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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 21, 1912
McCurtain, Oklahoma – Explosion at San Bois Coal Mine Claims at Least 70 Miners
From the Muskogee Daily Phoenix of March 21, 1912:
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POTEAU, Okla., March 20.— (Special)— San Bois coal mine No. 2, wrecked by explosion and fire this morning, tonight began giving up its burned, mangled and mutilated dead. Five bodies, some of them disfigured so recognition is hardly possible, have been taken from the depths of the shaft and thirty others have been found.
As far as the checking of the missing and the dead made a count possible late tonight between ninety and a hundred men lost their lives in the explosion. Seventy-five coffins have been ordered rushed to the mine from nearby cities.
Thirteen men have come alive from the smoldering shaft and three of them are so badly injured that their death is thought to be only a matter of hours. All of them are hurt.
What caused the explosion is not known but experts working in the rescue party believe that it was due to coal gas. The mine covers several square miles and is of many levels. Many of the entries caved in and the men who were not mangled by the explosion or burned to death are penned behind great walls of earth and twisted timbers. There they may live for hours but it is thought they will die of suffocation before the rescuers can dig their way to them…..
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v02n03-sep-1901-ISR-gog-Princ.pdf
Muskogee Daily Phoenix
(Muskogee, Oklahoma)
-Mar 21, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/584038303/
See also:
March 20, 1912
Sans Bois Coal Company
San Bois No. 2 Mine Explosion
McCurtain, Haskell County, Oklahoma
No. Killed – 73
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/san_bois_news_only.htm
Tulsa Daily World of March 21, 1912
Note: Mine Disaster at McCurtain was front-page news through Mar 24, use “issues” button to move from first page to next first page.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042344/1912-03-21/ed-1/seq-1/
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Dream Of A Miner’s Child – Johnson Mountain Boys