Over 100 years ago, several communities in far western Kentucky near the Ohio River were booming with mining activity. But unlike many mines in Kentucky, these sites weren’t home to coal. Instead, miners were digging for a mineral called fluorspar – also known as fluorite – a mineral that in its purest form is transparent and colorless but with impurities can appear in a variety of colors.
The United States gets all of its fluorspar from other countries. But fluorspar’s role technology that’s powering the ever-growing artificial intelligence industry could breathe new life into Kentucky communities that have been quiet since their mines shut down decades ago.
The largest known deposit of this critical mineral in the nation is in the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District – which includes Crittenden, Livingston and Caldwell counties in Kentucky and extends into parts of the Shawnee National Forest on the Illinois side.
Gina Lukoczki, a geologist and critical minerals team lead for the Kentucky Geological Survey, said the resource is prevalent in everyday life.
“It's sort of a hidden thing, because we don't really talk about it all that much, but it's used in so many things that you actually touch in your everyday life, that if it wasn't available, then you would probably notice it,” Lukoczki said.
Fluorspar is used to make everything from steel, nonstick pans and gasoline to refrigerators, batteries and uranium fuel.
As a part of hydrofluoric acid, the resource is also essential to the expanding tech industry as it is vital in the etching process of high-performance microchips, a significant component of data centers that power artificial intelligence. This importance is part of what makes fluorspar a critical mineral in the eyes of the United States government.
Lukoczki said there aren’t many fluorspar deposits in the U.S. It’s a nonrenewable resource and deposits like the one western Kentucky were formed hundreds of millions of years ago.
With demand growing for fluorspar to keep up with technology innovations, there’s hopes from some residents and experts for the industry to potentially come back to the area.
Fluorspar’s history with American manufacturing
Nearly a hundred years ago, communities like Marion, Kentucky, were booming with mining activity as the fluorspar industry supported steelwork up the Ohio River in Pittsburgh.
Frank “Bo” Moodie IV’s great-great-grandfather was one of the early mineral rights owners in the region. He got his son, Moodie’s great-grandfather, into the industry and employed many during an era of incredible economic hardship for the U.S.
“During the Depression, they worked 500 men there,” Moodie said. “That was one of the largest, if not the largest, employer in West Kentucky.”
Moodie said the mine also created indirect jobs, which also supported surrounding communities.
Fluorspar mining saw a lot of national attention during the World Wars due to its use in steelmaking and the production of ammunition. But tariffs on the mineral were lifted after World War II, and companies turned to importing the resource from other countries – ones that had much larger fluorspar supplies than the U.S.
Moodie’s father, a geologist, opened a mine during the 1970s to sell directly to a company in the region for a few years
“Even though they were facing tremendous foreign competition, they were able to produce a high-quality product and go directly for hydrofluoric acid fluorspar,” Moodie said.
But by and large, fluorspar mining in western Kentucky came to an end in the 1980s as it was cheaper for companies to import the resource from other countries than to buy it domestically.
Honoring the mining legacy in Marion
This legacy of fluorspar mining in the region is displayed in more than just Moodie’s family history in Marion. The Crittenden County community is also home to the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum, which hosts a vast collection of fluorite samples and mining artifacts. Moodie’s family donated some of these artifacts.
The original collection was started by namesake Ben E. Clement, who owned and managed fluorspar mines in the region. He collected a large collection of fluorite specimens for display at the museum until his death in 1980.
His granddaughter Andrea Clement is one of the volunteers at the museum. She said her grandfather went from a young boy inspired by a gifted telescope to a Vanderbilt-educated mine manager with a penchant for collecting the brightly colored, cubic mineral.
“It was his dream to have a museum for educational purposes, to do the same thing, to impart that love of learning to the next generation,” Clement said.
He moved to Marion in 1919 and started in mining on a recommendation from a friend in the banking industry who encouraged him to give fluorspar a try.
Mining had been happening for decades beforehand, with galena being mined for lead in ammunition and silver in coins, Andrea Clement said. The fluorspar in area mines was originally considered a waste material before its role in aluminum production was discovered. Fluorspar was also discovered to be useful in steelmaking and the welding materials needed to produce strong metals.
Clement said miners brought up beautiful pieces to sell to collectors because it was an easy way to supplement their income. Her grandfather asked the miners to give him a first pass at the minerals once he realized he wanted to collect them.
The mineral collection is paired with a collection of old mining equipment, various papers and maps and historical photos. These elements work together to tell the stories of the miners of the past.
All of this came from Ben E. Clement’s original hopes and dreams to honor the work of generations before.
Could fluorspar mining come back to the region?
Mining in the region isn’t the same now. The fluorspar mines aren’t active, and people who still work in mining, like 65-year-old Bo Moodie, work in places like the local rock quarry.
Moodie’s original plan for his life was to work in a fluorspar mine like his grandfather and father.
“I learned everything that I could learn, from the exploration part to the processing part to the sales and everything in between,” Moodie said.
Moodie knows what mining has meant for his community and what the return of the industry could mean for the area again. Since the fluorspar boom of the 1920s, Crittenden County had gone from a population of over 13,000 people to less than 9,000 people – an over 30% decrease in population.
“If you have no jobs, people are going to leave, of course.” Moodie said.
There’s been some interest in new fluorspar projects in the area, Moodie said. However, he has concerns about if it’s the right people who have the right knowledge to do the project.
“It's going to be tough, and we are very, very blessed right now at this threshold,” Moodie said. “I can see some AI applications helping [to spur fluorspar activity]. … I can see that making the processing of the materials so much better.”
Lukoczki, the KGS critical mineral geologist, said almost all the fluorspar used in U.S. manufacturing comes from China. Having one major source is a risky economic situation, and that factors into the federal government’s critical mineral designation.
However, some companies are showing interest in U.S.-based fluorspar. The Canadian company CleanTech Vanadium has scooped up mineral and mining rights for thousands of acres across southern Illinois and western Kentucky in recent years – but the company has not announced any plans publicly to reopen mines in the region.
Recent Kentucky Geological Survey findings suggest there’s a potential link between fluorspar and the presence of rare Earth metals, which could be a major boon to the region’s economy.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky, and NPR. Sign up for the weekly Porch light newsletter here for news from around the region.
