Lom ČSA

The Czechoslovak Army Mine is an opencast brown coal mine located in the North Bohemian Basin of the Czech Republic in the area known in Czech as Mostecko that lies between the city of Most and the town of Litvínov. Since 2008, mining operations have been run by Litvínovská uhelná a.s. after its owner, the Czech Coal Group, broke up the former mining company, Mostecké uhelné a.s., into two operations .HistoryThe ČSA mine is located on the site of what was once Lake Komořany, created approximately 15,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene era as a shallow flow-through lake fed and drained by the river Bílina. Originally occupying an area of nearly 5,600 ha at the foot of the Ore Mountains and under the gaze of Jezeří Chateau, it was the biggest lake in the Kingdom of Bohemia.Due to the requirements of the mining industry, and partially for health reasons, Lake Komořany was artificially drained at the behest of Prince Ferdinand Lobkowitz from 1831. A part of the Lake remained extant until the 20th century, but all remains have long since disappeared as a result of encroaching mining operations. Today’s ČSA mine first begin coal extraction activities in 1901 under the name Hedvika, the volume of coal mined increasing from 74,000 tonnes in 1902 to 344,000 tonnes in 1910. The mine supplied coal to the Ervěnická power station which powered the city of Prague and its surrounds from 1926. Hedvika was one of the first coal mines in Czechoslovakia to begin production again after the Second World War and was renamed the President Roosevelt Mine in 1947. It was transformed from a small-scale mine to a large-scale operation in the 1950s due to a general lack of coal nationwide. It was renamed the Czechoslovak Army Mine in 1958, and in 1962 it was incorporated into the V. I. Lenin Mines national enterprise. It finally became part of the 100% state-owned post-revolution Mostecká uhelná společnost in 1993 before that company was privatised in 1999.