The history of the Hwasun coal mine began in 1905, when a Korean man named Bak Hyeon-gyeong registered mining rights to the site. Development accelerated in earnest after 1934, when a Japanese businessman purchased these rights and began full-scale mining operations. The Hwasun coal mine was Korea's first modern coal mine and the only one in the country's southwestern region, serving as a pillar not just for Hwasun's local economy but for the entire South Jeolla regional economy.
At its production peak in 1989, some 1,600 employees mined 705,000 tons of coal over the course of that year. But starting in the late 1980s, the coal industry as a whole entered a broad decline, and as government policies aimed at rationalizing the coal industry led to sustained production cuts, output had fallen to just 63,000 tons by 2022. Ultimately, in 2022, the Korea Coal Corporation decided to close all remaining mines under its operation. The Hwasun mining office submitted its application for early closure on April 27, 2023, and on June 30 of that same year, formally ended its 118-year history. A mine that had been present at the very beginning of Korea's coal industry closed its doors in step with the decline of that entire industry.