Centerville.

When the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway built through Mystic in 1887, mining exploded — by 1893 there were 14 mines in Mystic and two more in neighboring Brazil.

At the end of the 19th century, the whole valley of Walnut Creek was described as one continuous mining camp, known under the different names Jerome, Diamond, Mystic, Clarkdale, Rathbun and Darby.

Mystic's miners joined the United Mine Workers in 1898, and the town's Local 634 alone had 569 members by 1902.

By 1912, Mystic's two United Mine Workers locals had 851 members combined — about a quarter of the town's entire population.

In 1914, the Lodwick Brothers Coal Company of Mystic produced over 100,000 tons of coal, ranking among the top 24 coal producers in Iowa.

Mystic's population peaked at 2,796 in the 1920 census, at the height of the southern Iowa coal boom.

The 2020 census counted just 322 people in Mystic, in 149 households and 85 families — barely a tenth of its mining-era size.