COAL CITY — A yellow school bus packed with a group interested in learning pulled away from the Coal City Public Library District Wednesday morning.

The occupants were not schoolchildren, but a group of more than 40 adults ready to hear about the origins of Coal City and Carbon Hill during an opportunity held as part of a free library and museum tour.

As the bus started down village streets, tour leader Michele Micetich, who heads the Carbon Hill School Museum and Carbon Hill Historical Society, started with the Suffern family, a farming family that was among the area's earliest settlers in the 1850s. She then discussed the industry that came to play a large influence in shaping Coal City, starting in the 1870s — coal mining.