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….