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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 24, 1922
Jackson, California – 47 Miners Found Dead at Argonaut Mine
From The Anaconda Standard of September 19, 1922:
By the Associated Press.
JACKSON, Cal., Sept. 18.-All 47 of the miners entombed in the Argonaut mine Aug. 27 are dead, it was announced officially shortly before 9 o’clock tonight. A note found on one of the bodies indicated that all the men had died within five hours of the beginning of the fire, Aug. 27, officials said.
All the miners were found behind the second of two bulkheads they had built in a crosscut 4,350 feet down in the Argonaut mine. Byron Pickard, chief of the federal bureau of mines for this district, was the first man to go behind the bulkhead and discovered the bodies.
Pickard, on an earlier exploration behind this bulkhead, had counted 42 bodies and expressed the belief that there were others there.
The same note bore a scrawled figure “4,” apparently indicating the same man had attempted to leave word for those who might come as to the condition of the mine at that hour.
Mine officials declared that the condition of the crosscut behind the bulkhead was such that life could not have been sustained there by the entombed men for more than five hours.
The bodies were found piled one on top of another and decomposition had progressed so far that identification would be impossible, Pickard reported.
Relatives Mourn in Silence.
Jackson as a whole took the tragic news calmly and courageously. The general topic of conversation except in the immediate family circles of the dead, was arrangements for the funeral, which it was said would be held as a joint affair.
Those of the bodies that were not piled atop of one another were huddled together in little groups. Since death came approximately 22 days ago and the temperature in the crosscut where the men took refuge averages about 100 degrees, it will be necessary to wrap each body in canvas prior to its removal to the surface.
Officials thought it, likely some, but not all, of the bodies could be removed before morning.
The sad scenes customarily associated with removal of the dead from mine disasters were lacking here tonight. There was no crowd of weeping widows and sorrowing relatives at the mine mouth. Among those gathered at the entrance to the great gold workings, newspaper men and miners and comrades of those entombed predominated. For days the relatives have remained at home under persuasions of mine officials and Red Cross workers and tonight it was the Red Cross or sympathetic friends acting under its guidance that broke the sad news to them.
The time elapsing since the men were entombed had given opportunity, to all to prepare for the worst and when that came it was accepted without demonstration.
Most of the miners were of Austrian or Italian birth. Eighteen of them were married and these leave 25 orphans. The second communication from the dead was discovered near the body of William Fezzel. Scratched on a timber were these words, “3 a. m. Gas very bad. Fezzel.”
The hour indicated was only three hours after fire broke out in the Argonaut.
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[Emphasis added.]
