Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 29, 1912 Jed, West Virginia – Eighty-Three Coal Miners Entombed
From The Fairmont West Virginian of March 26, 1912:
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(By United Press.)
WELCH. W. Va., March 26.-Eighty-three men are entombed in the mine of the United States Coal and Coal Company at Jed, three miles from here.
An explosion of gas occurred in the mine at 7:30 o’clock this morning. Eighty-six men were at work and only three were able to reach the out- side.
Following the explosion after damp pervaded the entire workings of the mine making it impossible for immediate rescue work to be begun.
Deputy State Mine Inspector Arthur Mitchell arrived from Bluefield an hour after the explosion occurred.
Miners who had worked during the night and had gone home were roused and formed rescue parties.
It is possible that some of the imprisoned men may have escaped the explosion and may have reached a part of the mine not penetrated by the after damp.
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GOVERNMENT RESCUE ARE ON SCENE.
WASHINGTON, March 26.-Immediately after learning of the Jed mine disaster the United States Bureau of mines ordered two special rescue cars full of equipment to be sent to the aid of the entombed miners. The Pittsburg rescue crew is also enroute. Car No. 7 is reported to be only an hour’s run from the mine. The Pittsburg car is under the direction of Mining Engineer Dike.
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MINE WORKED DAY AND NIGHT.
The Jed mine worked day and night shifts employing about a hundred and fifty men, both whites and negroes.
The mine was worked on a non-union basis.
When news of the explosion spread, women and children gathered at the mouth of the mine and refused to leave, hysterically urging the the rescue parties to greater efforts.
It is not believed the mine workings are on fire.
It is thought some men may have reached pockets where they were working and closing up openings in the pockets of the main shaft may be safe.
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…..
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 29, 1921 Slaughter of Workers in Mines, Quarries and Metallurgical Plants Continues
From the Duluth Labor World of November 26, 1921:
2,973 KILLED, 206,000 HURT WORKING MINERALS IN 1920 ————-
WASHINGTON, Nov. 24.-Accidents in mines, quarries and metallurgical plants in 1920, exclusive of blasts furnaces in the United States, caused the death of 2,973 employes and the injury of 206,000, according to the bureau of mines.
Based on a standard of 300 working days per man, the statement said: “For every 1000 employes, 3.19 were killed and 221.25 were injured.”
The figures do not indicate the large number of slight injuries causing loss of time of less than one day. In these industries 1,088,000 were employed last year, with an average of 257 working days per man.
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Note: The deadliest month in mining history was December 1907:
The Monongah W. V. Mine Disaster of December 6, 1907 killed 362 miners. The Darr (Pa.) Mine Disaster of December 19, 1907 killed 239 miners.
The Cherry Mine Disaster, follows only the Monongah Mine Disaster and the Dawson Mine Disaster (263 killed, Oct. 22, 1913) for number of men and boys who perished:
The Cherry Ill. Mine Disaster of November 13, 1909 killed 259 miners.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 5, 1910 14,0000 Coal Miners Slaughter During Past Ten Years
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 1, 1910:
Statistics show that 14,000 coal miners miners have been slaughtered in the mines in the last 10 years. At the rate coal miners have been murdered in the last two months in the United States, the death rate will increase by leaps and bounds…..
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 13, 1910
2805 Miners Killed in the United States During 1909
From The Labor Argus of July 7, 1910:
SLAUGHTER OF MINERS
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Nearly 3000 Wafted into Eternity in
the “Model” Mines in 1909
-Thousands Crippled.
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The Cherry Ill. Mine Disaster of November 13, 1909 killed 259 miners. —–
Washington, July 1-The statistics of coal mining casualties in the United States, compiled by the geological survey for the calendar year 1900, show an apparent falling off in fatalities during the year, but since the special bulletin on the subject states that no account is taken of the year’s greatest disaster, that, at Cherry, Ill., in November last, the facts are that 1909 was exceeded only by 1907 as one of heavy catastrophe years.
The report explains that the toll of the Cherry mine disaster is not counted in with the year’s figures because it will not be reported by the Illinois officials until the close of the fiscal year in June.
The government depends for its information in all but four states on the reports of the local officials, and although last year four more states-Georgia, Oregon, Texas and Virginia-were added to the figures through reports received from the operators, the returns are still far from complete, a situation which will be relieved, the report points out, when the newly established bureau of mines is completely organized.
Last year, leaving out the Cherry mine disaster, in which 393 miners and rescuers were burned to death or suffocated, there were 2,412 deaths from coal mine accidents, against 2,450 in 1908 and 3,125 in 1907, the most disastrous year in mining history in this country.
This disaster brings the total of fatalities in 1909 up to 2,805.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 28, 1910
Princeton, Illinois – Jury Reaches Verdict in Great Cherry Mine Disaster
From the Duluth Labor World of May 28, 1910:
PRINCETON, Ill, May 27.-The coroner’s jury, which began last November to investigate the cause of the Cherry mine disaster, which resulted in the death of 265 miners in the St. Paul Coal company’s mine, has reached an agreement, and 250 separate verdicts have been returned.
The jury says the mining laws were broken with the knowledge and consent of the mine inspector.
The verdicts were in three sets, one set fixing the cause of the death of the twelve men in the rescue party who perished on the cage in the mine shaft, another set for the 187 men who were suffocated in the second vein and the third for the 51 men who were trapped in the third vein and died of exposure and suffocation.
The verdict of the coroner’s jury is a vindication of John Cowley, the engineer who was in charge of the cage on which the twelve rescuers lost their lives. The verdict says the twelve rescuers lost their lives “indirectly by a confusion of signals regulating the movements of the cage.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 22, 1910
Washington, D. C. – Congressman Wilson on Plan to Establish Bureau of Mines
From the Duluth Labor World of May 21, 1910:
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State to Establish Bureau of Mines Regarded
as Means of Checking Fearful Death Toll
of Those Who Work Beneath the Ground.
Signature of President Only Lacking.
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WASHINGTON, D. C., May. 20.—A death toll of over twenty thousand of human lives, lives of miners sacrificed in the United States in the last ten years, has at last forced congress to take the first tardy and hesitating step towards checking the senseless slaughter by establishing a national bureau of mines. The bill now only lacks the president’s signature to become law.
The Monongah W. V. Mine Disaster of December 6, 1907, 362 killed. —–The Darr (Pa.) Mine Disaster of December 19, 1907, 239 killed. —–
Asked as to the immediate effect which a bureau of mines would have upon the everyday life of the miner, Representative [Wiliam B.] Wilson, former secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, himself a practical coal miner, first drew attention to the terrible loss of life in the American mines as compared with abroad. He said:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 13, 1910
Palos, Alabama – Heartrending Scenes after Mine Explodes in Fire
From The Birmingham News of May 6, 1910:
From The Birmingham News of May 7, 1910:
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Special to The Birmingham News.
PALOS, Ala., May 7.-Two families suffered hard in the explosion, the Penningtons and the Etansburys [Stansbury].J. S. Pennington and three of his sons, Cliff, aged 24; Albert, 16, and Clarence, 15, were in the mines at the time of the explosion, while four Stanbury brothers were also among those who gave up their lives, Earl, Robert, C. H. and Fred.
[Said James Stansbury, the father:]
It is pretty hard to lose four fine sons in the mines, but I guess I will have to bear the awful burden. In a twinkling of an eye, four fine fellows are called to the beyond,
and the old man walked away, his heart sobbing and his eyes filled with tears.
For two days now the wife of J. S. Pennington and her eight children, some of them her step-children, have been sitting around near the improvised morgue near the trestle to the mines. She has been moaning off and on,
Mr. Pennington was a good man. He was a kind husband and a good father And the boys who met the same fate were all good boys. My grief is something terrible. We had such a fine family and the Penningtons have always been respected around here.
—————Day after day waiting for news from the entombed miners-Photo by A. P. Risser
Carrying out one of the 85 victims of the explosion-Photo by Paul Thompson, N. Y.
General view of the town of Jed, W. Va. Scene of the Disaster-Paul Thompson, N. Y.
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