A company town, it was said that Alma once had almost 100 nearly identical houses with numbers arranged in parallel rows populated by English miners recruited by Gartside. The town also had a post office, general store, saloon, boarding house, and company machine, blacksmith, and carpenter shops. Children were taught by two teachers in a two-story frame school house which was later rebuilt when the original burned in 1881. Alma school later combined with Franklin School to the south to form Central School, which to this day remains an independent school district apart from O’Fallon. Residents conducted their own religious services, although they also visited churches in nearby communities.