“Oh, damn it, dagos are cheaper than props.” -Mother Jones quoting a mine manager.
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 11, 1907
Monongah, West Virginia – Little Orphan Girls Beg for Work
Journalist Dorothy Dale reports from the devastated town:
Please letta me work, lady; gotta getta money…Please you get something for me, I can do.
A little hand touched my arm. The curl-framed face of a girl of 10 years looked into mine.
[She said pitifully:]
You know mans all dead. Boys all dead. Only girls left to work.
From The Pittsburgh Press of Dec 10, 1907:
Fairmont, W. Va., December 10.-“Please letta me work, lady; gotta getta money.”
It was the appeal on every side in Monongah on Tuesday and it came from little girls, many of them not 10 years old. It is the newest development in the mine horror. Girls-mind you-not boys!
The boys of Monongah lie sleeping under the coal-weighted hills. Early Tuesday the corpse of a slender child form was brought out of No. 6. It was identified as Johnny Yaconis, and taken to the tumble down shack up in Red Row, over the mine, where a stony faced little woman kissed it until her face was black from the charred flesh. Another body, that of the boy’s father, Franco Yaconis, is still concealed in one of those underground rooms.
Dominic, her boy of 15, lies in the company hospital, where his crushed leg was amputated. Only her Johnny had been brought to her. “Devil Johnny,” they called him, but there was nothing devilish about him. At the age of 12 years the stunted little overalled figure trudged every morning to the mines, where he was a trapper. At 13 years of age he died in those mines.
How can God forgive you, you do know what you’ve done.
You’ve killed my husband, now you want my son.
-Hazel Dickens
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 9, 1917
Monongah, West Virginia – Agonizing Scenes of Grief and Despair
From The Pittsburgh Press of December 7, 1907:
James Cain, an inspector, was overcome while working in the mine this afternoon and is in a precarious condition.
Many women are rallying to aid in giving temporary relief wherever possible. Across the street from the mine quarters have been arranged where the distracted widows of the dead miners are cared for…..
AGONIZING SCENES.
With the early dawn of day and rising of the sun, the beautiful little mining village of Monongah was found to be one of sorrow and despair. Throughout the night widows and orphans hovered close together at the mine entrance, despite the coldness of the night, hoping against hope that their loved ones would still be found alive who were entombed.
The concussion was felt all over the country, houses were wrecked, windows broken and many persons near the mines knocked down and injured.
Thousands of people have assembled at the mine entrances.
The scenes about the mine openings throughout the night were agonizing in the extreme. The anguish of wives and mothers who wrung their hands and cried hysterically out of their solicitude for bread winners who were locked up in their underground sepulchre, were painful in the extreme. Women fainted. Strong men gave way. Little children, only faintly realizing what happened, cried pitifully, not for absent fathers and brothers, but because of the distress round about them and their intuitive knowledge that it was an occasion that called for tears…
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 7, 1907
Monongah, West Virginia – Explosion Followed by Fire at Nos. 6 & 8
From The Pittsburg Press of December 6, 1907:
The Grim News from Monongah:
By United Press.
Monongah, W. Va., December 6.-An explosion of dust in the Nos. 6 and 8 mines of the Fairmont Coal Co. here at half past ten o’clock this morning, resulted in the death of probably four hundred men.
At 2 o’clock this afternoon eight dead bodies were found near the entrance of No. 6 and had been taken out, but at that time dense volumes of smoke from a fire in the heart of the mine drove the rescuers to the open air and they have not since been able to return, although every effort is being made to get in.
The women and children are crying continually,
and stare with hope at the
seemingly fruitless work of rescue.
–The Pittsburg Press
December 2, 1907
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday December 5, 1907
Fayette City, Pennsylvania – Many Dead in Naomi Mine Explosion
An explosion Sunday night at the Naomi Coal Mine, followed by fumes of poisonous gas which soon filled the mine, led to the death of at least 27 miners, with some saying that the death toll could reach as high as 68.
From The Pittsburg Press of December 2, 1907:
The death list will be at least 46. Their chance of ever getting out alive is hopelessly slim.
“Dagos are cheaper than props.”
-Mother Jone quoting a Mine Manager
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 19, 1917
Pennsylvania Leads Nation for Coal Mine Fatalities in 1916
From the Appeal to Reason of September 15, 1917:
Coal Mine Fatalities, 1916
Waiting for word.
The number of persons killed in and about coal mines during the calendar year 1916 was 2,225, as compared with 2,269 in 1915, 2,454 in 1914 and 2,785 in 1913. Pennsylvania led with 988, of which 433 were in bituminous mines. Fatalities in West Virginia numbered 372, in Illinois 128, and in Alabama 119, Alaska, California, Idaho, Nevada and South Dakota had no fatalities.
Those killed underground from falls of rock, coal, etc., numbered 961; from mine cars and locomotives 390; from exploding or burning gas, 170, and from explosives, 148. Those killed on the surface numbered 150, and in shafts 49.
The number killed per 1,000 employed was 3.22 in 1914 and 3.09 in 1915. The 1916 figures were not available when this report was published.
Pray for the dead
and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday August 20, 1917
Clay, Kentucky – Town in Mourning for Lost Miners
A town in western Kentucky continues to mourn its dead as the reported death toll now stands at 64.
From Hopkinsville Kentuckian of Aug 16, 1917:
Total of 64 Dead.
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Clay, Ky., Aug. 15.-The West Kentucky mine, the scene of the greatest mining disaster that has occurred in a west Kentucky coal mine was cleared of the dead today, when the last dead bodies were brought out. A total of 63 dead bodies have been removed.
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 29, 1917
Hastings, Colorado – Women and Children Wait and Weep
From the Kansas Arkansas City Daily Traveler of April 28, 1917:
PATHETIC SCENES AT MINE DISASTER
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Widows and Orphans Weep In The Snow Storm.
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15 BODIES ARE FOUND
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Broken Air Ducts in Tunnel Cost
119 Lives of Miners.
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Trinidad. Colo., April 28-With men in relays bringing up the workings as they go, every effort was being made early today to reach the 113 men still entombed in the Hastings mine No. 6 of the Victor-American Fuel company near here, where an explosion occurred yesterday morning. Just what caused the disaster is as much of a mystery now as it was then.
Rescue crews, a mine official said, has found “five or six” bodies at 2 o’clock this morning, but had removed none. One hundred and nineteen [120] men were entombed. The rescue crews are unable to make their way down the main mine stope, but by working along the air ways, have “gone a considerable distance into it,” according to a mine company officer.
Believe They Have Perished
The working in which the men are entombed is a running tunnel, opening from the main mine entrance. Above this is an almost level tunnel abandoned some time ago. For several years this has been on fire. Since it was abandoned however and the fire was only smouldering, it was “sealed” off from the rest of the mine with an air tight wall and work continued in the other sections.
Air ducts run into the stope where the men were trapped. Air in unusually large amounts has been pumped into these ever since the fire was discovered, but officials fear the ducts have been broken.
It is snowing in Delagua Canyon, where the mine is located, and miners’ wives and children stand waiting at the mine mouth in the bitter winds.
Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday April 28, 1917
Hastings, Colorado – 120 Coal Miners Trapped in Victor Mine
From the Spokane Daily Chronicle of April 27, 1917:
FIRE TRAPS 120 IN VICTOR MINE;
HINT WAR PLOT
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Rescuers Rush Into Smoke-Filled Shafts-
Fear Every Man Is Lost.
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TRINIDAD, Col., April 27.-Fire in the Victor American Fuel Company mine No. 2, at Hastings, near here, is believed to have trapped 120 coal miners.
Reports were in circulation this afternoon that the fire was the result of a war plot, Austrian miners being suspected. A company of troops has been guarding the property for some weeks.
Fire was first noticed coming out of the mouth of the mine shortly after 9:30 this morning. Helmet crews which entered had made no report this afternoon as to whether or not they had reached the entombed men.
Heavy smoke was pouring from the mine at 1:20 o’clock and it was feared there was little hope of rescuing the men.
Rescuers are being hurried into the workings. At 1:50 o’clock this afternoon 50 men had descended to aid in the fight to save the entombed workmen.
A messenger who reached here from the scene said:
The fire broke out shortly before 9:30 o’clock, when smoke was seen coming from the mine. We think there was an explosion also, but there is no sign of it on the outside. Heavy smoke is pouring from the mine.
Not a word has come from the inside since the fire started.
