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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 5, 1910
Trinidad, Colorado – Primero Mine Disaster Leaves 300-400 Children Fatherless
From The Fort Collins Express of February 3, 1910:
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THE REPORT OF THE EXPLOSION REACHED HERE AT SIX O’CLOCK TONIGHT BY A MESSENGER AND TELEPHONE THE WIRES WERE PURPOSELY CUT OR WERE BROKEN BY SOME UNKNOWN CAUSE BETWEEN HERE AND THE SCENE OF THE DISASTER, FOR JUST AFTER THE EXPLOSION THE WIRES PUT OUT OF COMMISSION AND ONLY MEAGER NEWS HAS BEEN RECEIVED FROM THE MINE.
At 11:30 tonight a messenger reported from a point about half way between here and Primero that fifteen bodies bad been recovered and that 135 more were in the mine with no hope of being rescued alive.
The cause of the explosion is unknown. A rescue party that left this city is expected back about 2 o’clock in the morning with complete reports of the disaster.
The criticism being directed against the company owning the mine is very severe as there is an apparent attempt to prevent the details from being made public. A large number of men who worked in the mine live in Trinidad, going back and forth on miners’ trains each morning and evening. Great excitement prevails in this city among the wives and children of the entombed men.
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TRINIDAD, COLO., FEB. 1.—AT MIDNIGHT THE REPORTS HERE ARE TO THE EFFECT THAT 79 BODIES HAVE BEEN FOUND. THE REPORT IS NOT CONFIRMED, BUT IT IS KNOWN THAT A LOCAL UNDERTAKER HAS ORDERED EIGHTY COFFINS FROM DENVER.
THE FEELING AGAINST THE COMPANY CONTINUES TO INCREASE BECAUSE OF THE DETERMINED EFFORT TO WITHHOLD THE NEWS.
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PRESIDENT WELBORN SAYS HE KNOWS OF THREE DEAD
Denver, Colo., Jan 31—J. F. Welborn, president of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, which company owns the Primero mine, stated at 11:30 tonight that the details regarding the explosion were very meager so far as known here. He stated that he knew that three men were dead and that there were 147 others in the mine. He stated that he was trying to get in touch with the officials at the mine in order to get more definite information.
Primero is one of the most important coal camps of the C. F. & I. Co. The mine itself employs a total of over 600 men, and was the first of a chain of camps established by the C. F. & I. Co. in and around Trinidad. The Primero supplies the coal for the Segundo coke ovens located about two miles below Primero. Most of the men in the mine are foreigners and most of them are residents of Trinidad and have lived in the city for years.
J. D. Jones, state mine inspector, received notice of the accident early this evening end left for Trinidad at 11 o’clock tonight. The feeling here is that every man in the mine was killed.
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SOURCES
Mother Jones Quote, re Life Cheaper Than Props, Trinidad CO, Sept 16, 1913, House Com p2630
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=92IvAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA2630
The Fort Collins Express
(Fort Collins, Colorado)
-Feb 3, 1910
https://www.newspapers.com/image/588206310/
See also:
For more on CF&I, see:
“The Steel Industry and the People in Colorado”
-by John A. Fitch, Member Staff (1907-1908) Pittsburgh Survey
From: The Survey of Feb 3, 1912
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=FvUh3_L-yTQC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1706
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
Primero Mine Explosion
Primero, Las Animas County, Colorado
January 31, 1910
No. Killed – 75
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/primero.htm
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
Primero Mine Explosion
Primero, Las Animas County, Colorado
January 23, 1907
No. Killed – 24
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/primero_news_only.htm
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company
Starkville Mine Explosion
Starkville, Colorado
October 8, 1910
No. Killed – 58
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/starkville_news_only.htm
Note: During the Southern Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914,
Rockefeller’s CF&I preferred using the “Death Special” on their workers
rather than negotiating with them:
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From CIR: Report on Colorado Strike by George P West, page 102, 1915
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=0eoCAAAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA102
[During the 1913-14 Strike] Active in the management of the companies’ armed guards were agents and officials of the notorious Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency of West Virginia. This agency already had a record for ruthless and brutal treatment of strikers, acquired during the coal strike in West Virginia. It was employed by the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company to aid in recruiting guards, to install and operate machine guns at the principal mines, and generally to supervise and assist the work of protecting the properties and suppressing the strike. Under direction of A. C. Felts and Detectives Belk and Belcher of this agency, an armored automobile was built at the shops of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company at Pueblo. This car, christened “The Death Special,” was mounted with a machine gun and used first by company guards and later by militia officers.
“Death Special” -by David Noon
https://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2008/10/17/death-special/
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Ludlow Massacre – Woody Guthrie
Note: Where Woody mentions the Colorado Governor, this would be Governor Ammons, Democrat.
-So no, any blue will not do.