Pray for the dead and fight like hell for living.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 2, 1909
Switchback, McDowel County, West Virginia – Horror at Lick Branch Mine
From the Charleston Labor Argus of December 31, 1908:
HORRIBLE DISASTER
—–
In Another “Model” West Virginia Mine
in Which Scores of Miners
Met Their Death.
—–
Another mine disaster was added to the long list that have occurred in the non-union fields of this state, on Tuesday at the Lick Branch mine in the Norfolk & Western field. Twenty-seven bodies had been recovered up to last night and it is estimated that the death roll will reach nearly one hundred.
Mine cars were shattered and debris was blown out of the entrances and a hundred feet away from the mines mouth. Eight crews or rescuers are at work and have been engaged in the search of bodies.
In a large building near the mines a temporary morgue has been established. There are many pitiful scenes about the little village. Watchers sit side by side of coffins in some homes of which there are three.
The explosion occurred in a mine that was looked upon as a “model” colliery. It was visited by the “legislative investigating committee” when that body toured the state and all pronounced it one of the “safest” and best equipped mines in the state.
———-
[Inset added from Pittsburgh Gazette Times of January 1, 1909.]
From The Galveston Daily News of December 30, 1908:
Seventeen Known Victims
Bluefield, W. Va., Dec. 29.-Twelve men are known to be dead and probably twenty-five more entombed as the result of an explosion which occurred in the Lick Branch colliery, owned by the Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company, the largest coal mining concern in Southern West Virginia, at 3 o’clock this afternoon. It is not known exactly how many men were in the mine at the time. The men leave the mine after what is known as “run,” and many of the fifty-two at work today were not in the mine when the explosion occurred.
The known dead are:
Henry Lockhart, colored
Richard Lockhart, colored
James Lockhart, colored
John Brown
John Miller
Kemp Sanders
James Smith, colored
Charles Little
W. T. Little
Clerd Alexander
Peter Kennedy
Russian, name unknownThe three Lockharts were brothers, as were also the two Littles.
At midnight the rescuers reported that they had located five more bodies and it was believed there would not be any more corpses discovered in the mine.
At 11 o’clock tonight eighteen of the entombed men had been taken out of the colliery alive. They had been stifled by smoke and were not seriously injured enough to make their removal to a hospital necessary.
Among those who managed to crawl out of the death pit was Joseph Espen, who is badly injured.
State Mine Inspectors Phillips, Henry Warner and Grady, who were in the Tug River field, came to the scene of the explosion and took charge of the work of exploring the mine.
The management of the mine, it is claimed, had provided every device known to mining experts and science to insure safety, and it is thought that the trouble originated in an abandoned but congested working in the western division of the mine.
The little town of Switchback, in which all of the miners who worked in the colliery lived, was wild with excitement when the news spread that an accident had taken place, and from all the neighboring collieries men hurried to the scene to aid in the work of rescue.
A special train bearing the officials of the company was sent from Pocahontas to the scene.
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SOURCES
The Labor Argus
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-Dec 31, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/353614890/
The Galveston Daily News
(Galveston, Texas)
-Dec 30, 1908
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/lick_branch_1908_news_only.htm
IMAGE
WV Lick Branch MnDs First, Ptt Gz Tx p1, Jan 1, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/85876996/
See also:
Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company
Lick Branch Mine Explosion
Switchback, McDowell County, West Virginia
December 29, 1908
No. Killed-50
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/lick_branch_1908_news_only.htm
USBM Final Investigation Report
(Slow to load.)
https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/LickBranch_1908.pdf
WV Mine Disasters 1884-Present
http://www.wvminesafety.org/disaster.htm
McDowell County WV, Mine Disasters
http://www.mcdowellwv.com/mcdowell-county-mine-disasters/
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The Mannington Mine Disaster – Hazel Dickens