Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 1, 1908
Marianna, Pennsylvania – Catastrophe at Rachel and Agnes Mine
From The Pittsburg Press of November 29, 1908:
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[Sketch of Stricken Crowds at the Mine]
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BRAVE RESCUERS FIGHT THE UNDERGROUND FIRE
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Crack Mine Is Scene of Terrible Disaster
-Scaffolding Hurled 2,000 Feet in the Air
—-WORKED LIKE DEMONS AGAINST GREAT ODDS
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BY OWEN A. THOMAS,
Press Staff Correspondent.Marianna, Pa., November 28 (11 p. m.)-Even worse than was at first reported is the horrible catastrophe here at the Marianna mine, where late this morning 200 miners were killed instantly by a terrible explosion.
Although officials of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Co., owners and operators of the mine, refuse to admit it, flames are baffling the attempts at rescue, and brattice clothe in enormous quantities is being rushed here by trains from Monongahela 21 miles distant.
Rescuing parties, lowered in great iron buckets, have been able to force their way through the mass of tangled wreckage at the bottom of the shaft.
Here, however, they were stopped by the great piles of stone, iron and coal, heaped there by the force of the exploding gas. The cause of the disaster, in all probability, never will be known….
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ONE LIVE MAN RECOVERED LAST NIGHT
—–BY HOUSTON H. EAGLE,
Press Staff Correspondent.Marianna, Pa., November 29, At the Mine, 2 a. m.-About 288 miners, the majority of whom are dead, are lying at the bottom of a 425-foot shaft in the Rachel and Agnes branches of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Co.’s Marianna mine here, entombed by a mighty explosion of gas which shook the earth shortly before 11 o’clock yesterday.
Far above on the surface scores of men, led by John H. Jones, president of the company, are working like trojans this morning to prepare the way of rescue, though which each passing hour their hopes of saving the unfortunate men are growing less.
Their efforts were stimulated about 10 p. m. by the recovery of a Greek miner from the bottom of the shaft. He was alive when brought to the top in the rude improvised hoist, though the poor fellow was barely conscious.
His hands and feet were burned almost off and his charred clothing fell from his body in shreds. His shrieks reached through the hills he was hurried to the hospital rigged up in the power house…
It is now conceded by the officials that the disaster was caused by one of the compressed air drills of the miners coming in contact with a pocket of natural gas from an old well which is located but a few yards from one of the galleries…
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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Pittsburg Press
(Pittsburg, Pennsylvania)
-Nov 29, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/142163291/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/142163501/
See also:
United States Mine Rescue Association
All Mine Disasters in the United States in 1908
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/Mine_Disasters/search_all_year.asp?ACC_YEAR=1908
November 28, 1908
-Marianna, Washington County, Pennsylvania
Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company
Rachel and Agnes Mine Explosion
-154 Killed
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/rachel_and_agnes.htm
Marianna, PA Mine Explosion Disaster, Nov 1908-The Dead
http://www.gendisasters.com/21937/marianna-pa-mine-explosion-disaster-nov-1908-dead
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West Virginia Mine Disaster-Kathy Mattea