The Carney Coal Company opened the Carney Mine in 1904 and established the company town of Carneyville, a neat and well-kept place that claimed it had never been the source of a single case of typhoid fever, a notable public health achievement for the time. In 1921, Peabody Coal bought the mine and renamed it Kleenburn, then closed the mine in 1923 and abandoned the town in 1933. Electrification brought lights and conveyor belts, power drills replaced hand drills, and machines undercut the coal, yet the basic mining approach remained the same. As the Sheridan mines modernized and remained known as state-of-the-art, miners shifted from skilled craftsmen to machine operators, coal production increased, and fewer miners were needed. Greater mechanization and heavy earth-moving equipment in the 1950s led to open pit mining and the closure of underground mines. The Carney underground mine stood on the opposite side of the Tongue River, and the concrete pilings at this location formed part of the foundation of the mine tipple where coal was loaded onto trains.