

The Real Widow Maker

by

K. D. Taylor

SMASHWORDS EDITION

The Real Widow Maker

Copyright 2011 Kenneth Douglas Taylor

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please direct them to the Smashwords website where a copy can be downloaded. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The author, a third-generation coalminer, worked 25 years underground before becoming disabled. He received an Associate of Science Degree in Mining Engineering in 1973 before beginning work inside the mine.

This book is dedicated to:

The more than 104,710 hardworking

coalminers who died in America's coalmines since 1900

The unsung heroes of the mine rescue

teams who put their lives at great risk every time

they strap on mine rescue gear and plunge underground

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 "Groundhog Day" in America's Coalfields

Chapter 2 Layland

Chapter 3 The Evolution of Mine Rescue

Chapter 4 Redneck Rebellion

Chapter 5 Labor's Great Change

Chapter 6 The Mighty UMWA

Chapter 7 Springhill's Colossal "Mountain Bump"

Chapter 8 Forever Entombed at Farmington

Chapter 9 Swept Away by an Act of God

Chapter 10 Disaster in a Silver Mine

Chapter 11 Scotia's Black Eye

Chapter 12 Blanketed with Blackdamp

Chapter 13 Sago

Chapter 14 Barricade Chambers

Chapter 15 Darby

Chapter 16 Massey's Catastrophic Blast

Summary

Footnote Page

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Introduction

On January 2, 2006, reporters for 24-hour television news networks rushed to cover a mine explosion at the Sago Mine near Tallmansville, West Virginia. Following the Sago blast, thirteen miners are missing, and much of the nation sits glued to their televisions in anticipation of finding out the fate of the missing miners. On day two of the tragedy, the catastrophe worsens when erroneous information leaks to the victims' family members, who are waiting at the Sago Baptist Church to hear news of the plight of their loved ones.

On August 6, 2007, again reporters for 24-hour news networks have their cameras rolling at the scene of another horrid mine disaster in America's coalfields. However, this time cameras are rolling in Emery County, Utah, where the owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine reports that an enormous roof collapse has trapped six of his coalminers. The primary owner of the mine quickly reports that an earthquake caused the mammoth cave-in at Crandall Canyon. As many Americans stay dialed to CNN in hopes that rescue crews will locate the lost crew, the tragedy worsens on the tenth day when another severe mountain bump occurs.

Following the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) investigating the Sago and Crandall Canyon disasters, most Americans never gave the tragedies a second thought. The disasters, like the victims, quickly faded into forgotten memories!

April 5, 2010, a horrific methane explosion rips through a Massey Energy mine at Montcoal, West Virginia, jolting our memories as attention again focuses on America's underground coalminers. Within hours of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion, rescue teams swarm the underground complex! In little time, mine rescue terms determine that 25 miners were killed by the blast, which leave 4 miners unaccounted-for. Sadly, hazardous mine gases quickly drive mine rescue teams from the mine before they can locate the four missing production men, which results in the rescue effort dragging on for days.

Until a terrible mine disaster occurs, most Americans think little about coal, coalmines, or the hazards associated with coalmining when they go to turn their lights on at night. However, we might all find our light bulbs missing that incandescent glow, if not for coal. Today, just like 100 years ago, the universally accepted method for manufacturing steel is to use coke (charcoaled coal) as a reducing agent to extract iron from iron ore. Because the iron (FE) locked in iron ore shares an extremely tight bond with oxygen molecules within ore, carbon molecules, which make-up coke, serve to break that strong FEO2 bond as oxygen actually has a greater affinity for bonding with C, than FE. Because high-grade bituminous coal produces coke containing few contaminates capable of diffusing with molten iron during the smelting process, higher grades of coke make for purer iron, which results in stronger steel. In past decades, coal played as key of a role in building America, as petroleum. In the late-1800s and early-1900s, it was coal, not oil, that powered America's ships, and it was coal that powered America's train locomotives.

Until the mid-1900s, bellowing white steam from coal-fired steam locomotives floated up and down the railways in America's heartlands. Coal-fired steam engines powered America's Industrial Revolution and powered America's first competent navy. In essence, in an earlier era, we used coal to produce the steel needed to build our trains, railroads, and ships; coal propelled those vehicles as well. To this very day, America uses coke to make its steel, ferroalloys, lead and zinc.

When America decides to devote considerable resources toward improving on technologies that sequester carbon dioxide during the coal gasification process, we will be able to utilize gasified-coal to generate our electricity, and to run our automobiles. Hitler used gasified-coal to fuel vehicles in Germany as early as World War II, and since trees thrive on carbon dioxide, we should have improved on gasification technologies years ago. Presently, America sits on the largest coal reserves in the world, and there is no danger of an oil slick developing when we mine any of those coal beds. Do you realize that methane, when burned is much cleaner than coal however when methane escapes into the atmosphere during crude oil production, it is 34 time more effective in producing global warming than carbon dioxide?

As America grew in the first three decades of the twentieth century, so did our need to consume coal. Often our ability to increase coal production grew at warp speed, while improvements in safety at the work place lagged at a snail's pace. Safety and production often resembled an unbalanced seesaw, failing to work because of too much weight on one side or the other. The rise of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) had immeasurable influence in achieving safer working conditions in coalmines throughout America, however, there would come a time in the 1970s when the UMWA, under flawed leadership, became so powerful, and misguided, that the union wrecked much of its own industry. In the end, the UMWA, once the most powerful trade union in the world, ventured down a path near self-destruction.

I began working full-time in an underground coalmine in 1973 when UMWA national leadership had lost much control over its rank-and-file membership in specific regions of America's coalfields. Coal markets were extremely good throughout most of the 1970s, but the UMWA had acquired too much power over industry by then.

I started work inside the mine as a trainee, "a red-hat," under the supervision of Garland, an old union miner. Garland had worked 38 years underground and planned to retire after one more year. My first day on the job, the Mine Foreman, my dad, instructed me, "go with Garland and do exactly as he tells you; he will keep you safe and teach you the ropes." In the beginning, I belonged to the UMWA and worked under the union classification "General Laborer." The General Laborer classification assigned you a pay scale, but it also involved all the hard manual labor tasks, like shoveling conveyor belts, building ventilation stoppings, cribbing and timbering to serve as roof support for haulways, and cleaning rock falls in back entries—the "brute work." In the mid-1900s, once the hand-loading era ended, operating machinery to produce coal became the easiest of tasks inside a coalmine, one not performed by a "red hat" trainee.

Only a few days into my new job as a General Laborer, while working at an extremely hectic pace cleaning belt conveyors, and sweating profusely, Garland called me aside. Scolding me, "In the mine, you must pace yourself for the years and not the days." He continued, "Union men died so we don't have to work like slaves." At the time, I thought what a strange statement, and letting ole Garland's words bounce meaninglessly off the black mine walls, I returned to work at my frantic pace.

After working the General Laborer classification for the mandatory six-month period, which was required for obtaining my Underground Miner's Certificate, I started operating face equipment. I learned to operate it all! Only a few years would pass before I obtained my Mine Foreman Certificate, as well as my surface and underground electrical certifications. I quickly left the union and began "bossing" inside the mine. However, the headaches that came with attempting to supervisor men who belonged to a union, which in the 1970s and early 1980s was practically out of control, became more than I could bear.

Iran's oil embargo against America during the late-1970s, shot oil prices through the roof, which in turn caused coal prices to skyrocket. It makes little sense that coal prices balloon when oil prices skyrocket, but prices do. That is how free-Capitalism works! Union coalminers, recognizing that Appalachian mine operators were receiving enormous prices for metallurgical coal, and realizing that operators would agree to nearly any demand to avert a strike, often made ridiculous demands of mine operators. In the seven years I bossed, very few months passed in which I did not curse the UMWA. In fact, bossing became so stressful that I left management and returned to the union.

By the time that I returned to the union in the very early 1980s, the metallurgical coal market had taken a drastic downturn, and Southern West Virginia unionized coalmines began closing their operations everywhere. Worldwide, Southern West Virginia is recognized as having some of the highest-grade metallurgical coal on the planet. In Southern West Virginia, a coalminer could hardly "buy" a job. In fact, I witnessed mine operators turn away men seeking employment following seekers offering to work free for a two-week tryout. During those particular depressed coal market years, I had little worry because I could do anything in an underground coalmine. I was a certified Mine Foreman, Fire-boss, certified electrician, certified shot-firer, certified EMT, and I could operate, as well as repair, most underground equipment. However, when I returned to the union during the early 1980s, I began to see an ugly side of the coal industry, a side that I had never seen before.

In bad coal market years, it becomes the rule of the mining industry to produce as much coal as possible, while utilizing the smallest workforce as feasible. By maintaining small workforces, operators can keep the cost of health insurance to a minimum, but astonishingly, operators seldom cutback on overtime for its active employees. In fact, operators require men to double-shift frequently in order to fill skeleton-crews. Also during tough market years, many small operators are very reluctant to purchase new parts, or the supplies necessary to run good tonnage.

While working in small mines during lean market years, I have had to bring electrical tape from home in order to repair damaged, and dangerous, electrical trailing cables following vendors canceling credit accounts of small operators. In fact, during bad markets, it is common practice for vendors to demand that small operators pay for mining supplies prior to delivery. During bad markets, small mining companies, personally owned enterprises, usually put hiring-freezes into effect, regardless of how shorthanded crews operate. Once at a nonunion mine, I worked more than 70 hours in one week, only to be "chewed-out" for not doubling another shift to fill-in for electricians absent due to injuries. My supervisor told me, "You are going to have to pull your load, and work more hours."

Having experienced various sides of coalmining as a union laborer, a nonunion laborer, and an underground supervisor, I fully comprehend the analogy that it is much easier to hitch a good horse to a mammoth load, than to force a mule to pull beyond his capacity. A good horse will pull until dropping dead from exhaustion, but a mule has enough commonsense to sit down, refusing to pull when he is overloaded. During lean coal market years of the 1990s, I sometimes imitated a good horse, but eventually it took a physical toll on me and after having worked only 25 years in the mines, I became disabled and unable to work. When working 9-hour shifts, six and seven days a week, an old body lacks the necessary rest to heal from all the little injuries it receives working underground, and over time, the tiny air sacs in the lungs start to fill with crushed aggregate, coal and silica particles.

After becoming disabled, I found myself often pondering Garland's words, "In the mines, you must pace yourself for the years and not the days; union men died so we don't have to work like slaves." I found myself giving thought to the many earlier conversations that I had with the old-timers concerning the earlier coalmining eras, and how time and years of mining brought me understanding.

My uncle, who worked as a UMWA coalminer for many years, once recounted how during the 1950s, production crews did not stop work when a crewmember was killed. Instead, the crew bound the dead coworker in brattice cloth and waited until quitting time to bring the deceased miner to the surface. Now knowing that my uncle worked for more than a decade as a UMWA national safety inspector, and that he was union through-and-through, I told him that he was delusional, full of horse-manure. Twenty years later after becoming disabled, I began to question if my uncle's claims had a ring of truth, or whether Garland's advice was right-on.

After deciding that I would search for the truth concerning earlier coalmining eras, I began exploring for facts pertinent to a class of people who actually provided our nation's energy source to catapult us to a world superpower. Utilizing the Internet, I began researching state archives, federal archives, MSHA archives, libraries, and old newspaper articles pertaining to disasters and hardships endured by those Americans who chose to tunnel beneath the earth for a living. During my research, I quickly discovered that the trials and tribulations related to underground mining is not exclusive to coalmining, but to underground mining in general, which includes the mining of metals, ores, and coal. I also discovered that, although the Internet has available an enormous amount of reputable information obtainable via the click of a mouse, it also provides an immense pool of bull-manure to sift through. Many articles written about the hazards associated with underground mining were deficient in truth, I assume, because the authors lacked real mining knowledge, or possessed a partisan mind-set that prevented them from presenting the facts. After sifting through most of the inaccuracies, I discovered many sad, but true stories, pertaining to the difficult struggles experienced by a class of people who had as much to do with building this great nation as any other class.

Although there have been periods in history when the American public sympathized with the coalminer, there have also been times when Americans from other walks-of-life scorned the miner. Unless you have wallowed in the dark, damp pits with dangers lurking all about, while hazardous invisible dust danced through the ventilating currents, you can never fully understand the true nature of the rough-cut, unrefined, and red-necked man who extracts coal for a living. This book documents a few of the coalminer's stories, sagas filled with tragedies, but also filled with many heroics.

Chapter 1

" **Groundhog Day" in America's Coalfields**

On the damp dreary morning of December 6, 1907, near the tiny town of Monongah, West Virginia, a tender roll of thunder could be heard in the distance as the ground quivered enough to shake townsfolk from clay sidewalks. The severe vibrations spooked horses, hooked to carriages, as the beasts bolted and try to run away. Within seconds, windows blasted from buildings and brick walls spider-webbed with tiny fissures as fire, smoke, and debris of every imaginable sort belched from the portals of the Monongah No. 8 Mine. The vicious winds that accompanied the colossal boom came barreling across the West Fork River with such velocity that some folks observed a water-wave crash on the river's east bank.

As the enormous force of the cannon-like blast breached the surface at No. 8 Mine, shockwaves decimated the huge blades on the ventilation fan, and made rubble of the fan house in the blink of an eye. The awful shock-surge demolished the electricity generating-house, and critically injured its attendant. Astonishingly, folks living in towns more than eight miles from Monongah paused to listen at the faint rumble, as Monongah townsfolk rushed to mine portals to give a helping hand. Upon Monongah citizens arriving at mine entrances, the masses of twisted steel girders in mine drifts gave hints of a truth that few wanted to see; how could anyone have survived such a monstrous blast!

Within minutes following the Monongah blast, residents were astonished to see four stunned and bleeding Italians stagger from a small outcrop-hole. The four Italians spoke little English but by the tone of their jabbering, all appeared jubilant for having survived.

Around 4:00 p.m. while relief workers were clearing debris from a drift, they heard faint moans coming from inside the mine. With the aid of a hemp rope, a rescue worker quickly slithered through a narrow outcrop-hole and rappelled 100 feet into the mine where he discovered a battered and bruised Peter Urban kneeling over his dead brother, Stanislaus. Initial, Urban refused to abandon his brother's body, demanding that rescuers pull them both out. Nonetheless, in the end, Peter loosened his affectionate grasp and allowed rescuers to pluck him to safety.

In 1907, most mining industry experts considered the Monongah mining complex one of the most up-to-date, and safest, coalmining operations in the country. The mountain begged to differ on that particular chilling December day, and the question asked was, "What could have caused such a top-notch mining complex to blow?"

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, Fairmont Coal Company, a subsidiary of Consolidated Coal Company, opened two mines at Monongah, Nos. 6 and 8 mines. Even though the drifts for Nos. 6 and 8 were approximately one mile apart, both mines extracted coal from the highly valued Pittsburgh coal bed. Fairmont Coal Company created what miners termed in those days, "sister mines," when the company purposely cut Nos. 6 and 8 together establishing one giant mining complex. Only a pair of wooden, air-locking doors separated Nos. 6 and 8 mines, which made miners at both collieries at risk should either mine explode.

Monongah's population was approximately 3,000 in 1907, and much of the town was built specifically to accommodate the town's giant mining complex. A modern streetcar line, which some residents boasted was among the fastest in the world, ran within a few hundred feet of the mine portals allowing miners to commute from long distances—no automobiles in those days, you know. Streetcars from the Monongah transit line ran a 20-mile leg into Clarksburg, West Virginia, and cars ran shorter legs into Fairmont and surrounding towns. The high productivity, safe underground environment, huge output ventilating fans, modern electric powered locomotives for haulage, state-of-the-art electric bottom-shearing machines, strings of incandescent bulbs lighting the active works, and efficient coke ovens located above the mine, made the Monongah mining facility an industrial complex that steel and coal industry leaders from around the world envied. Fairmont Coal Company shipped its coke-briquettes straight to steel mills in Pittsburgh.

The initial Monongah blast started inside No. 8 Mine around 10:30 a.m., and as shockwaves sped ahead of flames, enormous volumes of dry coal dust kicked into the mine atmosphere thus providing even more fuel for lagging flames. The infernal monster made its own fuel, while it fed itself and grew! After speeding shockwaves ripped out the air-locking doors that separated the two sister mines, the explosion propagated throughout most of No. 6 Mine. As the blast dislodged timbers, headers, and cribs, the mine roof caved-in sporadically. Not an underground miner was safe!

In America prior to 1908, there were no organized mine rescue teams, and protective breathing apparatuses were very expensive devices that few coal companies could afford. With only bandanas draped across their faces to filter toxic smoke, those first Monongah volunteers charged inside as soon as citizens cleared a path through a drift.

Upon plunging underground, rescuers worked frantically to restore mine ventilation, but advance was extremely slow, as asphyxiating afterdamp, forced rescuers to retreat to a Fresh Air Base every 15 minutes to avoid suffocation. Despite the precaution of only working 15-minute intervals, three rescue workers died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Only a couple of days passed in the rescue effort at Monongah before both mines filled with the sickening stench of death. The fowl smell of decaying mule corpses—miners used mules to pull heavy loads underground during the early-1900s—coupled with the smell of decaying human bodies made it almost unbearable for rescuers, whose only respiratory protection was those bandanas draped across their faces.

Perhaps the most pitiful scenes at the Monongah disaster site were created when mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and fiancées, while screaming with grief, gathered around the mine portal to hear if their men, by some miracle, may have survived. In the end, there was no good news for the women of Monongah that had men working dayshift! Peter Urban was the last dayshift miner to exit the Monongah mine that was not destined for a pine box. Fairmont Coal had plenty of those shipped in, pine coffins, railroad cars full.

December 12, 1907 was a dreary somber day on a rolling hill overlooking Monongah where family members of fallen miners gathered at gravesites. It had been six days since the Monongah mine blast, and Mother Nature could not figure-out if she preferred snow, rain, or a mix. In the end, a mixture of drizzle and snowflakes left white splotches dotting the gentle rolling peaks that stood above town, peaks lined with row, after row, of 6-foot deep graves. Standing relatives shivered and prayed at gravesites, while workers shoveled dirt into other holes where coffins lay tightly nestled in. The depressing winter weather deepened the sadness, adding to the feelings of uncertainty felt by Monongah widows, as mourners were acutely aware that the company would quickly evict victims' families from company-owned houses as soon as new mining crews arrived. The wintry-mix only served as a solemn reminder to Monongah widows just how cold, and cruel, coalmining could be!

By noon on December 12, the mine superintendent at Monongah reported that relief workers had recovered 297 bodies. One week later, on December 19, the superintendent announced that, following exploration of the entire underground mining complex, relief workers had recovered 338 bodies. However, on December 26, a Fairmont newspaper, quoting Fairmont Coal Company officials, printed that crews had recovered 342 bodies from the two Monongah mines. The digging of graves on the cold hillside overlooking Monongah finally stopped!

Initially, the Register Herald, a Beckley, West Virginia based newspaper, printed there were as many as 600 miners working underground when the mountain blew—the reporter quoted a figure given by several Monongah residents. Another reporter covering the melee wrote he found it strange that company officials knew immediately how many mules were underground when the mine exploded, however the same officials were unwilling to give an exact count for miners believed missing.

The final tally issued by Fairmont Coal Company for victims of the Monongah mine blast was 359 men and boys—boys were included among the dead because there were no child labor laws preventing boys older than 12 from working in America's coalmines prior to 1938. The awful Monongah tragedy left 250 women widowed, 1,000 children fatherless, and nearly 1,250 dependents without a breadwinner. To add to the dire dilemma, 40% of the widows were pregnant!

In 1907, there were no programs like State Workers' Compensation, Social Security, or Unemployment Compensation, leaving Monongah widows and children without funds to buy food. In order to solicit donations to aid the families of explosion victims, Monongah residents quickly established the Monongah Mines Relief Committee. On December 27, 1907, the Monongah committee sent out a call in over 2,000 newspapers across the nation pleading for charitable donations. In the days that followed, the committee mailed out 80,000 letters requesting donations. The response to the committee's plea was extraordinary! In an era when a coalminer's wage rarely averaged more than a dollar per day, donations totally $155,263.92 came pouring in. Many of the personal donations were no more than a dollar, while some organizations gave large contributions: a newspaper in Maryland, $1,000; the Bishop of Wheeling, $5,337; a brewing company, $500; the UMWA, $1,000; the city of Pittsburgh, $9,135; and Fairmont Coal Company, $17,500. The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission gave the largest donation, $35,000.

After all bodies had been recovered from the Monongah mining complex and ventilation restored throughout the mine, mining operations resumed. An inquisition hearing was held in the following days to uncover the true cause of the explosion, and to determine if preventive measures could be taken to avert similar disasters. The coroner's jury for the inquisitions determined that the explosion was the result of a blown-out blasting shot (unconfined discharge of blasting agents) in No. 8 Mine that ignited coal dust. The jury determined that the coal company was actually operating within compliance of state mining regulations when the blast occurred—there were very few regulations, at the time. The coroner's jury went on to recommend that safety powder (permissible explosives) be used when blasting down coal, explosives be handled by competent persons, only clay or incombustible material be used for stemming (tamping) explosive charges, additional state mine inspectors be appointed, and a U.S. bureau of investigation be established to investigate mine disasters.

In those first half-dozen years of the 1900s, because of the extraordinary number of mine disasters occurring throughout America's coalfields, newspaper chatter from across the nation frequently called for the establishment of a bureau of mines, and the coroner's jury investigating the Monongah mine disaster repeated that sentiment. President Theodore Roosevelt, during his tenure in office, tried badgering the U.S. Congress to enact legislation creating a bureau of mines, and enact meaningful child labor laws. However ole TR himself could not get Congress to act on those two controversial, hot-potato topics. In reality, the coroner's jury recommendations following the Monongah disaster were just that, recommendations. Everyone knew that townspeople appointed to sit on a jury were not going to have any real input to alter how coalmines operated.

In the two years following the Monongah disaster, the Monongah Mines Relief Committee dispersed $149,071.00 to the relatives of 362 victims—the committee added those three rescue workers who died from breathing afterdamp to the list of 359—while spending $6,193 of the relief fund in soliciting donations.

Quite a few Monongah residents claimed the real number of miners working inside Nos. 6 and 8 mines the day of the awful disaster was closer to 600, than 360. Those residents strongly insisted that the list containing 359 deceased miners that Fairmont Coal Company furnished to the Relief Committee was not at all accurate, and that somewhere beneath cave-ins that were bridged-over during mine reclamation, lay many more victims, foreigners.

Throughout the years, several authors who have written articles related to the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster have tried to address concerns about an extremely inaccurate fatality count. Lacy Dillon's book "They Died in Darkness," published in 1976, not only addressed those concerns, but Dillon's book contains two different victims-lists that Fairmont Coal Company submitted at different times. Those two lists definitely contradict each other! Dillon's lists came from West Virginia archives. Fairmont Coal Company's first victims-list issued to the Monongah Mine Relief Committee contained the names of 359 miners killed in both sister mines. However, a second list that was issued more than a year later to the "Committee to Investigate the Cause of Mine Explosions for the State of West Virginia," created confusion.

Since the coroner's jury decided the Monongah explosion initially began inside No. 8 Mine, the state committee asked explicitly for a list containing only victims found inside No. 8 Mine. Ironically, Fairmont Coal Company's second list that contained only victims for No. 8, contained 185 names, but 90 of those names never appeared on the initial list of 359; ninety were new names! Could there be some logical explanation to the discrepancies in the two lists, or why the company failed to mention the possibility of the victim tally running near 450?

Many historians, and old-timers, from the Fairmont region claim that Peter Urban was actually the only miner that survived the Monongah mine explosion, because all four foreigners that crawled from the crop-hole on their own, died a few days later due to injuries. Although historical signs around Monongah indicate that the four Italians died after crawling away from the Monongah mine blast, it seems questionable that all four miners would have succumbed to injuries after having walked away from the worst coalmining disaster in U.S. history. In contradiction to historians, a few citizens of Monongah, who were of Italian descent, claimed the four Italian survivors often repeated their amazing survival story, in native tongue, during Catholic church services before moving from Monongah to seek work in less jinxed mines. This seemed a plausible scenario in days when superstitions ran high among miners, especially miners lucky enough to walk away from an underground explosion.

Ironically, Peter Urban survived the worst mine disaster in U.S. history only to become a mine fatality 19 years later. In early mining years, the mountain rarely showed mercy to those who pressed their luck by choosing to make a long career from digging coal!

Jacobs Creek

At approximately 11:00 a.m. on December 19, 1907, the ground shook violently in the mining community of Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, as windows rattled, and citizens in towns more than seven miles away heard the faint roll of distant thunder. That story sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, it should because the explosion that occurred barely 70 miles north of Monongah, at the Darr Mine in Western Pennsylvania, was practically a repeat of the Monongah blast that had occurred nearly two weeks earlier.

Two-hundred-thirty-nine miners were killed in the tragic mine explosion at Darr Mine, located at Jacobs Creek, but the fatality count could have nearly doubled if not for 200 Russian immigrants laying-off from work on December 19 to celebrate St. Nicholas Day. Greek Catholics celebrate the "Feast of St. Nicholas Day" on December 6 according to the Julian calendar, which translates to December 19 on our Gregorian calendar, thus, most of the Russian miners were attending church services when the Darr Mine blew.

The Darr and Monongah mine disasters had much in common: both mines were operating out of the highly valued, but extremely volatile, Pittsburgh coal seam; primarily immigrants perished at both sites; unconfined discharges of blasting agents may have been the root cause for both explosions; and boys were listed among the victims for both underground explosions. Experts believed that at Darr, and Monongah, the unsafe detonations of explosive charges meant to loosen coal, resulted in the ignition of a dense cloud of volatile coal dust. At the inquest hearings for the Darr blast, just like the inquest held for Monongah, the coroner's jury determined that the mining company was not at fault.

A memory plaque placed at the Olive Branch Cemetery in September of 1994, honoring the victims of the 1907 Darr mine explosion, reflects the truth about a mining era filled with disaster after disaster. That cemetery marker reads:

On December 19, 1907, an explosion killed 239 men and boys, many Hungarian immigrants, in Darr coal mine near Van Meter. Some were from the closed Naomi mine near Fayette City, which exploded on Dec. 1, killing 34. Over 3000 miners died in Dec. 1907, the worst month in U. S. coal mining history. In Olive Branch Cemetery, 71 Dar Miners, 49 unknown, are buried in a common grave.

During the first decade of the 20th Century, in America, immigrants that chose coalmining as their livelihood might have felt that every new day, like the day before, would end with a ghastly mine explosion somewhere in America's coalfield.

In America in 1907, 17 horrific mine disasters claimed 913 coalminers while total fatalities for the year ended at 3,242, making 1907, the most tragic year for U.S. mining on record. Although there were 797 fewer coalmine fatalities in 1908, by no means was it a good year for America's coalminers.

Scorn of Rachel and Agnes

How does that old saying go, "Hell has no fury like the scorn of a woman?" Residents of Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1908, may have concluded that hell has no fury like the scorn found in a coalmine named after two women, Rachel and Agnes. Less than a year following the Monongah and Jacobs Creek tragedies, catastrophe struck again in the Monongahela River Basin coalfield when the Rachel and Agnes Mine at Marianna, Pennsylvania blew-up.

Around 10:45 a.m. on November 28, 1908, District Mine Inspector Henry Louttit arrived on the surface after riding the elevator-cage up from the Rachel and Agnes Mines. Louttit had finished completing a two-day inspection tour of the underground facility, and by some odd fate, had chosen to inspect the drive motors before climbing the hoist derrick to examine the cage-lift. While Louttit looked over the drive motors for the hoist, Henry Thompson (machine boss), along with James Joaaf, caught the cage on its descent back underground.

Suddenly, as a long drawn-out rumble evolved into a loud bang, the elevator-cage roared up the No. 2 shaft like a rocket ship. As the cage blew through the hoist derrick, it exploded into hundreds of pieces and rendered the derrick to a mass of contorted steel. The immense concussion yielded by the mammoth blast killed Thompson and Joaaf instantly!

Volunteer rescuers from Marianna quickly arrived at the Rachel and Agnes mine portals, but it took maintenance crews hours to repair the No. 1 cage-lift so rescuers could start dropping in by means of an emergency lift. Once rescue crews found their way to the shaft landing, they heard faint moans. Oddly, following the blast, Fred Elinger had lost consciousness near the shaft landing however fresh eddies of air from the mineshaft had kept him alive. At 8:55 p.m. on November 28, with the aid of an extra oxygen helmet, a rescue crewmember escorted Fred Elinger, the sole survivor of the Rachel and Agnes mine blast, to the surface.

Perhaps it is divine intervention, or just odd fate, which has resulted in at least one or two coalminers surviving some of America's most ferocious mine explosion. It occasionally happens today.

By November 30, at Marianna, rescue crews had recovered 61 bodies, but it was December 7 before crews removed the last victim of the Rachel and Agnes blast. Pittsburg-Buffalo Mining Company's final victims-tally ended at 154 miners.

Pittsburg-Buffalo assigned Father Vincent Massel of the St. Anthony Church at Monongah to take charge of the funeral arrangements for most Italian miners killed in the Marianna blast. Father Massel held plenty of experience in administering spiritual guidance to immigrant mining families as he had arranged nearly a hundred funerals for Italian victims of the Monongah disaster a year earlier.

Approximately one week following the Marianna mine explosion, an investigative panel, composed of several prestigious coal industry experts, along with several Pennsylvania mine inspectors, began a detailed examination of the Rachel and Agnes Mine. On December 8, 1908, well before the panel was ready to release its findings, the leading expert on the panel commented to the press that he could find no methane in the mine even though some entries were developed 100-270 feet ahead of ventilation. The expert went on to emphasize that he would have felt safe in making his examination with a naked light (light with an exposed flame), instead of his flame safety light. The professional also remarked that black powder being smuggled into the mine, and the ignorance of immigrants, were to blame for the awful blast. In reality, the ignorant critique of the so-call expert was an attempt to conceal the true causes for the horrifying Marianna tragedy.

During the time of the Marianna Mine Disaster, Pennsylvania had yet to implement a Workers' Compensation Act, thus dependents of blast-victims had to depend on charitable contributions until they could figure a way to hustle-up enough pennies to buy a loaf of bread. Worried about victims' dependents, on November 30, 1908, the editor of the Washington Observer, a reputable newspaper out of Washington County, Pennsylvania, published his concerns in the Observer. The newspaper editor suggested levying a tax of one cent per ton on coal produced in Pennsylvania mines to create a fund specifically to compensate injured miners, and widows of miners killed on the job. The editor wrote of objections voiced by industry leaders concerning a Workers' Compensation Fund, "But the objection is made that it would be socialistic in tendency."

The official findings of the panel analyzing the Marianna mishap were submitted to the coroner's jury on December 17 and 18, 1908. The jury quickly determined that the explosion was the result of an unconfined discharge of blasting agents (blown-out shot) that suspended, and ignited, coal dust—that was a plausible explanation. However, the real underlying causes for the Marianna explosion might be neatly obscured in the wording of the official report that ten district mine inspectors produced at the inquest hearing held on December 18, 1908. One specific excerpt from that report suggests that Pennsylvania's mine inspectors felt that some mine operators were turning a blind-eye to inspectors' recommendations, hence resulting in frequent reoccurrences of similar tragedies. That excerpt reads:

In order to secure greater safety for persons employed in mines where explosive gas is being generated, we again desire to emphasize some of the recommendations made in the past in similar cases.

Groundhog Day at Switchback

In 1908, there were 2,445 coalminers killed while working in U.S. mines as a rapidly growing coal industry attempted to furnish a young, and quickly expanding, nation with enough coal to catapult America to a pinnacle where only a few world powers stood. Although the fatality count for 1908 was far from being our worst year on record, many tiny coalmining communities throughout America suffered ghastly mining related tragedies that year. There are few better examples of Groundhog Day occurring in America's coalfields than that which occurred at Switchback, West Virginia during the winter that ushered in 1909.

Switchback, West Virginia is located barely 15 miles north of Bluefield, West Virginia, off U.S. Route 52. Today, the community of Switchback has little more than a handful of residents however, in the early-1900s, Switchback was a well-populated mining community.

In 1908, James Jones, a wealthy coal baron, operated the Lick Branch Mine at Switchback, after purchasing the mine from a previous operator. On December 29, 1908 at about 2:30 p.m., a horrible underground explosion rocked the Lick Branch Mine. Within hours of the blast, volunteer rescuers, newspaper reporters, and sightseers arrived in Switchback by Norfolk & Western passenger trains.

In earlier mining eras when passenger trains were king of transportation, awful tragedies always brought in crowds of visitors. The huge crowds of sightseers were good for local diners and mining company's stores, where spectators quickly gobbled-up anything edible, however, volunteer rescuers held little respect for these rambling onlookers. There were actually instances following mine disasters where sightseers cleaned-out stores and restaurants to such a degree that food for rescue workers had to be imported from distant towns.

As journalists arrived in Switchback, mine management quickly reported there were 36 miners working inside when the mine blew. However, following ten hours of treacherous rescue efforts, rescue crews found 18 miners alive, but among those 18 were several contract workers, which management had no clue were working underground. Mine management quickly changed its tally to indicate that 65 miners had been underground when the mountain exploded. After recovering 50 bodies during the next few days, it became apparent that there had been at least 68 miners working underground when the explosion occurred.

Many reputable newspapers from across the nation carried stories concerning the Switchback tragedy. After several news articles emphasized the inaccurate count for the initial number of miners missing, Lick Branch management became embarrassed and devised a system where miners, before plunging underground, would hang a metal identification tag on a pegboard located at the mine drift. With the new system, the General Mine Foreman could walk to the drift, and by reading the names on the metal tags, identify every miner working underground. There would be no more muddle headcounts at Switchback.

Although James Jones held several successful mining ventures in Southern West Virginia that made him one of the region's wealthiest men, the Lick Branch mining complex was not going to add to Jones's coffers anytime soon, because Lick Branch was destined for another tragedy.

As soon as state inspectors finished examining the Switchback complex, inspectors gave the green light for coal production to resume. On January 12, 1909, while several crews worked at reclaiming portions of the mine filled with cave-ins, and another mining crew produced coal, the mountain suddenly roared as it puked timbers, broken headers, rocks, and mining supplies across the underlying valley below. An unlucky hunter, who was stalking game on the mountainside opposite the Lick Branch portal, was killed from a barrage of flying debris. This blast, with its violent intensity, was the real "widow maker," and only one miner, the Mine Foreman, was lucky enough to escape.

Ironically, the force from the second Lick Branch explosion blew those new metal identification tags that miners left hanging at the drift, halfway into the next county. Again, mine management found itself in the precarious predicament of having to readjust its tally as rescue crews kept finding more and more bodies. An outside laborer, and a few residents of Switchback, claimed that nearly 90 men entered the mine on the morning of January 12, yet mine management gave 67 for its final victim tally. Could cave-ins created by the second blast have buried two-dozen recently hired immigrants without mine management's knowledge?

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, as a rapidly expanding coal industry was finding it nearly impossible to fill work crews, coal companies eagerly hired contractors to produce coal. A company would pay a contractor according to the amount of coal that his crew loaded, and it was up to the contractor to divvy out pay to his crewmembers. Contractors often hired relatives, or friends, to fill their crews and it became common practice for contract crewmembers to bring along a relative as a part-time worker to help-out with coal production. It was not unheard of for a man beyond 70 years of age to help his son blast down coal in order to boost production of a contract crew. Since early mining laws did not mandate that records be kept concerning who was actually working underground, mine management rarely had accurate counts following major mine disasters, especially in disasters where contractors perished along side their crews.

In the years preceding the 1940s, prior to the development of anchor bolts as the primary means of roof support in coalmines, crews rarely cleaned-up huge cave-ins, but most often, bridged over them. It was much cheaper, and far less time consuming, to reset timbers and cribbing on top of roof falls than it was to clean-up and reclaim regions caved-in 20-40 feet high. Ironically, as with the Monongah Mine Disaster, management at the Lick Branch Mine knew exactly how many mules had disappeared but bosses were clueless to the actual number of miners missing.

There is also another plausible explanation to clarify why there were so many muddled headcounts during early mining disasters. Truthfully, many of the early inaccurate counts may have been intentional, as miners were quite superstitious—blessed with commonsense may be a more accurate depiction than superstitious. See, coalminers often avoided mining operations that held a terrible safety record, so to insure that ramblers seeking work in America's coalfields kept dropping by to apply for work, it made all the sense in the world for mine operators to delete immigrant victims from tally-counts. In fact, just 15 miles north of Switchback, in 1912, the Jed Coal and Coke Company at Jed, West Virginia suffered though an awful mine blast that killed 81 men. Quickly, Jed mining company changed the name of its mining camp to Havaco, and changed its corporate name as well. The Havaco mine again exploded in 1946, killing 15 men but 253 lucky-miners managed to walk away from the second Havaco blast, so perhaps Havaco was a luckier name than Jed after all!

The corner's jury that heard the inquisition for the 1909 Lick Branch explosion was befuddled about what caused the detonation since West Virginia's mine inspectors had inspected the entire complex immediately prior to the explosion. The jury found that the mining company was not operating in a manner that might have contributed to either of the two Lick Branch explosions, thus Jones' company was not liable for either catastrophe.

The 1908 and 1909 explosions at the Lick Branch mining complex did little to stifle the overhaul success of James Elwood Jones, as he quickly became one of West Virginia's most prominent coal barons. Jones made one of his homes in Bramwell, West Virginia, recognized as "Home of the Millionaires," because more than 14 millionaires resided in Bramwell at the turn of the twentieth century even though the town's population was less than 4,000. Most of Bramwell's millionaires acquired the majority of their wealth via coalmining ventures, or from financing coalmining enterprises.

In 1930, James Jones ran against Matthew M. Neely (Dem.) for the U.S. Senate, but Jones lost by a landslide. With his crushing Senate loss, and the Great Depression swallowing-up much of his mass fortune, Jones died in 1932. Senator Neely went on to serve several senate terms and one governorship term for West Virginia, where he fought tooth-and-nail for legislation protecting West Virginia's coalminers.

During the first decade of the 1900s, major mining disasters at Monongah, Jacobs Creek, Marianna, Switchback, and Hanna, Wyoming pushed American sentiment toward favoring establishment of a federal bureau of mines. However, the ultimate catalyst for creating a bureau of mines proved to be an awful tragedy in Cherry, Illinois, in 1909.

Cherry's Mine Fire

On November 13, 1909, 481 coalminers entered the Cherry Mine at Cherry, Illinois. Following the outbreak of a mine fire around 1:30 p.m., less than 200 miners meandered through suffocating smoke and escaped on their own. Shortly after 3:00 p.m., as more than 280 Cherry miners lay trapped deep underground, 12 brave residents of Cherry volunteered to ride the elevator-cage down and help with getting distressed miners out. The odd make-up of the 12-man rescue party consisted of: John Bundy and Alexander Norberg (mine bosses); Andrew McLuckie, Harry Stewart, James Spiers, Mike Suhe, and Robert Clark (underground miners); John Sczabrinski (underground Cager); Joseph Robesa (mule driver); Isaac Lewis (liveryman); Dominic Dormento (grocer); and John Flood (clothier).

Because Cherry's volunteers feared being roasted alive should the hoisting attendant lower them into the mine too fast, or too far, they instructed the attendant to pay extremely close attention to the signal bell, and to hoist exactly according to signals buzzed up, with no deviation.

The twelve volunteers courageously rode the elevator-cage 320 feet down into the suffocating smoke six times, and with each trip the gang resurfaced, they brought addled, suffocating miners with them. On the seventh trip the rescue gang descended, something went wrong as the hoisting engineer received signals to "hoist-down (normal speed)," "hoist-down slower," "hoist-down even slower," and then, abruptly and unexpectedly, a bell-signal came to "hoist-down (normal speed)." The hoisting engineer became befuddled with the last signal, because the signal bell failed to exhibit the same caution that the rescue party had displayed during prior descents. Nevertheless, the hoisting engineer followed the bell-signal exactly, lowering the cage to the bottom at normal speed, and then waited for another signal. Suddenly, the hoisting cable jerked erratically, and wiggled intermittently, which caused onlookers to plead for the engineer to raise the cage immediately. Reluctantly, the hoisting engineer held his ground and refused to raise the cage, while he waited for another signal, just as the 12 had instructed. After about 15 minutes, the hoisting attendant conceded to the crowd and raised the cage, only to witness a horrifying sight. Eight of the bold volunteers lay sprawled inside the cage with clothes flaming, while four lay on the roof of the cage with clothes smoldering. The four volunteers on top of the cage lay locked in a fetal position, with grimaces frozen to their charred faces. The bloodied-hands of the four hinted that they had attempted to hand-scale the steel hoisting cable in order to escape the searing heat, which in all likelihood, accounted for the erratic jerking of the hoisting cable. As autumn winds diffused the awful stench of burning flesh around the Cherry mine portal, an eerie hush fell over the concerned crowd of restless onlookers.

Volunteer firefighters from neighboring towns, along with Cherry volunteers, worked tireless for seven days to extinguish the Cherry mine fire, and recover bodies. All hope of there being survivors had faded by the evening of November 20 when low and behold, a rescue team heard chatter coming from deep inside the mine, chatter not belonging to recovery crews. Astonishingly, there were survivors at Cherry! In the two hours that followed, mine rescue crews located 21 survivors of the Cherry mine fire, and hoisted all to safety. As the ragged bunch popped to the surface, reporters quickly labeled the survivors "Eight-day Men." Sadly, due to his weaken physical condition, the oldest member of the Eight-day Men died one day after being rescued, but the story of the other 20 survivors became legend throughout Illinois.

It seems that on the evening of November 13, following the outbreak of the Cherry mine fire, a group of 22 miners that was working the second level attempted to evacuate the mine, but was unable to reach the escape shaft because of dense smoke. One of the 22 died during that first escape attempt, thus the 21 remaining survivors quickly retreated to a smoke-free section of the mine where they could recuperate and plot a new strategy. The gang huddled in relatively clean air until the next morning and then attempted another escape. Again unable to evacuate through the return airshaft because of fire and smoke, the 21 distressed miners retreated to less contaminated air for a second time, where the crew erected a barricade from slate and coal in order to isolate themselves from the dense, toxic fumes.

The fuel oil for the wicked cap-lights of the gang-of-21 ran low by Tuesday, November 16, thus the gang sat shivering inside their damp, dark barricade while conserving just enough oil to provide a flicker of light for one last escape attempt. With no food, and barely a trickle of drinking water oozing from the mine roof, the gang nervously waited for rescue crews but only grew weak as days waned with no sign of a rescue party.

On Saturday, November 20, the eighth day of entrapment, the gang-of-21 sent out a party of four to attempt an escape. A short time later, 4 more miners followed the initial 4, but the remaining 13 stayed hunkered tight, as they were too weak to grope their way down dangerous mine passageways. As the first party of exploring survivors felt their way through the mine, they continuously chattered in order to prevent becoming separated, and that chatter resulted in rescue teams locating them.

As for the 12 brave souls of Cherry who perished in their valiant attempt to save Cherry's miners, the explanation as to why the hoisting engineer received the confusing hoisting signals became much clearer following the rescue of the Eight-day Men. One of the Eight-day Men stated that during the afternoon, following the outbreak of the fire, he managed to shield himself from the searing heat at the cage landing long enough to ring a signal to "hoist-down (normal speed)." However, extreme heat and suffocating smoke quickly drove the signaler from the cage landing, which probably accounts for that mystifying signal. In the end, the Carnegie Hero Award was awarded to the families of Cherry's finest, those brave volunteers that perished while saving other citizens, coalminers.

The tragedy of 259 miners perishing in the Cherry mine fire shocked the citizens of Illinois to such a degree that Illinois legislators quickly enacted the state's first Workers' Compensation Act, the Socialistic program that mine operators had fought so hard against for years. However, with no guidelines in the new Act for determining the amount of monetary settlements due victims' dependents, an arbitrator used guidelines within England's Workers' Compensation Act of 1906 to divvy out payouts to Cherry's widows and dependents.

There were 8,329 coalminers killed in mines throughout the U.S. in the three years prior to 1910, and 1,014 of those were claimed in four horrendous mine disasters: Monongah, Darr, Rachel & Agnes, and Cherry. Following the tragedy at Cherry, in 1910 the U.S Congress established the U.S Bureau of Mines (USBM) but since Congress had yet to implement any meaningful federal mine safety regulations, it would be years before the Bureau of Mines was able to force transformation of an industry that often opposed any changes that added cost to producing coal.

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Chapter 2

Layland

During those first few years following the establishment of the U.S Bureau of Mines in 1910, very little changed within the coalmining industry to reduce the actual number of underground accidents. In fact, the second decade of the twentieth century saw 25,229 coalmining fatalities, while only 21,407 coalmining fatalities occurred during that first decade.

In April of 1911, a mine explosion occurred at the Banner Mine near Littleton, Alabama, killing 128 men. All but five of the Banner victims were convicts that the state of Alabama had rented-out to the coal company, and 95% of the victims were African-Americans.

In October of 1913, a coal dust explosion occurred at the Stag Canon No. 2 Mine in Dawson, New Mexico, claiming 263 miners. The high tally at the Stag Canon No. 2 Mine makes this the second worst coalmine disaster in U.S. history.

On April 28, 1914, a methane-coal-dust explosion at Eccles, West Virginia, claimed the lives of 181 victims. The Eccles mining complex was very similar to the Cherry Mine in that miners at Eccles used one vertical mineshaft to extract coal from two different coal beds lying on parallel planes. The methane-coal-dust explosion in Eccles No. 5, the deeper Eccles mine, killed 171 miners, while only 9 miners perished in the upper level No. 6 Mine.

Ironically, the Eccles blast killed an insurance salesman who was underground peddling life insurance policies to men working the highest-risk occupation in the world, coalmining. Sixty-four miners scrambled from No. 6 Mine within an hour of the explosion. One of the 64 to escape Eccles was a quite remarkable miner, William Derenge.

William Derenge was a tough, seasoned coalminer who, at various times, worked at several different mining operations in Raleigh and Fayette counties, West Virginia. At Eccles, Derenge initially helped to buy more time for his group by installing brattice cloth to repel afterdamp. However, this would not be the last explosion Derenge would experience.

The majority of those miners killed in the Eccles explosion were immigrants, this being the norm for the early coalmining era. Seventy-four percent of the victims at Monongah had been immigrants of which 47% were of Italian nationality. Most immigrant victims at Eccles that were known to be of the Catholic faith were buried in the St. Sebastian Cemetery at Beckley, West Virginia, while other foreign victims were buried in a cemetery overlooking the coal tipple, which locals referred to as the "Polish Cemetery." The Polish Cemetery held many immigrants from Poland, several African-Americans, and some immigrants of various nationalities because most private cemeteries were not open to bury foreigners, blacks, or Catholics.

Approximately ten months following the Eccles explosion, a coalmining tragedy struck at Layland, a town slightly north of Beckley. In 1915 at Layland, the New River & Pocahontas Consol Company operated several mines side-by-side in the Firecreek seam. Layland Nos. 2, 3, and 4 mines all penetrated the Firecreek coal bed and only a few masonry stoppings (cinderblock walls built specifically to direct ventilating currents) prevented ventilation currents for the three mines from intermingling, which put all three mines at risk if a mega-blast should ever occur in any one of the mines.

Where the Firecreek coal bed around Layland lay near the mountaintop, well above the water table, methane gas was never a factor in mining the Firecreek seam. In fact, experts deemed all Layland mines as non-gaseous, and professionals considered the mining complex among the safest in the state.

The Blast

Around 8:30 a.m. on March 2, 1915, a terrible rumbling originates deep inside the Layland No. 3 Mine. As a thundering shockwave rolls out toward the surface, the awesome force rips out the stoppings separating Nos. 3 and 4 mines, which results in the explosion steamrolling through No. 4 Mine. Within seconds, the bullet-fast shockwave breaches confinement at No. 3 Mine drift and slams an African-American porter, who is walking more than 100 feet from the mine entrance, viciously against a wooden post. The porter dies instantly!

Deep underground, Jack Vasilefsky and his hand-loading partner Charles Koronsky are working a remote section of No. 3 Mine when they hear a "whoosh-whoosh sound," accompanied by the feeling of high pressure within their ears. Instantaneously, Puffs of wind blow out the open-flames on both miners' cap-lights—enormous cave-ins often create a "whoosh-whoosh sound" but so do many underground explosions when heard from a great distances. Jack Vasilefsky, whom coworkers affectionately refer to as "Big Jack," is a tall, good-natured, Polish coalminer that possesses near superhuman strength. Instantly relighting their carbide lamps, Big Jack and Koronsky continue loosening coal in preparation of shoveling it, but Jack is very suspicious that the eerie sound came from an underground blast, not a cave-in.

About ten minutes following the "whoosh-whoosh," Jack realizes that his buddy Koronsky too is suspicious that the spooky noise may not have come from a roof fall. Nevertheless, Jack holds his tongue and mentions nothing to Koronsky about his fears because Jack knows all to well that miners working far away from an underground explosion often end-up running in the wrong direction if they leave before allowing some of the dust to settle out. Jack figures that, if there has been an underground blast, the Mains escapeways will likely be filled with deadly smog, and he and his buddy will stand much better odds at surviving if they allow time for the dust to clear in order to make a faster getaway. To alleviate some of his nervousness, Jack drives his coal-pick harder, and deeper, into the coal bed with each stroke that he hammers-out. Although neither Jack nor Koronsky mentions the prospect of the "whoosh-whoosh" signaling an ominous warning, their glances are dead giveaway to their serious unease.

After about 2½ hours of profuse sweating while hand-loading coal, Jack and Koronsky suddenly see trickles of smoke floating into their workplace. The smoke, accompanied by a burnt-sulfur smell, leaves the two Poles with little doubt that their initial concerns from the whoosh-whoosh sounds where well founded, and that their escape must be now, or it may never come. Flinging their tools aside, Jack and Koronsky grab their coats and dinner pails and dart toward the outside. However, the two Polish miners barely trot 1,500 feet from their workroom before they stumbled across two fellows who have fallen due to sucking in afterdamp. Jack, noticing that at least one of the two unconscious miners, Ben McDaniel Jr., is yet breathing, grabs Ben and tosses him across his shoulder. Balancing his 160-pound load, Big Jack continues his rumble toward the outside. Staggering, stumbling, and occasionally grunting, Jack climbs over obstacles, wades through waterholes, and traverses around roof falls. As tough as going gets, and as dangerous as conditions are inside the mine, the stubborn Pole adamantly refuses to drop his burdening load. Eventually, Jack carries Ben McDaniel more than a quarter-mile to fresh air where he lays his befuddled comrade down.

In fresh air, and away from suffocating afterdamp, Ben McDaniel soon revives but Big Jack and his sidekick are not through with their heroics at Layland. Jack and Koronsky quickly join a boss and all three go back to try to save the miner who had fallen beside McDaniel. However, upon their return, Jack and his two sidekicks quickly discover that they are too late, except for perhaps a prayer.

Deeper inside the toxic Layland mine, 5 miners are busy attempting to convince 37 coworkers that barricading is their only recourse for surviving because suffocating smoke has already driven the gang from primary escape routes, once. Wisely, the 42 have found a smoke-free room to plot their strategy where William Derenge, Hugh McMillan, John Whalen, G. H. Henson and John Fitzpatrick take charge

Although it has been ten months since William Derenge narrowly escaped at Eccles, Derenge is back to mining, and today is Bill's first day on his new job at Layland. With Derenge, McMillan, Whalen, Henson, and Fitzpatrick barking out orders, the gang hurriedly retreats to a long smoke-free room in 10-Left Panel where there are two, full barrels of water. A couple from the gang dart back to the mouth of 10-Left Panel and quickly short-circuit the mine ventilation by hanging brattice cloth across room entrances. The remaining 40 begin constructing four barricade stoppings from loose slate, loose coal, and cast-aside refuse. The gang erects their barricade stoppings in pairs, two, back-to-back, thus any bad air that leaks through the first obstruction will be repelled by the second obstruction. After sealing their four barricade stoppings airtight, the nervous gang-of-42 hunkers-down in the cold. While some pray, others look for material to scribble on and an object to mold into a makeshift pencil.

Unknown to the 42 miners hold-up on 10-Left Panel, 5 immigrant miners are also nearby because they too have chosen to barricade. Salvatori Morici has taken charge of four other survivors, two Russian and two Italian miners, and under his leadership the five retreat to 9-Left Panel and choose a room 200 foot long and 12 feet wide, where water trickles in, to barricade. The five quickly nail boards to mine props and then tightly fasten several layers of brattice cloth over the framing, making their temporary stoppings as airtight as possible for their barricade

After settling inside their barricade, the five foreigners wait six hours, make a slight opening in their barricade, slither out and raid distant rooms where they find two-dozen dinner buckets filled with chow, plenty of carbide (a type of headlamp fuel), and a considerable stash of lamp oil. After returning to their barricade with their treasures, the five immigrants construct a makeshift fan by attaching bat-like wings made from brattice cloth, to a long, flat board, which they sit on a fulcrum in a seesaw like manner. The five take turns at hand churning the seesaw hence stirring the air within the barricade to prevent from suffocating on their own expelled carbon dioxide.

Every six hours, Morici's gang makes a small opening in their barricade and a couple of crewmembers slither out to check for toxic fumes, and for visibility, in escape routes but every day, bad air drives the explorers back.

Once news concerning Layland's explosion buzzes the telegraphs, volunteers from Fayette County, and neighboring Raleigh County, swarm to the tiny mountaintop community that overlooks the New River Valley. At about 9:30 p.m. on March 2, "Rescue Car No 8" arrives at Layland by rail in record time. Car No. 8 carries the Bureau's oxygen breathing apparatuses and rescue personnel. The Bureau's two apparatus crews waste little time in gearing-up, and by 10:00 p.m., teams wearing oxygen helmets begin exploration of the blast-riddled Layland mine. As apparatus crews plunge deeper inside, volunteer relief workers lag behind repairing damaged ventilation stoppings in an attempt to keep the Fresh Air Base (FAB) extended up to within 500 foot of the Bureau's probing teams.

During the afternoon of March 3, eleven volunteers from the U.S. Coal and Coke Company (U.S. Steel) out of Gary, West Virginia, arrive at Layland to assist with mine rescue operations. Gary's team brings along five of the latest Draeger Self-Contained Breathing Apparatuses, which is top of the line in rescue equipment. Gary's eleven volunteers, added in with the Bureau's nine mine rescue crewmembers, allow the Bureau to put together three well equipped mine rescue teams, capable of exploring nearly around the clock.

Because of the enormous number of roof falls, and all the devastating destruction to ventilation structures, initially, mine recovery crews are slow in reestablishing ventilation to shallow sections of the Layland mine. Major caved-in sections of the track haulage entry are particularly hindering to recovery crews because blocked haulage routes hinder hauling necessary supplies inside, and hinder rescue crewmembers in transporting bodies to the surface.

Although Layland miners do not normally work mules underground, but rather use modern electric locomotives, or electric winches, to move heavy loads, officials overseeing the rescue operation quickly purchase mules from local farmers to move debris and transport supplies. Mules are not capable of igniting methane as the electric iron-beasts that zoom along the rails. As violent as the Layland explosion, a handful of men had already escaped, which gave hope to rescue crews that more survivors might be trapped somewhere deep underground..

Meanwhile underground, Derenge's gang barricade in 10-Left Panel is experiencing some of its own problems, chiefly regarding the pecking order. There are 14 Americans and 28 foreigners hold up behind the barricade on 10-Left Panel, with most of the immigrants being of Italian nationality. Partly due to language barriers and in part because five Americans are "calling all the shots," the foreigners segregate much along lines of nationality. Being concerned whether or not rescuers will brave the life-threatening conditions underground with a rescue attempt, the Italians get antsy and want to attempt another escape very soon. However, the five American leaders think it is a bad idea to break the seal on the barricade this quickly since their barricade obstructions are composed of rock and debris, not brattice cloth, which will require considerable work to reseal.

All miners trapped inside No. 3 Mine at Layland carry open-flame lights, which are either carbide-fueled, or oil-wicked. With the gang-of-42 hunkered down behind a barricade in the cold, damp mine, tempers get short as a dispute arises between the segregated groups on when to burn cap-lights. In order to conserve lamp fuel, and to reduce the risk of an open-flame igniting explosive mixtures, American leaders insist that the 42 only burn one cap-lamp at a time, and that particular lamp must be burned near the mine floor, not the roof where methane accumulates. Some of the foreigners do not want to follow the light-rule as they extinguish, but within minutes, relight their cap-lights. The constant relighting of lamps goes on for quite some time until the foreigners overhear Bill Derenge plotting to steal, and hide cap-lamps. Abruptly, as ordered, all but one light inside the barricade loses its glow, however, the antsy urge for the foreigners to explore outside the barricade ultimately moves toward a climax by day three of entrapment.

By the afternoon of March 4, the immigrants in Derenge's party are getting extremely anxious, insisting they must check the escape routes again, as it is evident that rescue crews will not reach them before they all starve to death. Weakened from hunger pains, leaders grant the immigrants their request by allowing Angelo Aliprandi to slither out at 4:30 p.m. Since leaders greatly fear that an open-flame from a cap-light may ignite new accumulations of methane outside the barricade, leaders dispatch Angelo without a light, instructing him to hang a handwritten note on the trolley wire prior to feeling his way down the trolley line as he explores..

Initially, Angelo's exploration in darkness outside the barricade goes okay as he disappears for several minutes, but suddenly, Angelo begins to shout for help. Two miners rapidly bolt from the barricade and rush towards Angelo's cries where they find their comrade down on afterdamp. The two hurriedly drag the insensible Angelo back inside the barricade and crewmembers hastily reseal the two slate barricades. There will be no more arguments about when it may be safe to venture out, as the gang-of-42 agrees that they will hunker-down and wait, and if no rescue party shows by Sunday, March 7, they will try again before crewmembers become too weak to walk, and before depleting all lamp fuel. As the gang-of-42 huddle to wait for rescue parties, some of the group strip the bark from support timbers and chew on it to satisfy hunger pang, while others chew on leather shoelaces.

While miners trapped deep inside the Layland mine are taking desperate measures to survive, in shallower sections of the underground complex, rescue workers are working frantically to reconstruct overcasts, rebuild blown-out stoppings, and clear the track haulage entry of fallen roof debris. By midnight Friday, March 5, much of the ventilation in the Mains entries has been restored, quite a few bodies recovered, and a significant portion of cave-ins in the track entry cleared. Shortly after midnight, Command summons all rescue parties to the surface to allow for stoppage of the mine fan so that surface mechanics can complete final phases for reversing airflow into the underground complex. By now, all rescue crews are completely exhausted, especially the three apparatus crews. Command orders that all rescue and relief workers get some well-deserved shuteye.

After all rescue crews have exited the Layland mine shortly following midnight on Saturday, March 6, crews kill the power to the mine fan with the intention of re-energizing the circuit early that morning, after mechanics have reversed rotation of the giant blades. As the noisy fan at Layland No. 3 Mine coasts to a stop, an eerie hush rolls over the mine drifts as exhausted rescue crews snuggle in to get some desperately needed sleep. It has been another long, extremely dangerous, and exhausting day for rescue personnel at Layland!

As daylight breaks on Saturday, March 6, marking the fourth day since the mega explosion at Layland, the 47 trapped-miners inside Layland No. 3 are cold, hungry, and feeling rather desperate. Near 8:00 a.m., Charles Caldwell, from the gang-of-42, writes a farewell note:

Dear Effie, We are still alive but getting pretty weak. Oh! God hast thou forsaken us? Sweetheart, I am still living in hope and trusting that if we don't meet in this world, let us hope to meet in Heaven. God watch over you and keep you in my everlasting prayer.

Bye, Bye, (Sgd.) Charlie

_We are not worrying over anything but your sorrow and for you._ 4

Mr. Caldwell is not the only one of the gang-of-42 feeling desperate on March 6, Bill Derenge, having recently survived one mining disaster, fully understands the severity of the situation and realizes he may not survive Layland. While a few of his half-starved comrades gnaw on chunks of bark peeled from Birch timbers, Bill Derenge uses a charcoaled lamp wick, which is farther darkened from rubs of coal, and he too, scribbles out his own farewells on murky cartilage paper.

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Back on the surface at Layland, at around 8:00 a.m., when W.M. Derenge and Mr. Caldwell are jotting down their last farewells, exhausted rescue workers are spooning down chow. However, J.W. Paul, Chief Mining Engineer for the Bureau, is milling approximately 200 feet inside one of the mine drifts when he observes the strangest darn sight, a glimpse of bobbing open-flame lights. Unexpectedly, Paul hears miners jabbering as the flickering lights become more visible. Now Paul knows that Command has yet to order crews inside this morning, and besides, no rescue crewmember would be foolish enough to carry dangerous open-flame lights during rescue operations.

Within seconds, J.W. Paul's initially shock wears off from seeing cap-lights when he realizes that those beams are coming from survivors who are making it out on their own. Paul quickly rushes to meet the flickering lights, where he discovers Salvatori Morici nonchalantly marching toward the mine drift. All four of Morici's men trail no more than a few yards behind and all four are using the round lids from their lunch pails as hand-fans to cool themselves.

It has now been four days since the initial explosion at Layland and Morici's gang suddenly emerges from the mine portal, but none of the gang appears too talkative, except for a little chattering that they carry-on among themselves. Hurriedly, J.W. Paul attempts walking in stride with the high-stepping immigrants while he inquires whether there are other survivors, but the foreigners only quicken their pace as one simply replies, "Come from 9-Left, no more live men, one man dead."

Now one of Salvatori Morici's sidekicks, an Italian who usually hand-loaded coal in a room adjacent to Morici's workroom on 9-Left Panel chose not to go with Morici, but instead, tried to escape immediately after the Layland blast. This fellow perished during his initial escape attempt, which Morici's gang indicates in their reply to J. W. Paul, "one man dead."

It seems that when rescue personnel stopped the mine fan during the earliest hours of Saturday morning, the blowing fan for neighboring No. 2 Mine leaked small amounts of air into No. 3 Mine through a partially damaged stopping, which pushed the afterdamp away from the mouth of 9-Left Panel. Hence, the persistent, on-the-ball immigrants quickly seized on their first real opportunity to escape from the toxic Layland mine as they tied bandanas across their faces, created makeshift hand-fans from the lids on their stash of dinner buckets, and rushed outside.

The sight of the five foreigners escaping the Layland mine on their own made rescuers realize that there could easily be more survivors somewhere underground, and that thought rejuvenated exhausted rescue crews. One of the Bureau's mine rescue teams quickly dons oxygen helmets, grabs the last caged-canary, and darts underground toward portions of the mine beyond 9-Left.—a tweedy-bird served as carbon monoxide detectors for our earliest mine rescue teams. After plunging beyond 9-Left Panel and reaching 10-Left, rescuers find a note propped up against a track-rail, the note scribbled out that Angelo placed prior to fainting from toxic afterdamp. After further searching, rescuers find a freshly built stopping obstruction, and after tearing out that obstruction, they discover another stopping. After tearing out the second obstruction, rescuers find 42 excited, exhausted, and starving coalminers.

During investigations that followed the Layland mine explosion, some survivors stated that they had eaten the bark from mine timbers, while others admitted to chewing on their leather shoestrings, in order to satisfy hunger pangs. Nevertheless, as tough as the situation became inside the blast-riddled mine, 47 miners trapped inside Layland survived. Astonishingly, a 74-year-old miner, Thomas Whalen, who had been helping his son John blast down coal the morning that No. 3 Mine blew, was among the last men to escape Layland.

In the end, the mine blast at Layland killed 115 miners, 44 who died from breathing toxic afterdamp. Forty-seven miners managed to barricade long enough to walk away from Layland, which is the largest number of coalminers ever to survive following days of entrapment in a U.S. coalmine. With the aid of data gathered by mine rescue teams that explored Layland's blast-riddled mines, a fledgling U.S. Bureau of Mines meticulously studied those underground conditions, and Bureau investigators carefully reviewed the behavior of individuals that survived the ordeal. The Bureau readily recognized that superb brattice work (short-circuiting ventilation currents and erecting airtight barriers), cool heads, persistence, and the courageous conduct of those 47 miners that chose to barricade, greatly contributed to their survival. Of course, the Bureau quickly realized that none of the 47 survivors would have lived through Layland's ordeal without the hard work of courageous rescue workers, either. The Bureau was taking notes, notes that would prove very valuable in training America's underground miners how to survive explosions, and notes that would prove to be very beneficial in training mine rescue teams that, somewhere down the road, would evolve into the best darn mine rescue teams on the planet.

Ole William Derenge was not jinxed after all, as he survived two of the worst mine disasters in U.S. history. In fact, during Bill's golden years, he found many opportunities to repeat his amazing survival stories to fellows eager to lend a listening ear. Bill died an old man well past 70, which is a testament to the fact that, he was one tough coalminer!

In reality, John Joswa was a hardworking coalminer that may have been plagued with bad luck. With bloodied hands, John Joswa hand-scaled up 250 feet of steel hoisting structure to survive the awful disaster at Eccles in 1914, only to have the mountain claim him at Layland in 1915.

As for Big Jack at Layland, don't you think it a rather sobering thought to imagine that if the mighty Pole had failed to survive at Layland, more than likely, the Pole would have been denied burial in a public cemetery? However, Big Jack did not fold at Layland—he never even considered it—and for the mighty immigrants heroics with carrying McDaniel to the surface, mine supervisors nominated Jack for the Carnegie Hero Award!

Chapter 3

The Evolution of Mine Rescue

Prior to the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) in 1910, an agency existed within the U.S. Department of Labor that evaluated mine disasters, determined causes, and released information to industry experts in attempts to reduce the number of mine disasters. Even though Theodore Roosevelt, and most citizens living in America's coalfields, endorsed establishment of a federal bureau of mines, the majority in Congress felt that creating an agency specifically to oversee the coalmining industry would stifle production, hence, intrude on free-Capitalism. Although Congress failed to create a bureau of mines prior to Teddy Roosevelt leaving the White House, TR did lay the groundwork for establishing mobile mine rescue stations, and in the two years prior to 1910, the U.S. government created four mine rescue stations aboard modified railway cars.

The government's initial modified railway cars carried rescue gear, supplies, rescue personnel, and provided rescuers with facilities for cooking, eating, and sleeping. Since coalmine disasters were strangling coal production by wiping out America's supply of underground miners, which was already in short supply, the establishment of mobile mine rescue cars was a superb investment for America.

Following establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1910, the agency created four more mobile rescue stations bringing the total number of stations to eight by 1912. The Bureau's mobile stations not only provided work bases at mine disaster sites, but also served as training facilities to teach mine rescue and first aid to the general population of coalminers when all was quiet in America's coalfields. When the Bureau's rescue stations were not touring the coalfields for training purposes, the units sat strategically parked at railway hubs throughout America to insure rapid deployment following major mining disasters.

During the second decade of the twentieth century, regional USBM employees, well trained in mine rescue, always stood on standby and upon notification of mine disasters by telegraph or telephone, the Bureau rescue teams could arrive aboard mobile rescue stations within a matter of hours. Following the Layland mine explosion on March 2, 1915, Rescue Car No. 8 sat sidetracked at Glenalum, West Virginia, serving as a training facility. The Norfolk & Western Railway hooked to Car No. 8 at Glenalum around 12:30 p.m., and in approximately three hours, Car No. 8 finished its 104-mile leg into Kenova, West Virginia. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway hooked the second-largest passenger train locomotive in the world to No. 8 at Kenova and pulled the 133-mile leg up the winding New River Canyon into Quinnimont in 3 hours and 16 minutes, while stopping once to take on water at Thurmond. From Quinnimont, an engine pushed Car No. 8 six miles up the steep railway grade into Layland, thus covering the 243-mile trek in the record time of eight hours and forty-five minutes. Shortly after 10:00 p.m. on March 2, 1915, barely 12 hours following the explosion at Layland, a USBM mine rescue team began gearing-up in preparation of exploring the blast-riddled Layland mine.

Some of the Bureau's mobile rescue stations, including Car No. 8, carried a surgeon, and all cars carried caged canaries as carbon monoxide detectors.

The little yellow canary that rode the rails with all mine rescue cars played a key role in early mine rescue. Since the finch cannot tolerate high concentrations of carbon monoxide, early mine rescue crews carried caged canaries when exploring blast-riddled mines, and by monitoring the physical demeanor of a canary, a rescue crewmember could determine whether the mine atmosphere contained toxic quantities of carbon monoxide. After a canary quit chirping, acted sick, or suddenly died, rescue crewmembers, not sporting oxygen helmets, withdrew from the affected area immediately. Following most underground explosions in huge mines, rescue teams found it practically impossible to keep an adequate stock of canaries on hand because so many birds expired as teams explored. Ironically, the term "canary" actually became so synonymous with carbon monoxide detection that one of the first companies to develop an electrical carbon monoxide detector dubbed its detecting device the "Canary." Today, we often use the phrase "canary in the coal mine" to mean, "providing a potentially innocent sacrifice to test the waters before becoming fully committed"

America's first organized mine rescue teams were equipped with top-notch rescue equipment purchased from either British or German companies. The Fleuss company, from Britain, and the Draeger company, from Germany, pioneered the development of some of the world's first efficient mine rescue apparatuses. In fact, mine rescue teams at Layland, in 1915, used both Fleuss, and Draeger, apparatuses.

Henry Albert Fleuss actually developed the first practical self-contained breathing apparatus for underwater diving in 1879. Fleuss's first diving device consisted of a closed-circuit breathing apparatus that employed an oxygen tank, where carbon dioxide was scrubbed from the closed system by a yarn rope soaked in a solution of caustic potash. Volunteer rescue personnel wore Fleuss's diving gear inside a mine in England following an explosion in 1880.

In 1907, a German company, Draeger, introduced the first-ever mobile short-term respirator, the "Pulmotor." Unlike Fleuss's breathing apparatus, the Pulmotor was actually an open-circuit breathing device that utilized an exhalation valve, which forced expelled breaths to exit the system. The Draeger Company also utilized Heinrich Draeger's patented exhalation valve in underwater diving gear (SCUBA gear) and in self-contained breathing devices built specifically for mine rescue (SCBA gear). Draeger's model 1904/09 SCBA was an open-circuit device that utilized an oxygen tank, ventilator bag, full-faced mask, ventilator-regulation-valve, exhalation-valve, and hose attachments. Draeger SCBA gear was a smashing success throughout the mining world and Draeger's SCUBA gear quickly became the standard for underwater diving equipment around the globe.

By 1918, in America, fire departments in some of America's largest cities, like New York City and Pittsburgh, were using the awesome Draeger SCBAs, and Americans quickly nicknamed the freaky-looking rescue men sporting Draeger units as "Draegermen." In fact, the word "Draegermen" became so synonymous with describing any, and all, rescue personnel that sported SCBA that the term soon stuck to anyone wearing a SCBA, regardless of the manufacturer of the particular equipment worn. The main setback to those pioneer SCBAs was the short cycle in which the units produced oxygen, about one hour.

In 1924, the Draeger Company introduced the BG 1924 SCBA, which was a closed-circuit oxygen generating apparatus that chemically produced oxygen by utilizing a potassium super oxide cartridge (KO2). The BG 1924 supplied oxygen for about one hour before rescuers had to replenish the unit with additional KO2. American companies like McCaa and Paul also entered into the business of manufacturing SCBAs during the late-1920s. However, Draeger's innovations consistently set new standards by which to judge all self-contained breathing devices. Draeger—spelling changed to Drager—introduced their BG-174 breathing apparatus in 1963, and their technological advanced BG-4 model in the very late-1990s. Both models set new standards for their respective eras. Even today, rescuers worldwide use the Drager BG-4 four-hour breathing apparatus, which utilizes bottled oxygen, when plunging into smoke filled environments. Astonishingly, recent technology not only allows the BG-4 apparatus to monitor toxic mine atmospheres, but the unit also makes adjustments for its own oxygen output as wearers increase their respiratory rate. The electronic monitoring devices attached to BG-4 apparatuses also allow team commanders stationed away from exploration to observe the function of all BG-4 apparatuses worn by exploring crewmembers.

One astonishing fact concerning the evolution of oxygen-generating devices for mine rescue is the reality that, although sophisticated oxygen-producing apparatuses were around as early as 1924, more than 57 years would pass before federal statute required that those units be available to all coalminers. Strangely, Mine Safety Appliances (MSA) company introduced its Chemox self-contained breathing apparatus prior to 1947, which was the forerunner to today's self-contained self-rescuer (SCSR), but it was as late as 1981 before coalmine operators throughout America were required to furnish SCSRs to all underground employees. The Bureau of Mines actually approved MSA's Chemox SCBA as a 1-hour auxiliary mine rescue apparatus in 1946, and by 1950, the Chemox apparatus was the standard firefighting apparatus used aboard all U.S. Naval ships. The Chemox SCBA weighed in at about 13 pounds and since the extremely compact unit was so efficient, it rapidly became the customary firefighting equipment for the Canadian Royal Navy. During the 1950s, U.S. Navy pilots flying jets at high-altitude used Chemox devices.

The initial Chemox apparatus, like the Draeger 1924 model SCBA, utilized KO2 for its oxygen generation, however, the compact Chemox unit, unlike many oxygen-producing units manufactured prior to 1981, swung from the front of users, instead of the back. As effective and compact as the original Chemox apparatuses were, industry experts considered the units too expensive, and too difficult to store for long periods underground without moisture affecting the functionality of the KO2, to suggest that mine operators make the units available during emergency evacuations of coalmines. Although cost of the units may have provided a legitimate reason for not making the devices available to all underground coalminers, inability to protect the units from damage and moisture during underground-storage held little credence, since the U.S. Navy had already proved the durability of the units during wartime, at sea.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Bureau of Mines worked hand-in-hand with companies like Drager, MSA, and McCaa to insure that the most up-to-date and efficient SCBAs were made available to America's mine rescue teams. Initially, it fell outside of the scope of jurisdiction of the Bureau to force mine operators to furnish modern safety gear to America's underground coalminers. In fact, Congress did not create the U.S. Bureau of Mines with the intention of the agency becoming the watchdog for enforcement of federal code, although the Bureau would eventually evolve to do so.

As early as 1912, in its Technical Paper 24, the USBM addressed the possibility of employing refuge chambers in America's coalmines, but for nearly a century the coalmining industry fought off attempts to introduce legislation requiring ready-made barricade chambers inside coalmines. Even though some operators of metal and nonmetal mines built masonry chambers at specific locations underground, thus providing ready-made barricades inside their mines well before the middle of the twentieth century, many coal industry experts insisted, because coal is combustible, chambers would actually provide a deathtrap for hemmed-in miners. In reality, the combustible-material-argument held little merit since nearly all miners who survive an underground explosion are stationed well away from the flashpoint (location where methane burns) where any residual fires would likely break out. Simply put, dead men near the flashpoint usually require a coffin whereas miners working some distance from the flash point will need to escape, or will need rescued. The very fact that during the twentieth century more than 1,003 coalminers saved themselves from afterdamp, by erecting barricades, should have debunked all modern arguments against ready-made chambers. Nevertheless, it was as late as 2008 before critics of chambers lost their argument, and all U.S coalmine operators established ready-made barricade chambers underground.

Through the years, many changes occurred within the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and even the labels bestowed upon the agency has differed from time to time, but the one constant for the agency has been in its overall purpose: promote new and improved mining methods, and mining systems, that increase overall coal production while decreasing the number of mining fatalities. Because safer mining practices and higher production, in the short-term, do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, quite a few rifts have erupted through the years between the Bureau and the coalmining industry, and between the Bureau and labor.

During the late-1960s, many coalminers began crying foul concerning the "chummy" relationship between the coal industry and the USBM. In response to the critics, in 1973, the Secretary of Interior created the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA). MESA, as an agency operating under the Department of Interior, took over the enforcement function from the U.S. Bureau of Mines. However, the Bureau remained responsible for overseeing research, development, and demonstrations of safer and more efficient mining methods.

In 1978, partly due to MESA's embarrassment concerning twin explosions occurring at a Kentucky mine in 1976, Congress reassigned MESA to the U.S. Department of Labor as the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Today, MSHA attempts to force all U.S. mine operators to comply with federal code.

The struggle to make America's mines safer has been a long and enduring crusade that has lasted more than a century, and sadly, since 1900, more than 104,710 miners have perished in U.S. coalmines. Perhaps there are no better examples to exemplify an industry reluctant to embrace changes promoting safety in the workplace than mine disasters that occurred at Castle Gate, Utah and Benwood, West Virginia, during the Roaring Twenties.

On March 8, 1924, within a time span of several seconds, three consecutive mine explosions tore through the No. 2 Mine at Castle Gate, Utah, killing 171 miners. Another miner perished at Castle Gate during the ensuing rescue attempt raising the death tally to 172. The consecutive blasts at Castle Gate were of such colossal force that metal doors, support timbers, and portions of mine cars were launched nearly a half-mile beyond the canyon wall. Castle Gate miners, who initially endured the awesome shockwaves and the fiery flash, quickly succumbed to afterdamp. Experts believe that the tragedy at Castle Gate began when an open-flame of a carbide cap-lamp ignited methane, which in turn kicked-up, and ignited, coal dust. In 1924, many mines throughout the U.S. were yet allowing the dangerous practice of illuminating underground workplaces with open-flame cap-lamps even though industry experts knew of the real dangers associated with carry exposed flames underground.

On April 28, 1924, an awful mine explosion ripped through the Wheeling Steel Corporation's Benwood mine near Wheeling, West Virginia. Experts later determined that the Benwood explosion began when a carbide cap-lamp ignited a pocket of methane, and the explosion grew in magnitude as shockwaves added fuel by kicking-up coal dust. At Benwood, 119 miners perished.

Following the Benwood blast, Chief Mine Inspector R.M. Lambie of West Virginia hurried to the disaster site to help coordinate and participate in the rescue attempt. After traveling inside the mine, Chief Lambie himself was overcame by afterdamp, but luckily, rescue crews dragged Lambie to safety before he succumbed to CO poisoning.

Not long following the Benwood mine explosion, Chief Lambie issued a report concerning the Benwood tragedy. Mr. Lambie's report epitomizes an industry unwilling to accept honest recommendations given by truly experienced mining experts, professionals who cared. Listed are a few scattered excerpts from Chief Lambie's report:

Several lessons were brought home to us while exploring the Benwood mine and searching for the causes of the explosion. Until such time as our knowledge of right and wrong practices is made the backbone of our mine laws, I am disposed to maintain that the frequency and violence for mine explosions will continue as in the past. No better way is at my command to present my case to you than by reporting on the Benwood explosion, at the same time making certain recommendation based upon my findings.

The Benwood explosion, like several others of less serious consequences, should emphasize the necessity for classifying all mines as gaseous which liberate any quantity of gas. To avoid similar disasters, those mines which should be rightly termed gaseous must use approved electric cap lamps, explosion proof motors and also permissible explosives.

Of the men who lost their lives in the Benwood explosion, I am certain that the two men who where first found and whose bodies were warm when discovered, would have saved themselves had they carried a self-rescuer (diminutive gas mask). Evidence surrounding of at least 35 bodies proved that this number of men were not killed by the violence of the explosion. As it was, many of these men tied handkerchiefs around their noses and mouths in an attempt to ward off death by the breathing of afterdamp. Had they likewise been equipped with self-rescuers and were they not prevented from reaching the outside by falls, they too, would have been saved.

It is high time that an interstate (federal) code of safe-practice regulations be formulated, to which individual states so far as possible should adhere, to revise and extend the scope of mine laws. There are many ramifications to the achievement of the purpose for which we should strive, but in sum and substance our biggest task is the attainment of uniformity in the mine laws of all coal-producing states. When this is accomplished, all operators in each of the states will be placed on a plane of equality as regards the monetary cost of obeying the mine laws.

Chief Lambie's suggestion about mandating the use of electric cap-lamps, explosion proof motors, and permissible explosives would eventually become federal mining law, and West Virginia code, but it would actually take decades before legislators at either state or federal level enacted such safety statutes. Nearly 45 years following the Benwood explosion, federal mine law would go as far as to classify all mines, including mines located well above the water table, like Layland where no methane had ever been detected prior to the big-boom, as "gaseous." However, thousands of miners would actually perish from underground explosions before Congress implemented the gaseous classification. Self-rescuers (diminutive gasmasks) were developed more than a decade prior to explosions at Castle Gate and Benwood, yet, miners perished at both sites while trying to outrun danger with merely handkerchiefs draped across their faces.

Sir Humphrey Davey of England developed the first effective mine safety lamp in 1815. Davey developed his lamp specifically to illuminate coalmines with a lighting source incapable of igniting methane, yet, the open-flame of carbide lights served as ignition sources for both Castle Gate and Benwood. By 1924, America's miners were using improved versions of the Davey Lamp to test for methane and blackdamp, but experts considered those improved lamps too expensive to use in large enough quantity to illuminate America's coalmines. In fact, it would be past 1950 before federal legislation finally outlawed open-flame lamps in all of America's coalmines.

During those early mining eras, most mine owners adamantly protested attempts to enact stringent mine safety legislation simply because they were afraid that strict regulations would run them out of business. Then, marketing coal was a cutthroat business where coal orders could be lost by adding just pennies to the cost for producing a ton of coal, and mine operators feared that the operator producing a few miles down the road, or across the state-line, would not abide by new regulation, thus could produce coal cheaper. Chief Lambie recognized that America's mines would only become safer after federal statutes forced all mine operators to compete on the same level playing field—America needed a uniform safety code for coalmining!

Throughout the first three decades of twentieth century, America had an abundance of good mining men, some of whom were the brightest experts on the planet, but none of those brilliant experts welded the power necessary to force all coalmine operators to produce coal while operating under the same safety rules. However, change was coming to America's coalfields as the Roaring Twenties rolled-in. A gang of ruffian, redneck coalminers was kicking up quite a fuss in Southern West Virginia and in Eastern Kentucky; a Redneck rebellion was coming to America's coalfields.

Chapter 4

Redneck Rebellion

As the first two decades of the twentieth century rolled through, and America's appetite for coal grew, coalmining companies found it almost impossible to fill underground mining crews. Heck, coalmining was the most hazardous occupation in the world, resulting in many Americans unwilling to work under such dangerous conditions. To address the problem with severe labor shortages in America's coalfields, coal barons often sent their representatives overseas to promote the good living that was obtainable by working in America's mines. However, promoters failed to mention that mine operators would be enjoying a good life, while employees slaving underground would not obtain any sort of easy livelihood.

As recruiters for coal barons spread word throughout America and Europe about the thousands of good paying jobs in U.S. coalfields, immigrant workers came from countries all over the world seeking employment. With names like Anciello, Kiriazes, Urban, Udovic, Mikitiuk, Roxie, Mulligan, and McMillian, they traveled by ship to America where they hitched rides on the rails and rode to mining towns where work was difficult and dangerous, but easily found; wages weren't bad either.

Freed-slaves and the sons of freed-slaves also came from deep out of the south looking for work in America's coalmines. Many had only a few nickels chinking in their pant-pockets, and most strolled in only toting a small trunk that held all their belongings. A great number of the ramblers looking for work planned to send for their families after they had worked several months, and found a roof to cover their head. Although many would live to do just that, a great number would end-up laid to rest beneath six-foot of sod in an unmarked grave, somewhere in a strange mining camp that kinfolk knew nothing about.

Immigrants looking for mining related work settled in communities like Marianna, Pennsylvania; Monongah, West Virginia; Pikeville, Kentucky; Buckhannon, Virginia; Cherry, Illinois; Dawson, New Mexico; and Castle Gate, Utah. Many African-Americans seeking work were too frightened to wonder too far from their home turf, thus they settled well below the Mason-Dixon Line along tributaries of the Tug Fork River in mining camps in McDowell County, West Virginia, like Gary, Northfork, Kimball, Keystone, and Welch.

Because operators of coalmines in the high-grade, low-height, metallurgical seams of McDowell County found it almost impossible to fill underground mining crews, McDowell operators hired most African-American that strolled through looking for work. However, in other coalfield regions, it was common practice for mine operators, especially those affiliated with rich railway companies, to refuse to work the black man underground.

In McDowell County, in 1917, African-Americans represented more than 35% of the coalmine workforce and more than 1,500 of McDowell's African-American miners volunteered to serve Uncle Sam during World War I. In fact, the first War Memorial for African-American Veterans was dedicated at Kimble, West Virginia, in 1928.

As the second decade of the 1900s began, most coalmining camps throughout the United States were small self-efficient communities in that coal companies actually furnished miners and their families with all their basic needs, at a cost of course. Usually, miners purchased their electricity, coal for heating homes, food, clothing, footwear, medicines, and other items of personal consumption through the company-owned store—reference, "company store." Miners received scrip for the fruits of their labor instead of a paycheck, but scrip was only good for purchasing items at the company store. Because the scrip system eliminated competitive pricing, coal companies actually turned huge profits via the system. All around, coalmining became such a lucrative business enterprise that many wealthy Wall Street families rushed to America's coalfields to buy mining property.

Around 1910 when utility companies supplied less than 5% of America with electricity, most large up-to-date coalmining complexes had their own electricity generating plants near mine sites. The coal-fired boilers that drove the steam turbines for coal company electric plants burned coal from the mine. Most often those generating plants supplied electricity to mines, coal preparation plants, townsfolk, and businesses, which turned additional profits for mining companies.

Coal companies usually constructed most residential houses in mining camps, renting those houses to its employees for substantial revenues. The company houses constructed specifically for mine bosses were usually elaborate two-story dwellings with plenty of floor space, while homes built for coalminers were only modest four-room structures, hardly roomy enough to raise large families. Often, coal companies built schools, as well as churches, in their mining camps and mine managers usually had the final say in appointing school boards and church ministers. In reality, mine managers controlled almost every aspect of the coalminer's life—managers were right up there one notch below God in the miner's universe.

Due to extreme shortages in men willing to work underground during those early mining eras, mine operators quickly recognized the importance of supplying healthcare services to its miners. Hence, most large mining operations brought in doctors and established healthcare clinics in their mining camps. These clinics usually provided services to miners, as well as their families. To recoup costs for establishing healthcare clinics in mining camps, coal companies withheld monthly stipends from its employees.

With the scrip system in play throughout America's coalfields where employers withheld fees for rent, electricity, coal, fuel for cap-lights, groceries, shoes and clothing, etc., and a stipend for making medical services available, miners often owed coal companies come payday.

Those first two decades of the twentieth century that were filled with ghastly coalmining disasters killing thousands of miners were particular harsh on men who mined coal for a living in Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, especially in regions lying on the Tug Fork River where the river serves as state boundary. Initially, all Tug Fork coalminers were nonunion, and while working nonunion, coalminers kept their mouth shut about safety issues, cribbing, or any other work related grievance.

In hand-loading days, cribbing was a practice where coal companies required hand-loaders to shovel cars heaping-full, instead of level full, but miners only received pay for tonnage held within a level full car; cars were never weighed.

Most coalminers working out of the Tug Fork region were required to sign a "yellow-dog contract" before being hired-on. By signing a yellow-dog contract, coalminers promised, in writing, that they would never attempt to join a union or promote union activity. In nonunion strongholds, coal companies always pumped a lot of money into elections for local circuit judges, local sheriffs, state legislators, and governors, to insure that political officials retained loyalty with the coal operators, and not organized labor.

Often, in the Tug Fork coalfields, companies fired and evicted miners rumored to have attended a union "stump rally"—stump rallies were hush-hush events held deep in the woods where union organizers preached the advantages of belonging to the UMWA with all the passion of a Southern Baptist preacher. Frequently, after dismissing miners for participating in union activity, coal companies sued those same miners for breaking stipulations within the yellow-dog agreement that explicitly prohibited union involvement. In 1917, several miners from Southern West Virginia appealed a civil suit concerning noncompliance with the yellow-dog contract all the way to the West Virginia Supreme Court. However, the high court ruled the yellow-dog agreements binding, as this was well before the 1935 Wagner Act of the New Deal, which guaranteed all Americans, through elections, the right to join a union.

There is quite a story behind why coalminers living along the Tug Fork coalfield remained nonunion for so many years, and how a gang of redneck, rebellious coalminers eventually gave an all-out effort to break that nonunion stronghold.

If by some odd chance you think that the term "redneck" was coined to describe a rough, rugged, backcountry southerner who loves drinking beer, you are sadly mistaken my friend. The original term "redneck" was used to describe a greatly abused, but highly "pissed-off," mining workforce that rebelled against unfair labor practices in West Virginia. Historians actually refer to the Battle of Blair Mountain as the "Red Neck War," and this particular labor conflict resulted in the largest working-class uprising in U.S. history. The Red Neck War resulted in the bombing of coalminers by airplane, which happens to be the only time, in the continental U.S., that citizens have heard the high shrill of whistling bombs overhead.

During the first decade of the twentieth century, unionization of America's coalfields gobbled up many mines in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Northern West Virginia, but union organizing hit a brick wall just south of Charleston, West Virginia. The first mine-war in West Virginia actually began in 1912 in the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek region a few miles south of Charleston.

In 1912, Paint Creek union miners received 2½ cents less per ton for coal hand-loaded than most of their union brothers working out of the Kanawha region. Today, 2½ cents per ton sounds like a trivial amount, but during hand-loading days, those few pennies could easily amount to 25% of a man's daily wage—then, miners struggled to earn a dollar per day! On April 18, 1912, unionized miners along Paint Creek called a strike demanding that: they receive the same rate per ton as their union brothers; black-listing of fired miners be halted; a ton of coal be standardized at 2,000 pounds; unionized scale attendants be stationed at weigh stations; the hiring of professional strikebreakers as mine guards be prohibited; and all miners in Kanawha receive the right to join the union without reprisal. Even though dozens of mines in the Paint Creek region were already unionized, coal operators refused to meet the demands of Paint Creek miners.

The UMWA quickly thrust their support behind striking miners at Paint Creek, and thinking that a large enough work stoppage in the region could possibly result in organizing Cabin Creek miners too, which were nonunion, the union sent organizers to hold stump rallies at more than a dozen nonunion operations in Cabin Creek. The UMWA sent plenty of money, organizing personnel, ammunition, and rifles into the Kanawha region, thus the coal strike rapidly spread throughout the Cabin Creek-Paint Creek region.

In a retaliatory move to squash the work stoppage in Kanawha, coal companies fired miners and hired replacement workers, and brought in the famed Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers to evict striking miners and their families. However, as the strike engulfed dozens of mines, strikebreakers found it impossible to deter disorderly miners who hid in the woods and took pop-shots at mine ventilating fans, electrical substations, offices, and coal preparation plants. Miners even dynamited a few mine drifts, which caused entrances to cave-in; things got nasty!

In an attempt to scare evicted rabble-rousers into leaving Kanawha County, one particular mining company altered a flatbed railroad car by plating it with steel, and by mounting Gatling guns to the flat bed. Very often, that special gun-train rolled through mining camps in Cabin Creek and Paint Creek firing into tent colonies filled with evicted mining families.

Strikebreakers quickly dubbed their gun-train that rolled on rails the "Bull Moose Special" as guards got a good kick out of watching rabble-rousers run for higher ground when the Bull Moose rumbled. However, on more than one occasion, spray from the Bull Moose inadvertently killed women and children, but there are always casualties with war.

The Bull Moose Special actually worked so well at terrifying miners in Kanawha County that the following year, in Ludlow, Colorado, a coal company, acting on advice from the Baldwin-Felts agency, modified an automobile in the same style. Colorado miners quickly dubbed Ludlow's lethal gun-toy the "Death Special." John D. Rockefeller actually owned the mining company that conjured up the "Death Special."

There were more than 50 deaths attributed to violence involved in the Kanawha Mine-War; 45 deaths came from labor's side. Additionally, hundreds more family members of miners died during the harsh winter of 1912 from malnutrition brought on by that bitter yearlong coal strike.

Because of the severity of the violence, and all the deaths associated with the coal strike in the Kanawha region, West Virginia Governor Henry D. Hatfield eventually intervened and forced both sides to reach a settlement on April 14, 1913. Although the new agreement met most primary demands of Paint Creek miners, the agreement did nothing to guarantee miners the right to organize without reprisal, which left nonunion miners in the region hung out on a limb.

Following the end to the Kanawha Mine-War, rank-and-file miners of the UMWA became very suspicious when rumors circulated that their district officials had sold them out for bribes when union officials dropped their demand for the right to organize without reprisals. Acting on suspicions of improprieties among union officials, in the next UMWA elections held in 1916, rank-and-file miners choose to clean house and elect fresh blood. Coalminers elected miners like Frank Keeney and Fred Moony as District 17 officials and miners like William Blizzard followed, becoming heads of sub-district offices.

In the end, the Kanawha Mine-War instilled, in Kanawha miners, a bitter resentment toward mine owners, anger that most would carry with them to their grave—bloodshed has a way of doing that.

By some estimates, the 1912-1913 Kanawha Mine-War cost mine operators nearly 100 million dollars, which was an unfathomable amount during an era when the everyday coalminer barely earned a dollar per day. That extraordinary cost to Kanawha mine operators caused mine owners in Mingo, Logan, and McDowell counties, the very heart of America's high-grade metallurgical coalfields, to pledge that the UMWA would never get a foothold in their region. In essence, mine operators in Southern West Virginia drew an imaginary line in the hills several miles south of Charleston, and there would be no more organizing south of that line without bloodshed. Don Chafin from Logan County would make sure that the union dared not cross that line!

Logan County citizens elected Don Chafin as sheriff in 1912, county clerk in 1916, and sheriff again in 1920. For coalminers in Logan and Mingo, who dreamed of getting a union card, Don Chafin was the most feared man that ever stood on two feet. Chafin was in the Logan County Coal Operators Association's back pocket, as the association took so many cents for every ton of coal that it mined and deposited it into the coffers of Chafin. Chafin, in return, had dozens of regular deputies employed, and more than 100 employed irregularly. The primary job of Chafin's deputies was to maintain law and order, and to insure that union troublemakers stayed out of Logan County. Along with all of Logan's deputies, Chafin also had at his disposal the famed Baldwin-Felts professional mine guards (strikebreakers). Sheriff Chafin often deputized strikebreakers to perform evictions for coal companies.

William Baldwin established the Baldwin Detective Agency in the 1890s. The agency originally set up offices in Roanoke, Virginia and Bluefield, West Virginia where the Norfolk and Western Railway Company held regional offices. Initial services supplied by the Baldwin Detective Agency provided services to curtail train robberies and to protect railway property from thieves and vandals. Thomas Lafayette Felts, a Virginia lawyer, joined the Baldwin Detective Agency as a partner in 1900, and in 1910, the agency became the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which established its headquarters in Bluefield, West Virginia. The Baldwin-Felts agency quickly began to provide high-profile detective work for state and federal agencies, and by 1913, the agency had begun furnishing strikebreaking services to mine operators in West Virginia, Kentucky, and several other states throughout America that produced coal—Ludlow, Colorado in particular. Because the UMWA was very active in trying to grow its membership during the second decade of the twentieth century, following a drastic reduction in the number of train robberies nationwide, strikebreaking services quickly became the more lucrative service provided by Baldwin-Felts. With business booming due to its extremely profitable strike-busting services, the brothers of Thomas Felts, Lee and Albert, soon became key supervisors for the agency and C.B. Cunningham became one of the agency's right-hand men.

The Bluefield headquarters for the Baldwin-Felts agency, which coordinated strikebreaker services throughout America's coalfields, hired many ex-military men who thoroughly understood how to stifle insurgencies. The agency even hired Julies "Tony" Gaujot, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, to bust strikes. Gaujot often opened up with machine guns and sprayed hillsides where he believed instigating miners sat crouched using sniping tactics, but Gaujot may have accidentally wounded a few milk cows in Southern West Virginia too. For miners in Southern West Virginia, one of the more disturbing things that eventually came to light about the Baldwin-Felts agency was that the organization actually recruited a few miners, which the agency secretly integrate into mining camps in Southern West Virginia in order to monitor union organizing endeavors.

Following the Kanawha Mine-War and the awful atrocities that occurred in Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914, the U.S. Senate held hearings on the brutality dished-out by professional strikebreakers in West Virginia and Colorado. Although those senate hearings gave little relief to mine laborers, the airing in public of the brutality exhibited by professional strikebreakers proved to be quite embarrassing to West Virginia legislators, which resulted in state lawmakers enacting legislation prohibiting county sheriffs from deputizing professional strikebreakers. However, West Virginia's legislative action was only meant to save face because the new law held no provisions which provided punishment for violators, nor did the law give any state agency enforcement authority—Baldwin-Felts men claimed they were professional detectives, not strikebreakers, anyways. In effect, Logan officials yet deputized Baldwin-Felts men to carry out evictions of miners living in company houses in counties adjacent to Logan County.

By 1919, following the UMWA executing a major push toward organizing Mingo County, and coal companies retaliating by firing and evicting thousands of miners, coalminers set up several tent colonies near the Tug Fork River. Unlike Logan County, miners in Mingo County had quite a few sympathizers to their union cause. The Mingo County prosecutor, Sheriff G. T. Blankenship, county citizens, and the mayor of Matewan were heartbroken to see hundreds of mining families scrunched in little tent colonies surrounded by blue-cold snow during the brutal winter months.

Because coalminers in Matewan helped elect Cabell Testerman as mayor of Matewan, Testerman appointed Sid Hatfield, a sympathizer to miners, as his chief of police. At age 26, Sid Hatfield became the chief of police of the very rough and rugged town of Matewan, West Virginia. However, Hatfield was no stranger to danger as he had actually rubbed elbows with the ruffian miners while himself hand-loading coal. Hatfield often wore two shiny nickel-plated six-shooters, one on each side; he possessed extraordinary shooting skills with a rifle, or those six-shooters. The Hatfield name in "bloody Mingo" meant that there would be no backing away from a fight. Everyone around Mingo knew the legend concerning Devil Anse Hatfield, how Devil Anse's bunch loved to mix-it-up.

The legendary Hatfield-McCoy Feud that took place in the Tug Fork region near Matewan in the late-1800s is another story, but that story too relates to coal. In coalmining country during the late-1800s, a man who owned his own timber could make a fortune supplying mine props, wooden cribbing, rail ties, and header-boards to mining operations, and ole Devil Anse Hatfield owned thousands of acres of land that was rich in timber and coal. Devil Anse also owned his own sawmill that employed more than a dozen men, and Anse marketed his milled-lumber to locals for constructing homes and buildings. Although folklore describes the Hatfield-McCoy Feud starting over a stolen pig, and escalating because of a love affair between a Hatfield and a McCoy, folklore fails to mention that a major instigator in that feud was the attorney for Randal McCoy who wanted Devil Anse's land. McCoy's lawyer, a man that possessed much foresight, figured that if enough trouble came from the feud, Devil Anse's hot-headedness would land him in jail, or to hell. Either way, Hatfield's land would eventually go on the market for a fraction of its worth with the lawyer buying the land and acquiring partners to harvest the timber, and perhaps selling mining-rights as coalmining expanded from Western Kentucky, into Southeastern Kentucky. Although the Hatfield-McCoy Feud is another Mingo legend, a hotheaded Hatfield from Mingo County will set events in motion that will ultimately lead to the largest, violent labor uprising in U.S. history.

Some say that Sid Hatfield was right out of ole Devil Anse's bunch, while others say that Sid was born a bastard child to a man just traveling through Mingo. Regardless of Sid Hatfield's bloodline, he was surely a Hatfield, if for nothing else, his upbringing. Legend has it that at age 22, Sid had a confrontation with a mine manager and the two shot it out. Few men ever ventured into Mingo to draw down on a Hatfield, and lived to tell about it. Neither did that mine manager, according to folklore!

In 1919, the UMWA called all of its membership from America's coalmines in a nationwide strike and it actually took a U.S. appointed mediator to settle the labor dispute. In December of 1919, the mediator ceded a 27% pay raise to union coalminers all across the nation, however, in nonunion country, coal operators in McDowell, Mingo, and Logan counties made it plain that hell would freeze over before they ever handed out such a raise. Operators in those three counties had just cut mine wages in response to a recession that America plunged into following the end to World War I, thus there might be more wage cuts, but there would definitely be no raises.

Early in 1920, William Blizzard and Fred Mooney, who were not only UMWA District 17 officials but who were union organizers as well, used that 27% union pay raise in stump rallies held in the Tug Fork coalfields to point out that coalminers were far better off being unionized because it meant more pay. Due to Blizzard and Mooney's motivational stump speeches, thousands of Mingo and Kentucky miners showed for the rallies and even a storeowner in Matewan, C. E. Lively, could often be found near dusk, deep in the woods, listening as Blizzard preached the advantages of belonging to the UMWA. Those clandestine rallies, highlighting that unfathomable pay raise, had such influence on Mingo miners that nearly 1,500 coalminers signed for the union card during one week, and another 1,500 followed in joining the UMWA during subsequent weeks.

In return for Mingo miners flocking to join the union, coal companies retaliated by firing, blacklisting, and evicting rabble-rousers from their homes. By 1920, mining companies had shipped in thousands of replacement workers and dozens of Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers to the coalfields of Southern West Virginia. On one occasion early in 1920, strikebreakers swooped down slashing tents and cutting tethering ropes where 1,200 family members of evicted miners had set up camp, leaving the refugee encampment in shambles.

By late spring of 1920, much of the civil unrest in Mingo was working toward a bloody climax. William Blizzard and Fred Mooney, both being energetic devoted union officials, continued to stir the "hornets' nest" around Matewan because Mingo County had plenty-more miners yearning to get their hands on a union card. However, the Logan County Coal Operators Association, being aware of Blizzard and Mooney's dubious activities on the stump in Mingo, warned Don Chafin that the union-bug, that was very catching, better not crawl into Logan County. Since Chafin was not the type of man to tolerate union belligerence near his home turf, in the spring of 1920, Don Chafin made a visit to District 17 headquarters located in Charleston, West Virginia. Heck, Chafin marched into District 17 headquarters in Kanawha County and warned district officials that if he caught organizers that far south again, there would be shooting. District 17 Vice President William Petry seemed to think that such a threat from a Logan County politician──sheriff-county commissioner-sheriff──on union turf was stupid to say the least, and after hearing the Logan official's threat, Petry told Chafin that there was no need to wait to start shooting. Petry went for his gun and Chafin did the same, but Petry was a little quicker. As soon as Petry's gun cleared his pocket, he fired-down at Chafin striking him in the chest just above the heart.

Following taking a bullet from Bill Petry, Don Chafin bolted from UMWA headquarters with his hand pressed tightly over his wound, ran to a nearby doctor's office located across the street, and received treatment for his near fatal wound. Luckily, Chafin survived Petry's bullet, but upon his return to Logan County, Chafin became even more determined to keep union troublemakers locked out. From that day forward, not one train stopped in Logan County without Logan County deputies inspecting the cars for drunks, criminals, and union organizers. Deputies would not allow anyone resembling those descriptions, especially union agitators, to step off any train passing through Logan—the fuse to a powder keg was lit, as the hands-for-trouble ticked on a clock at a nearby train station!

Matewan Massacre

On the mild spring day of May 19, 1920, seven Baldwin-Felts detectives board No. 29 N&W Train out of Bluefield, West Virginia, with the intention of traveling to Matewan, evicting a few coalminers from company houses, and then catching the 5:00 p.m. back to Bluefield that same evening. The six strikebreakers, who are accompanied by their supervisor Lee Felts, all carry revolvers under their coats and in their grasp visible for everyone to see are long leather sheaths filled with tools of their trade, rifles.

After arriving at the Matewan train depot, the seven Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers meet with field superintendent Albert Felts and five other Baldwin-Felts men. The gang-of-13 quickly walks to the outskirts of Matewan where the group begins pulling family belongings from houses and piling goods on the streets. Stone Mountain Coal Company is kicking out six radical miners who were bold enough to acquire their union card. Mammas, along with young'uns, stand weeping in the dirt streets as they helplessly watch their paltry belongings trashed.

As the wailing from women and kids drowns-out loud whispers from curious onlookers, Mayor Testerman and Chief Hatfield push back the nosy crowd so they can question strikebreakers about the legality of the evictions.

Mayor Testerman asks, "Where are your papers?"

Wearing a snarl, Albert Felts glances up at Mayor Testerman and explains, "It's all legal; a judge in Williamson wrote the evictions."

Without hesitation, Testerman blurts-out, "Show me."

As Mayor Testerman continues insisting that Albert Felts show him the evictions notices, Felts grumbles, "If you should later find the evictions to be unlawful, all you need to do is contact me, and we will gladly return to Matewan and post bond." Felts, without muttering another word, pauses long enough from carrying out furniture to reach into his shirt pocket, pull out a note, and pass the note to Sid Hatfield.

The curious crowd of spectators swells rapidly as townsfolk seem intrigued to see who will be the first to back down, Matewan town officials, or Felts and his dozen strikebreakers. From the appearances of all the shiny guns that occasionally flash in the crowd, Chief Hatfield has brought plenty of men for backup. Hatfield's deputies, Ed Chambers and N. H. Atwood, are milling about, and three of Ed's brothers, are armed and mingling among the crowd. Eventually, Mayor Testerman and Chief Hatfield angrily storm off towards the mayor's office, as neither seems pleased that Felts failed to produce the eviction notices.

Upon returning to his office, Mayor Testerman quickly contacts the Mingo County prosecuting attorney in Williamson and questions the prosecutor about the legality of the evictions that Baldwin-Felts men have been executing. Astonishingly, the prosecutor knows nothing about any court ordered expulsions, and the prosecutor informs Testerman that the strikebreakers can be arrested for destruction of private property provided a miner swears a warrant.

With a smirk on his face, Mayor Testerman swiftly ends his phone conservation with the county prosecutor and hangs up the phone. Then, grinning from ear-to-ear, Testerman informs Chief Hatfield that they can arrest the dozen strikebreakers if just one miner swears out a warrant.

Within minutes, Sid Hatfield summons an evicted miner to the mayor's office where he informs the miner to rush to the Mingo County Courthouse and swear out warrants for destruction of private property. As soon as the evicted miner dashes from Hatfield's sight, Sid calls Deputy Webb at the courthouse and informs Webb that a miner is headed his way to obtain warrants. Sid explains to Webb that it is crucial that a clerk write the warrants quickly, so that the papers can arrive aboard Train No. 16 upon its return to Matewan around a quarter 'till five.

Although Chief Hatfield already has more than a dozen well-armed men scattered among the curious crowd milling near the train depot, Hatfield summons more miners to help with the arrest of the strikebreakers. In a well-planned scheme, many of Hatfield's latest recruits, take-up positions at strategic street corners near the train depot, while others climb on rooftops overlooking the station.

Around 3:00 in the afternoon on May 19, the 13 Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers return to the hotel near the Matewan train depot and quickly order supper. After finishing their meals around 4:00 p.m., most strikebreakers bind their rifles in grips, tighten their gun belts so their revolvers hang well above their coattails for concealment, and head out into the street to prepare for catching the train back to Bluefield. As Albert Felts follows his men into the street, Mayor Testerman and Sid Hatfield quickly rush to confront Felts.

In a gruff voice, Mayor Testerman mutters, "I have arrest warrants for you and your boys, for the destruction of private property."

Felts glances at Testerman for a second or two, and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded paper, and begins waving it, as he proclaims, "Here is an arrest warrant for your boy Sid Hatfield."

Suddenly, Hatfield postures to alert as he leaves Mayor Testerman's side, crosses the street, and ventures into the doorway of the hardware store. Within minutes, Albert Felts, Lee Felts, C.B. Cunningham, and Mayor Testerman follow Hatfield to the store entrance where Albert Felts mutters, "I have got a warrant for you. I suppose that you will be a man and come along peacefully without stirring-up trouble."

Quickly, Hatfield replies, "Certainly," just before stepping deep inside the hardware store where he is out of sight from citizens milling around, and away from potential witnesses.

From a dim-lit corner in the hardware store, where a few of his own boys loiter, Sid Hatfield intentionally positions himself to hold superior shooting-ground by having Felts stand in the bright sunlight peeking into the shadows. With no warning, or potential witnesses, Hatfield draws a six-gun and fans-off four rounds. Immediately, Mayor Testerman and Albert Felts slump flaccidly to the ground. Within seconds, gunfire erupts from every street corner near the train depot, and thunder echoes from a half-dozen rooftops as Lee Felts and C. B. Cunningham instantly bite the dirt. The high-pops come fast, the roar sounds continuous, as several armed citizens fall to the ground, and another strikebreaker bites a bullet. Greatly outnumbered with five of their comrades lying face down in the dirt, the remaining eight strikebreakers dart from the open street to seek cover, but Hatfield's backups, with guns blazing, swarm after them. One fleeing strikebreaker, severely wounded in the shoulder, runs to a house at the outskirts of town and begs an elderly woman to let him enter. The old woman obliges the fleeing strikebreaker, but within minutes, Hatfield's men track the Baldwin-Felts man down and surround the house. Quickly, the strikebreaker bolts from the backdoor and attempts to leap the fence, but Fred Burgraff instantly pumps five bullets into the fleeing man.

Three fleeing strikebreakers manage to run to Tug Fork and dive into the murky water, but Hatfield's gang splashes the river half-dry with a volley of lead. As gunfire hushes, one strikebreaker floats belly up and currents sweep him away, while two crawl from the riverbank on the Kentucky side and hide out in the brush.

Two agile strikebreakers dart to the dark railroad tunnel near town's edge, and hide out. Upon hearing the long, whining whistle from Train No. 16, the two rush to the tunnel entrance and flag-down 16. Lucky for these two, Mingo Sheriff Blankenship and a posse of deputies are aboard 16, as a concerned citizen has already phoned Blankenship warning him that a shootout in Matewan is imminent.

Bloody Mingo

Sheriff Blankenship's arrival in Matewan ended the great shootout that killed seven strikebreakers, two miners, and Mayor Testerman. Albert and Lee Felts both died in the notorious Mingo gunfight. From labor's side, Sam Arters, Isaac Brewer, Will Reyer, James Chambers (brother to Ed Chambers), and Bill Bowman, were wounded, but all were lucky enough to survive to fight another day.

Some say the Matewan shootout was an ambush, while others say that Hatfield was well aware that if strikebreakers took him outside of Matewan, he was a dead man. Hatfield believed that anyone bold enough to fire into tent colonies filled with refugees, as strikebreakers had done earlier at Paint Creek, Cabin Creek, Ludlow, and in Mingo, would not hesitate in the murder of a police chief, provided there were no witnesses.

Who knows where the truth lies concerning the Matewan Massacre because we all tend to evaluate things according to which side of the fence we choose to stand. Perhaps the truth concerning the Matewan melee lies in the code of the mountain people who shot it out that day. All involved in the shooting incident were from West Virginia, or "Western" Virginia. On May 19, Sid Hatfield came out on top, so maybe Sid chose the correct side for that particular day. However, Sid Hatfield failed to live up to the part of the mountain-code that demands a hombre never leave an enemy standing during a gunfight. Hence, the strikebreakers that escaped from the shootout quickly told Thomas Felts their perspective concerning the Matewan ambush, and how Thomas's brothers, Albert and Lee, were brutally gunned-down. Quickly, Thomas Felts planned his revenge, "an eye for an eye." Sid Hatfield was now a marked man!

In the weeks following the Matewan Massacre, union proponents wreaked havoc in Mingo County, and chaos consumed Mingo's coalfields as rabble-rousers shot up half-of-hell and most coalmines along the Tug Fork River. Hundreds of miners, who were dismissed from their jobs and evicted from their homes in the months leading up to the Matewan shootout, retaliated against coal companies by dynamiting coal tipples, railroad cars, and mine drifts. Mingo miners' mirrored counterpart on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork joined in on the melee, as crack-shot Kentuckians plinked at mining facilities on both sides of the Tug. The Kentucky miners wanted their union cards too! Strike-busters, upon isolating union miners from large gangs of rabble-rousers, hit back by beating troublemakers to within an inch of their lives. National Guardsmen and State Police rushed from one incident to another, with little effect at deterring violence as new outbursts were erupting hourly. As violence spread to neighboring coal-producing counties in West Virginia and Kentucky, Governor John J. Cornwell of West Virginia declared martial law in five counties of Southern West Virginia, while Kentucky's governor did the same for several counties in Eastern Kentucky.

Mine operators quickly countered the labor violence by calling in more replacement workers and additional Baldwin-Felts men, but miners were much bolder with Hatfield on their side; there would be no backing away. As rabble-rousers rapidly put strikebreakers on the defensive, production in coalfields along the Tug slowed to a standstill, but as bad as the situation had become, there was plenty of room for matters to get worse; and it would!

West Virginia state officials quickly decided that there would be two separate trials held for those involved in the Matewan Massacre. One trial would prosecute Hatfield and his 22 cohorts for the murder of the Baldwin-Felts men, while a separate trial would prosecute four strikebreakers for the murders of Mayor Testerman and two Mingo miners. Officials scheduled Hatfield and his cohorts to go on trial first.

On January 28, 1921, the murder trial for Sid Hatfield and his 22 cohorts accused of murdering seven Baldwin-Felts detectives began. Quickly, the prosecution produced a "surprise witness" to testify against Sid Hatfield, Charles E. Lively. Even though Lively owned a store in Matewan, and had once worked inside a mine in Kanawha County, he was also a Baldwin-Felts detective, a spy. Lively had previously lurked about at Mooney and Blizzard's union rallies where he often spoke in tones indicating approval for organized labor, but had actually been taking down names of coalminers interested in joining the union.

Lively's testimony against Chief Sid Hatfield held little influence on Mingo jurors because under cross-examination, Lively's dubious activities for the Baldwin-Felts agency came-to-light. Hence, on March 21, 1921, the longest murder trial in the history of the state of West Virginia—longest at that particular time—ended with the acquittal of all defendants on labor's side that participated in the Matewan Massacre. Following the publicity created by Sid Hatfield's trial, Hatfield suddenly became a hero in most coal-producing counties in West Virginia.

In 1920, West Virginians elected Ephraim F. Morgan as governor. Prior to Morgan's inauguration on March 4, 1921, West Virginia legislators struck down an old state law requiring trials be held in the same counties where the offenses were committed so that Baldwin-Felts men could get a fair trial outside of Mingo County.

In the 1920s, except for coal-producing counties in West Virginia, there was little sympathy for rugged, unsophisticated coalminers because most were immigrants anyhow. The new venue statute would allow for trying the Baldwin-Felts men in Greenbrier County, a non-coal-producing county. An added bonus to the change in venue statute was that future trials for rabble-rousers in West Virginia's coalfields could be transferred out of the hands of sympathetic locals.

A few months following Sid Hatfield's trial in Mingo, a specially appointed state prosecutor prosecuted the Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers in Greenbrier County. At the start of the trial, the defense contended that all defendants were innocent because Hatfield intentionally shot both Testerman and Albert Felts, simultaneously. The defense council went on to claim that Hatfield lusted after Testerman's wife, and the fact that Hatfield and Jessie Testerman married only two weeks following the shootout, proved, without a doubt, that Hatfield wanted Testerman dead. More than one witness at the trail testified that Albert Felts and Mayor Testerman fell simultaneously following the first four shots, and that Hatfield definitely shot the first few rounds. Because facts pointed to Hatfield as being the most likely shooter for Testerman and Felts, and because anyone of the seven dead Baldwin-Felts men could have killed the two miners that fell during the shootout, the Greenbrier jury quickly acquitted the defendants of all murder charges.

Back in Mingo County, disgruntled, evicted coalminers continued disrupting coal production by shooting-up mine sites, as they carried their vandalistic acts to upper tributaries of the Tug in McDowell County. Abruptly, S. B. Avis, a lawyer in McDowell County, filed conspiracy charges against Sid Hatfield, Hatfield's deputy, and 30 other miners for a violent outburst in McDowell. These new charges would be more serious than other charges that Hatfield had faced because authorities file the new charges in Welch, the county seat of McDowell County. Like Logan County, the purse strings of mine operators controlled the political machine in McDowell.

In 1921, William Hatfield served as sheriff of McDowell County, one of West Virginia's most populated counties—most populated during that particular era. Now Sid Hatfield and William Hatfield had never gotten along because William, like Sheriff Chafin, backed the mine operators, counting on their substantial political contributions come election time. Additionally, Sheriff Hatfield held no heartfelt sympathy for coalminers because most miners in McDowell County were either African-American, or immigrants, and Welch is more than 200 miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line where prejudices flourished.

Weeks before Chief Hatfield's conspiracy trial began at Welch, Sid told many of his Mingo friends that if he ventured into McDowell County to stand trial, in all probability, he would never return to Mingo alive because the conspiracy charge was actually a well-planned scheme to get him away from home-court. UMWA District 17 furnished Hatfield and his cohorts with council for their upcoming trial, and one week prior to the trial, district officials petitioned the governor asking that Morgan provide 24-hour protection for Sid Hatfield throughout the court proceeding. However, Morgan vehemently denied the request for protection.

The outside stairway leading to the McDowell County Courthouse at Welch, West Virginia is made-up of 34 risers placed on a tremendously steep, rugged hillside. On August 1, 1921, as their conspiracy trial began, Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, accompanied by their wives, started their long climb up the steep courthouse steps. Coincidently, C. E. Lively sat perched on a step about halfway up the courthouse stairway, and two Baldwin-Felts sidekicks stood close by Lively's side. As soon as Sid and Ed neared Lively, a volley of gunfire abruptly erupted and within seconds, Sid and Ed both fell lifeless to the stone steps! Because Chambers body yet quivered and jerked, Lively's two sidekicks quickly sprayed several more bullets into the deputy to insure he could never get up.

As soon as the last thunderous boom echoed from the rugged hillside shadowing Welch's courthouse, Lively and his cohorts nonchalantly walked across the street to the nearest magistrate office and surrendered their weapons, claiming self-defense.

Word spread like wildfire throughout the coalmining counties in Southern West Virginia that Baldwin-Felts assassins had gunned-down Sid Hatfield and Deputy Chambers while both were preparing to enter the courthouse to stand trial. As news of the assassinations buzzed phones and telegraphs all across America, UMWA miners throughout much of the nation appeared shocked that Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers were brazen enough to commit murder at a courthouse in broad daylight. News of the two murders was especially disturbing to those coalminers working out of the Tug Fork coalfields that had yearned to join the UMWA. As newspapers across America highlighted front-page headlines with stories about the assassinations, the angrier union miners became, and it was not just those residing, or working in, Mingo County. Rabble-rousers from Cabin Creek and Paint Creek were outraged, and miners on the Kentucky side of the Tug were in an uproar as well.

Redneck War

On August 20, 1921, approximately three weeks following Sid Hatfield and Ed Chamber's burials, several hundred miners assembled at Lens Creek near Marmet, West Virginia. Quickly, rumors started circulating that Logan's Sheriff Chafin held more than 200 coalminers in his jail, and abruptly, someone screamed that Chafin planned hanging all 200. Suddenly, thousands of ruffian miners proclaimed their extreme fury with a defiant, rebel yell!

By August 22, the crowd gathering at Lens Creek had grown to more than 5,000 strong. A few miners had actually brought their wives along to cook, and some had brought their kids too. Most gathering rabble-rousers possessed a terrible bitterness left from the Kanawha Mine-War, as they knew all too well, what it felt like to be fired, evicted, and shot at all in the same day. The huge crowd of miners divided into tiny regiments that appeared segregated in accordance with the different mines where rabble-rousers worked. Many miners wore military fatigues left over from when they served Uncle Sam during World War I, and some, realizing that they would be shot at if they marched to Logan, tied on red bandanas. Some tied a bright red bandana around their right arm while others fastened a red handkerchief around their neck so that their union brothers could easily distinguish them from the enemy. Outsiders quickly labeled the red-banded rebels, "Red Necks," and newspaper reporters used the term when they telegraphed their offices reporting of the insurrection in West Virginia's coalfields.

As the rowdy gang at Lens Creek swelled, its restlessness quickly grew, and someone suddenly cried, "Remember Sid Hatfield, on to Logan." Following an earsplitting war cry, the massive crowd set out marching toward the city of Logan. Within hours, lines of red-banded rebels strung out for miles in roadways, as citizens in small mining camps cheered the rabble-rousers on—the miners carefully plotted a portion of their route to run through union country. To break monotony, a few Rednecks conjured up a tune and the melody "hang old Sheriff Chafin high from a sour apple tree" suddenly echoed throughout the hills of Kanawha County.

As dusk fell on August 23, the marching gang of Rednecks had swelled to nearly 7,000 with volunteers yet filing in. Because the Rednecks purchased food, provisions, and ammunition from nearly every store that they marched by, it became quite evident that the UMWA, or someone, was funding the insurgency. However, if high-profile UMWA officials were leading the Rednecks, they were keeping that fact concealed from public view.

Upon Governor Morgan receiving word that an angry mob of miners was pushing toward Logan, the governor hastily dispatched a message to Sheriff Don Chafin telling the sheriff that the Rednecks were moving on Logan. Additionally, Morgan notified the commander of his police, informing him to prepare for the deployment of a detachment of State Police to Boone and Logan counties.

Around 2:00 a.m., on August 24, in the town of Logan, high-pitched screams from fire sirens suddenly awakened sleeping townsfolk as Sheriff Chafin summoned his deputies, regulars and irregulars alike. Instantly, Chafin's boys responded, and came running!

Blair Mountain in Logan County consists of a series of high ridges located near the Boone-Logan border and on a clear day, from the summits of Blair, one can look to the north and see most of the town of Sharples, in Boone County. Although the highest ridge cap on Blair merely rises 1,961 feet above sea level, Blair's steep rugged terrain, dense forest cover, rocky landscape, and closeness to county borders, made Blair Mountain the perfect vantage point for Chafin's militia to turn back the unruly Rednecks.

Before daylight broke on August 24, three-hundred of Chafin's well-armed militia nestled in position on the summits of Blair. The militia, holding advantage for an ambush with higher ground, setup machine guns, established firing lines, and hunkered-down in the humid summer heat to play a waiting game with the rowdy marchers.

As gangs of swarming Rednecks neared the Boone-Logan line, marching lines became substantially separated, which resulted in many parties scurrying miles ahead of main parties. On the night of August 24, a small regiment of the Rednecks that had forged more than 10 miles ahead of most large groups, attempted to cross Blair Mountain near a pass, but it was a bad move, as Chafin's boys caught them in crossfire. Thunderous booms, accompanied by bright-orange muzzle flashes, interrupted the silence on the summits of Blair as the Rednecks hightailed it from the ridge tops, and sought refuge in underlying valleys below, where they waited on reinforcements.

After hearing that miners had launched an assault on Blair Mountain, Governor Morgan, in near panic, dispatched his state troopers to Logan to assist Sheriff Chafin. Additionally, Morgan contacted President Harding and pleaded with Harding to send federal troops to Southern West Virginia's coalfields. Although West Virginia possessed a small band of National Guard, Morgan initially refused to activate his Guard because his state's treasury was already operating in the red.

Shortly after daybreak on August 25, Redneck reinforcements arrived to assist the Rednecks who Chafin's boys had driven from the mountain several hours earlier. Highly agitated, reinforcements quickly spearheaded two charges, one up the summits of Blair, and another at nearby Crooked Creek. Although the Rednecks easily outnumbered Chafin's gang, the sheriff had at his disposal the best weaponry that rich coal operators could buy: machine guns, military mercenaries, airplanes, and more. Although civilian aircraft lacked the technical development to drop bombs with accuracy, Chafin paid private pilots to throw-down homemade bombs on the swarming rabble-rousers.

As sporadic fighting increased near the summits of Blair Mountain, President Warren G. Harding answered Governor Morgan's appeals for help by sending General Bandholtz to West Virginia. Arriving at the state capitol during the wee hours of the morning on August 26, General Bandholtz and Governor Morgan quickly summoned Frank Keeney, president of District 17, and Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of District 17, to the capitol for a meeting. During the powwow, Bandholtz threatened both UMWA officials with charges of treason if they did not immediately put an end to the Redneck rampage. Initially, Frank Keeney asked for the general's assurance that Chafin's militia would not slaughter miners if he convinced them to lay down their arms, but without receiving any guarantees, Mooney and Keeney wasted little time in jumping into their truck and darting toward the Boone-Logan line.

In Madison, the county seat for Boone County, which lies in union country, Keeney and Mooney rapidly overtook a large band of dissident marchers. With help from Madison's citizens, Frank Keeney quickly got word out for all the Rednecks to gather at Madison's baseball field. Within hours, miners flooded to the green field, where many joined to play a little baseball as they waited for other Rednecks to arrive. Eventually, Keeney explained to the rowdy crowd that they had to go back before federal troops began arriving, and that Uncle Sam would be chartering passenger trains to help with transporting miners back to Kanawha County.

With the help of locals, news spread rapidly throughout the hills in Boone and Logan counties that Frank Keeney wanted miners to stand-down because soldiers were already in route to the coalfields. Astonishingly, in a couple of hours, miners began filing from the highlands; the skirmish was over, or so it appeared. However, as hours passed with none of the promised-trains arriving, many of the Rednecks grew edgy as they wondered if they had been lied-to.

Around midnight on August 27, as an eerie restlessness fell over a band of Rednecks that waited for a train to arrive near Sharples, a regiment of State Police encircled the gang and called for the rebels to lay down their guns and surrender. In darkness, the trapped gang mistakenly thought that Chafin's boys had pulled a double-cross, which resulted in the rebels opening fire. Within seconds, police returned fire that struck five miners. An ensuing gun battle roared throughout the tiny valley at the foot of Blair Mountain, as all but two of the Rednecks scampered through thick brush and made a getaway; two miners died.

The thunderous booms from the hour-long gun battle near Sharples served as a warning to Rednecks, a revelry call to rearm. Thinking that their comrades had been ambushed, thousands of miners wasted little time in mustering a charge back toward Blair Mountain. In the City of Logan, high-pitched fire sirens again spooked sleepy citizens as Sheriff Chafin, for a second time, signaled for his deputies and militia to come running!

On August 28, thousands of Rednecks launched assaults at Beech Creek, Crooked Creek, Mill Creek, and up the two slopes of Blair Mountain. As word of the renewed violence reached the Governor's Office in Charleston, Governor Morgan, unnerved, contacted General Bandholtz pleading for federal troops. This time, Morgan got his federal troops, but he also received scolding from General Bandholtz, as the general did not care for the behavior of Morgan's State Police detachment, or for the behavior of Chafin's men reengaging in conflict.

For seven days following the renewal of violence at Sharples, high-powered rifles thundered, machine guns rat-tat-tatted, and airplanes zoomed overhead. Sheriff Chafin had pilots drop many homemade pipe bombs filled with gunpowder, bolts, nuts, and nails on miners' locations, but few of the primitive weapons exploded. Although one reconnaissance aircraft took several hits of ground fire from a gang of Rednecks, the plane easily managed to land on a dirt airstrip. As Chafin's boys and the red-banded renegades traded fire on the summits of Blair Mountain, lead showered for miles into underlying valleys.

Because many of the Rednecks were veterans of World War I, and knew fighting tactics well, the rebels fought back near Sharples by cutting phone and telegraph lines, falling trees across main roads to isolate Chafin's militia, and by commandeering a train. The red-banded marauders also attempted to utilize hit-and-run guerrilla tactics but reconnaissance planes that constantly monitored miners' positions, spoiled most guerrilla tactics during daylight hours.

On August 30, in response to General Bandholtz's scolding, Governor Morgan appointed Colonel William Eubank of the West Virginia National Guard to command all state and county forces involved in restoring the rule of law to five counties where the governor had previously declared martial law. On September 1, President Harding issued an executive order commanding that ".... all persons engaged in such unlawful and insurrectionary proceedings to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes...."

Military planes dropped leaflets containing President Harding's executive order throughout the Blair Mountain region, and a squadron of Martin bombers—"primitive" bombers might be an overstatement—equipped with machine guns were dispatched from Langley Field. However, two of the Martin bombers, while flying in dense fog, quickly crashed in hilly terrain well before reaching Charleston, West Virginia.

Beginning on August 30, and until federal troops arrived, Colonel Eubanks commanded a force comprised of Chafin's militia, State Police, and a few-hundred Guard—roughly, 3,000 all totaled. Although the rebellious miners had more than 7,500 marchers within their ranks, the rabble-rousers appeared scattered throughout half-of-hell, Boone and Logan counties. In all likelihood, pilots spying on miners with reconnaissance planes knew more about the particular position of specific gangs of Rednecks, than the miners themselves knew.

As trigger-edgy militia and rabble-rousers traded fire, a few stray bullets struck farmhouses, outhouses, and livestock. Chafin's boys accidentally wounded Boyden R. Sparkes, a world famous war correspondent for the New York Tribune, in the leg.

Federal troops were now on their way to the coalfields in Southern West Virginia and to complicate matters for the Rednecks, this time, there would be no UMWA officials to intervene on behalf of the miners. In a bold move to squash this, and future labor insurgencies in West Virginia, on August 31, government officials handed out murder indictments against Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, and both dove into hiding to avoid prosecution. With Keeney and Mooney in hiding, UMWA national headquarters in D.C. sent a couple of officials to monitor the organized chaos in Southern West Virginia, but there was no union intervention since national UMWA officials insisted that they did not endorse the rebellion.

On September 3, thousands of federal troops from Fort Dix began arriving in Madison, Sharples, Blair, and the town of Logan. William Blizzard, the sub-district official who often spoke on the stump in Mingo County to encourage union organization, quickly presented himself to a ranking military officer, hinting that he might be able to persuade the ruffian miners to surrender. Because the commanding officer desperately wished to avoid bloodshed, especially bloodshed coming from citizens who had once fought for Uncle Sam, the commander escorted Bill up the mountain and told the lanky union official to give it a crack at talking his boys out. Astonishingly, within a couple of hours, miners began swarming out of the hills and surrendering, but none was carrying a gun—lost-em in a mine crack, or somewhere. However, as miners continued surrendering throughout the day and on into Sunday, September 4, they stacked piles of guns several feet high.

On Sunday evening, September 4, 1921, the governor of West Virginia publicly declared the Redneck rebellion over.

Now there are historians who claim that the Rednecks abandoned their insurrection and surrendered to federal troops because the rebels felt they could not battle with soldiers who they had once fought along side, while others historians say that the Rednecks' surrender was merely a matter of commonsense, because no one can stand against the mighty U.S. Army. A few historians actually claim that the Rednecks' original intentions were to get federal troops sent in so they could use their skirmish to make the entire nation aware of the awful brutality that Chafin's boys had, for years, dealt to miners attempting to join the UMWA. Irrespective of the real reasons that the Rednecks abandoned their march on Logan and surrendered to federal troops, the rowdy gang lost their battle that September day. Nevertheless, the red-banded marchers did stir some rather turbulent winds calling for change.

Following the end to the Red Neck War, state officials for West Virginia filed charges of treason against more than 53 Rednecks believed to be ringleaders of the protest. The state also tacked on murder charges against a few reputable Rednecks, William Blizzard in particular. Lawyers for the UMWA, through skillful jockeying, managed to have trials for the Rednecks transferred from politically union-hostile Logan County, to Charles Town in Jefferson County, a non-coal-producing county. Ironically, the change of venue statute enacted by West Virginia legislators, which, in part, was meant to snare instigators of violence in the coalfields, allowed for transfer of the Rednecks' trials from the one county, Logan, that would have probably hung the entire bunch.

When the meanest of the Rednecks, wearing shackles, were marched from the train and purposely paraded through the streets of Charles Town, they did not appear the malicious scoundrels that citizens of Jefferson County expected, or that newspaper stories often described. A few of the hombres looked like snarled-over, malnourished men who had difficulty dragging their chains. In fact, the parade of shackled miners meant to humiliate Rednecks, backfired against prosecutors when the spectacle instilled sympathy within many residents of the Eastern Panhandle.

William (Bill) Blizzard, who talked the Rednecks out at Blair Mountain, but who had earlier stirred dissent with his stump speeches in Matewan, was the first of the Rednecks to go on trial in Jefferson County. Prosecutors were to make an example out of Mr. Blizzard!

The long anticipated trial for Bill Blizzard began during the first days of May 1922, and right away, the court proceedings evolved into a justice style that flabbergasted many citizens of Jefferson County. Quickly, the UMWA defense counsel pointed out that the Logan County Coal Operators Association often wrote checks to Sheriff Chafin's deputized militia—the UMWA had its own spies infiltrated into the militia. The lead prosecutor for the trial rapidly countered by pointing out that District 17 Vice President William Petry had attempted to kill Don Chafin two years earlier, and accused all District 17 officials, including the defense counsel, of knowing about that murder plot well before hand. Lead counsel for the defense suddenly lost his temper with the heated exchange, and offered to settle the dispute outside with a slug-feast. Drama in the courtroom at Charles Town barely had time to simmer down before the defense council quickly disclosed that the Logan County Coal Operators Association had deposited $15,000 into a special fund that was to be used specifically to prosecute Rednecks. Sadly, the state of West Virginia was practically broke, and jurors, as well as special prosecutors, were to receive payment through that special fund; it was all true! UMWA counsel further revealed that the special prosecutor appointed to handle the case had resigned his circuit court judgeship in Logan County a few months earlier explicitly to prosecute the rebellious miners. The complaints of the defense council were all true, as the folks in Jefferson County were getting a glimpse at "Coal Baron Justice," a particular style justice they knew little about.

Before the end of Bill Blizzard's month-long murder trial, the defense actually displayed one of the unexploded homemade bombs that Chafin's boys dropped on Blair Mountain. The unexploded bomb proved how serious Chafin's bunch was about repelling the union. They would kill if necessary!

The exhibition of the homemade bomb caused several Jefferson County jurors to ponder about what the Rednecks had really run up against in Logan County, as a few jurors found it appalling that someone could be ruthless enough to bomb U.S. citizens, citizens who had actually fought for their country. The bomb, the specific fund to pay prosecutors, and the fact that the special prosecutor was a retired Logan judge, all weighed heavily on the minds of Jefferson's jurors. On May 27, 1922, following little more than six hours of deliberation, in the spirit of "Jefferson County Justice," the jury acquitted Bill Blizzard of all charges.

While hundreds of West Virginia's coalminers stood in the streets surrounding the Jefferson County Courthouse and cheered Blizzard's acquittal, many citizens of Jefferson County were upset with the ruling as they felt Blizzard's acquittal a disgrace to the justice system. Nevertheless, the majority of Jefferson's citizens was pleased with the "not guilty verdict." It seems the Eastern Panhandle in West Virginia was much like the rest of our nation: a portion of the country endorsed organized labor, while a portion of the nation loathed unions. Ironically, more than 3,000 citizens of Virginia had attended the gravesite rites of Albert and Lee Felts at Galax Virginia, while nearly 2,500 citizens of West Virginia and Kentucky had marched in the funeral procession that carried Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers to their final resting place. America's sympathies concerning the labor movement to unionize were split!

None of the trials for the rebellious Rednecks amounted to much, as murder convictions handed down to two of the rebels were the only serious sentences. However, following the governorship of West Virginia changing hands in 1924, the new governor quickly pardoned both incarcerated Rednecks. A Baptist preacher and his son received those two pardons even though they had put bullets in one of Chafin's men while the wounded fellow begged for their mercy—that ole preacher, too, believed in an "eye for an eye." As for Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney and the charges of murder that they faced in Mingo County, well, a jury acquitted both union officials of those charges.

Astonishingly, murder convictions were never handed down to the three Baldwin-Felts men who gunned down Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers on the McDowell County Courthouse steps. C. E. Lively, George Pence, and William Salters all stood trial for the murders of Hatfield and Chambers in December of 1921, and that trial was held at the very same courthouse where the assassinations took place. Both Hatfield and Chambers' widows testified against C. E. Lively and his two cohorts during the three's murder trial. While on the witness stand, Mrs. Hatfield testified that her husband was unarmed when the shooting occurred—according to historians, it would have been unlikely that Hatfield ventured from Mingo County without carrying a gun.

While on the witness stand, Widow Hatfield commented that her husband's trial in Welch was "a well defined plot" to get her husband killed, which historians agree, was most likely true. Several days before Hatfield and Chambers' trial started, the sheriff of McDowell County announced to newspaper reporters that there would be no trouble at Hatfield's trial, "I will see to that." However, the sheriff was conveniently out of McDowell County the very day that the high profile trail began. Ironically, the assassinations of Hatfield and Chambers occurred on those very steps that the McDowell County sheriff climbed every day to reach his office.

A few days following the assassinations of Hatfield and Chambers, the governor of West Virginia declared that he had declined the request of the UMWA to send State Police protection for Sid Hatfield during Hatfield's trial because he felt such protection "unwarranted." In all probability, Governor Morgan intended for his smirk-filled disclosure to serve as a staunch warning to organized labor that the governor held no empathy for the union, or union sympathizers.

Coalminers spilled a lot of blood during initial attempts to unionize coalfields in Southern West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, and without doubt, both belligerent sides were guilty of some underhanded dealing. The UMWA handed out tens-of-thousands of dollars in attempts to organize Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia, and coal operators paid out millions to stifle union organization in those regions—particular Pike and Harlan counties in Kentucky. There is little doubt that several state and local officials, judges, magistrates, and law enforcement officials accepted bribes from coal companies during those early mining eras but the mining companies were not the only ones handing out bribes.

Although the majority of citizens of Logan County would probably have never conceded that their honorable sheriff took funding from coal operators, in reality, real evidence points toward much backdoor dealing in Logan politics. Perhaps the real-truth pertaining to the sheriff's genuine concerns may be rather simple, and that truth lies neatly obscured in just a few obituaries lines written in 1954.

..... he was believed to have been one of Huntington's wealthiest men, had made his home here since 1936.

..... He had extensive real estate holdings in Logan and Huntington, including the Guaranty Building (the penthouse building where the ex-sheriff lived) and Chafin owned the Chafin Coal Company and the Chafin Land Company.

Ironically, FDR's Wagner Act, which guaranteed unions the right to organize and made it unlawful to employ strikebreaking tactics, was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1935, one year before the sheriff moved from Logan.

In reality, many men standing on both sides of the mine-wars may have accepted bribes. Shortly before Mayor Testerman was gunned-down at Matewan, the mayor told a friend that he once turned down a $1,000 bribe offered by a Baldwin-Felts supervisor, and that note that Albert Felts handed Chief Hatfield only hours before the Matewan shootout began, offered Hatfield $300 per month to "change sides." In a time when miners barely received $30 a month for the hard fruits of their labor, how could either Testerman or Hatfield have afforded to turn down such lucrative offers? Could the two Matewan officials have already been accepting enormous funding from the very same source that funded the Redneck insurrection, the same source that provided both officials with legal counsel?

Who was actually to blame for rekindling the flames of the Redneck War on Blair Mountain in the late hours of August 27, State Police, or Rednecks? Was Sheriff Chafin actually lured into District 17 headquarters in a well-defined murder plot as union opponents claimed, or did Chafin venture into 17 headquarters with the idea that he could bribe new union blood as was done in the past, which union advocates claim? It is very unlikely that the truth pertaining to the Redneck confrontation can be found in pages of black and white, but rather that truth probably lays cloaked with splatters of gray somewhere among the jagged rocks on Blair Mountain where the rat-tat-tat of machine guns once interrupted the silence of a warm August night.

Following the end to the Red Neck War, and after spending thousands of dollars in failed organizing attempts, the UMWA temporarily abandoned its attempts at unionizing regions along the Tug Fork River. The union lost their battle on Blair, but the Rednecks viciously stirred the winds of change. Those same winds of change had earlier whispered at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek in 1913 and at Ludlow, Colorado in 1914 when National Guard killed four coalminers, two women, and eleven children who were living in a refuge tent colony—Baldwin-Felts strikebreakers actively participated in Ludlow's mine-war. In the 30 years preceding the Battle of Blair Mountain, winds from labor movements across America kicked up a little dust, but in 1921, the rebellious Rednecks stirred up quite a fuss. Change was coming to America's coalfields; there would be no denying it!

Chapter 5

Labor's Great Change

Through the years, there have been both Republican and Democrat presidents who aggressively sought to achieve a safer work environment for America's industrial workers, safety for the "little man." Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, who perhaps was one of America's most admired presidents, tried to champion the little guy, the laboring class. Although Theodore himself was from the wealthy class, TR felt it was government's duty to regulate large industry, prevent it from gouging, or taking advantage of the little man. During TR's seven years tenure as president, his administration filed 43 suits against American corporations for violating federal antitrust laws.

In the spring of 1902, the Anthracite Coal Operators Association in Pennsylvania flatly refused to recognize the fledging UMWA as a bargaining agency even though many of the association's miners were UMWA members. Because the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad Company owned many of the larger coalmines in Pennsylvania, George Baer served as president of Reading, and president of the Anthracite Coal Operators. Baer, a lawyer, was a powerful, egotistical, corporate executive who believed that wealthy, affluent U.S. citizens acquired their positions of prestige via approval of the Almighty. Baer also held little regard for immigrants, who made up the majority of America's coalminers. Baer's belief in a divine social hierarchy, and his dislike for immigrants, made him an exceptionally tough-cookie for miners to bargain with.

In April of 1902, union miners in Pennsylvania demanded a 20% pay raise and an eight-hour workday from the Anthracite Operators. Even though the association's miners were earning below the poverty standard while working a ten-hour workday, Baer and his association refused to listen to miners' grievances chiefly because most operators held huge stockpiles, which caused coal prices to plummet. In addressing the demands of union miners, Baer wrote, "rights and interests of laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country."

On May 12, the UMWA called its Pennsylvania anthracite miners out on strike. However, Baer and his association refused to negotiate, which resulted in an embittered coal strike dragging through most of the summer months. As autumn approached, President Roosevelt began to fear that continuation of the strike through a harsh winter might prove disastrous for city folks because no coal meant no-heat for urban Americans. With the help of J. P. Morgan, the primary shareholder of the Reading Railroad who had actually appointed Baer as head of the railway company, TR assembled a committee to investigate grievances of the striking coalminers, and to find a solution to end the impasse. Despite the committee's extensive efforts to settle the dispute, anthracite operators steadfastly refused to allow UMWA officials to bargain for the association's miners. Eventually, both sides agreed to accept binding mediation rendered through an arbitration panel composed of a judge, an industry expert, a military engineer, a mining engineer, a Catholic Bishop, and an eminent sociologist. Baer agreed to accept TR's appointment of the president of the railroad conductors union as the eminent sociologist, who could look after the interest of the miners, but no UMWA representatives were welcome at Baer's bargaining sessions.

The stalemate to the 163-day anthracite coal strike ended on October 23, 1902, when miners returned to the pit, and TR's commission began holding hearings where union miners, nonunion miners, and coal operators from the anthracite coalfields gave testimony. During closing statements to the commission, in response to labors' contention that working conditions inside the mine were extremely hazardous, Baer proclaimed, "These men don't suffer. Why, hell, half of them don't even speak English." After three months of hearings held by TR's commission, the committee granted UMWA miners a 10% pay raise and a 9-hour workday. Although the arbitration ruling was binding, George Baer and his association yet refused to recognize the UMWA as coalminers' bargaining agent.

Months following the end to the 1902 coal strike, Theodore Roosevelt commented that during one of his personal attempts to negotiate an end to the stalemate, he started to grab the president of the coal association by the neck and throw him through a White House window. Nevertheless, Roosevelt felt that via his commission, he had rendered coalminers a Square Deal, a fair an honest chance for a more prosperous life in America.

Theodore Roosevelt not only stood up for the working class, but he also implemented strict conservation policies that prevented private enterprise from exploiting and pillaging America's greatest natural resources. In a spirit meant to preserve our most valuable resources so America could stand strong through time, and future generations could enjoy all this nation's majestic lands and forests, Theodore Roosevelt set aside 194 million acres of national forests, which five-times exceeded the amount set aside by all his predecessors combined. Because of TR's radical progressive (liberal) policies, Republicans within his own party often referred to TR as that "radical in the White House," but Theodore seemed to have liked the radical reference.

After retiring from public office for four years, Theodore Roosevelt sought the presidency for a third (second elected) term in 1912, however, the Republican Party refused to run TR, even though he had won every Republican primary. Instead, the Republican National Committee chose the incumbent, President Taft, as their candidate. Highly upset with his party's snubbing, TR ran at the top of the Progressive Party ticket—nicknamed Bull Moose ticket by the American public.

While campaigning for the 1912 presidential election, TR often spoke for the need to implement child labor laws, the need to allow women to vote, and occasionally he called for the establishment of a "national healthcare system." In the election of 1912, TR actually received more votes than President Taft did, but TR's splitting of the Republican electorate ceded the election to Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat.

During Woodrow Wilson's tenure as president, 1913-1921, Wilson often snuggled-up to organized labor. In fact, Wilson went as far as to appoint key union officials to important cabinet positions.

During the 1920s, the evolution of sturdy combustion engines, fueled by gasoline, greatly reduced America's dependency on coal for transportation. Although trains would utilize powerful coal-fired steam engines for the next several decades, the development of efficient automobiles and heavy-duty trucks were rapidly decreasing the number of short-range railway shipments in America, as well as decreasing the number of train fares sold in states.

In general, the years following the Red Neck War were good years for America as many citizens danced through prosperity of the "Roaring Twenties." However, America's jubilation would be short lived as the nation drifted into the Great Depression. In 1929, as America's mighty industrial machine came to a grinding halt, the bottom fell out of the coal market overnight as miners everywhere were laid off. Those few coalmines that remained open only managed to squeak out production a couple of days a week; things got terrible!

To compound an already dire, economical situation in America, in 1930, a drought rolled over much of the Midwest, dragging on for months, and then years. Overworked farm soil blew away, thus creating what historians refer to as the Dust Bowl. Although many U.S. citizens were starving because they were unable to provide food, clothing, and shelter for their families, President Hoover refused to provide assistance for the unemployed as he felt such assistance amounted to national welfare.

The Great Depression brought some very hard times for many Americans, but was particularly harsh on those men who mined beneath the earth for a living. Much of rural America, outside the Dust Bowl, was at least able to garden a little in order to put food on the table but miners living in crowded coal camps owned little land where they could raise crops. Meals for most mining families were few, and far between. Most Americans yearned for change in America's economic policies, and political arena, and they sought transformation by electing a dynamic political leader whom conservative politicians hated, but whom the majority of Americans loved, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

To this very day, many conservatives claim "FDR was the welfare president." However when you ask those same conservatives what portion of FDR's welfare policies do they dislike the most: Social Security, Unemployment Compensation Benefits, Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the first minimum wage law, mandatory overtime pay for hours exceeding 40 hours per week, the first meaningful child labor law, the National Labor Relations Board, the right to join a union, or the Tennessee Valley Authority, you seldom get a reply. Ironically, all of these programs, plus the initial farm subsidies act, remains in effect today, and if the programs were bad or inefficient, Congress would have terminated the programs years ago.

FDR entered into office in 1933 when America was experiencing the Great Depression and the unemployment rate stood at 25%. Many Americans had not only lost their jobs, but had lost all hope. More than 15 million Americans were unemployed, and nearly 9,000 banks had failed. As Americans lost jobs, scores of remaining banks foreclosed on mortgages, causing many of the homeless to resort to building shacks from shipping crates—"Hoovers Ville" encampments.

After being sworn into office in January of 1933, FDR had little trouble in getting Congress to enact legislation supporting his New Deal because Americans also elected a Democrat Congress. By 1936, only 17 Republicans held a Senate seat and Democrats enormously outnumbered Republicans in the House of Representatives. Initially, conservative judges on the United States Supreme Court served as chief opposition to many policies of the New Deal, however, FDR discouraged U.S. Supreme Court justices from challenging his policies when he asked Congress to enact legislation that would restructure the number of justices that served on the court. Although Congress failed to enact FDR's restructuring proposal, the proposal did alter the voting habits of several justices.

Within weeks after taking office, FDR strong-armed Congress into passing the Economy Act, which reduced salaries and pensions of government workers. Although a great number of U.S. Congressmen loathed the Economy Act, they simply feared the American electorate too much not to vote for the Act.

Perhaps the most far-reaching reform of the New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935. The Social Security Act was to provide funds for retired, or disabled, workers when they became too old or too sick to work. Even today, employers and employees are responsible for paying funds into the accounts of working Americans so they can draw Social Security Benefits when they get old or disabled.

Unemployment Insurance was also included within the Social Security Act of 1935. Unemployment Insurance required employers in each state to deposit into a state-controlled fund, money to provide benefits for laid-off workers. Today, the U.S. government yet steps-in and provides emergency funding to extend Unemployment Benefits for furloughed workers who have depleted their benefits. However, corporate America insisted that the Social Security Act, along with its Unemployment Insurance, was the most blatant form of "national welfare" ever conjured-up.

In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act creating the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) where abused workers could take their grievances. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted which actually extended the NLRA and mandated the first federal minimum wage. The Fair Labor Standards Act helped to set a limit on mandatory overtime for industrial workers by requiring that employers pay overtime for work-hours exceeding 40 hours per week. The Act also established the first meaningful child labor law, a law that prohibited children younger than 16 from working in hazardous industries, like the mining industry. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act) guaranteed industrial workers the right to organize and bargain collectively without fearing retaliation from their employer. It assured that marching Rednecks would never again be bombed—ironically, the Baldwin-Felts agency was dissolved and 90% of its files destroyed within two years following passage of the Wagner Act. The NLRA, in time, allowed organized labor to evolve into powerful organizations, having enough muscle to strong-arm Congress into passing meaningful legislation to protect America's industrial workers, especially coalminers.

Although the National Labor Relations Act was immensely popular with industrial workers throughout America, the NLRA would eventually comeback to "bite" FDR when the Act served to evolve the UMWA into the most powerful trade union in the world, as President Roosevelt would ultimately clash with UMWA president John L. Lewis on several occasions.

Chapter 6

The Mighty UMWA

Originally founded in 1890, the United Mine Workers of America's two initial goals were to acquire safer work conditions, and better wages, for its coalminers. The UMWA's renowned leader, John L. Lewis, is a legendary labor figure remembered for his daring defiance of U.S. presidents. Lewis was a dynamic, colorful, charismatic character that served as president of UMWA from 1919-1960. At the pinnacle of Lewis's power as a union leader, many Americans scorned Lewis even though nearly a half-million coalminers adored him.

John L. Lewis was born in 1880 in the town of Lucas, Iowa, to parents who had emigrated from Wales. Lewis started working in an underground mine at age 15, but quickly sought easier occupations. He married a woman from a prominent family and eventually moved to Illinois, where Lewis worked for a little time as a coalminer, but quickly became a UMWA organizer. Initially, the UMWA was actually an affiliate of the AF of L (later AFL), led by Samuel Gompers. John L. Lewis, with his confident swagger, fast wit, and bone-cutting sarcastic speaking style, immediately caught the eye of Samuel Gompers, which resulted in Gompers often assigning Lewis to key confidential tasks.

Since unions under Samuel Gompers's rule played a key role in electing Woodrow Wilson to office, on occasion, President Wilson asked for Gompers's thoughts concerning specific candidates for federal judgeships. On at least two different occasions when asked for recommendations about particular candidates for judgeships, Gompers assigned John L. Lewis to investigate whether the judges might be pro industry, or pro union. After exploring, Lewis gave thumbs-down to one candidate and thumbs-up to the other, which resulted in only one candidate receiving appointment.

John L. Lewis was not at all beyond performing a "little monkey business" during union elections in order to promote a particular UMWA leader that he fancied. During a union election campaign in 1915, Lewis pulled a rather unique shenanigan when UMWA President John P. White, who Lewis highly endorsed for reelection, was receiving a very strong challenge from a district official. The worst possible sin that a UMWA "brother" could commit is to collaborate with coal companies. Immediately before the election, Lewis showed phony telegrams to rank-and-file members indicating that White's challenger had telegraphed coal operators, possibly seeking political contributions to help defeat White. Unknown to rank-and-file members, Lewis, himself, likely forged the phony telegrams! News spread fast in mining country and there is no way that UMWA members would every support a union official who collaborated with mine operators. With the help of Lewis's trickery, White soundly defeated his challenger!

In 1917, UMWA President White resigned his post to accept a key cabinet position within the Wilson Administration. UMWA Vice President Frank Hayes became the new union president, while John L. Lewis was appointed to the vice-presidency without ever having won the first union election on the national level. Because Hayes had a terrible drinking problem, John L. Lewis performed most of Hayes's duties, which groomed Lewis to step-in as interim president in 1919, when Hayes's health completely failed.

In November 1919, while serving as interim UMWA president, John L. Lewis pulled 400,000 United Mine Workers from UMWA affiliated mines in a nationwide strike and only ordered his miners back to work following a court injunction issued by a federal judge.

In 1923, John L. Lewis again pulled 400,000 of his miners out on strike, which amounted to 50% of America's coalminers participating in a sit-down—800,000 coalminers dug coal in America during the 1920s. As the 1923 sit-down crippled much of American industry since America's primary energy source was coal, a federal judge issued an injunction against UMWA leaders, which forced miners back to the pits. Nevertheless, the powerful muscle of Lewis's UMWA became evident when the world saw firsthand the crippling effect of 400,000 coalminers staging a sit-down.

John L. Lewis ruled his UMWA with an iron fist, as he often removed UMWA officials for unsuccessful union organizing endeavors or for failing to stay in tune with Lewis's preferred policies to increase memberships. Ironically, District 17 officials Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney were the first high profile district officials that John L. Lewis removed from office.

John Lewis had actually dispatched Mother Jones, the famous American labor activist, to Marmet on August 23, 1921, warning the Rednecks not to march on Logan because President Harding would ultimately send federal troops to squash the uprising, which could possibly result in a bloodbath and further discourage future union organizing endeavors. Nevertheless, Keeney and Mooney failed to obey Lewis's messenger, which resulted in Lewis removing both Keeney and Mooney from office. Lewis was not above expelling his rivals from the UMWA altogether, either!

John L. Lewis frequently spoke with a contemptible sarcasm and cynicism that could sting to the very bone, but his cynical remarks were often very effective in shaming coal operators into contract concessions, and in shaming Congress into enacting sound safety legislation. Lewis's speech to U.S. Congresses following the Centralia Mine explosion in is very reminiscent of Lewis's gifted orator style.

Another good example of John L. Lewis's stinging sarcasm came in a statement issued by Lewis following the labor leader's visit to the explosion-riddled Orient No. 2 Mine on December 27, 1951. Lewis had just exited the Illinois mine after accompanying 40 investigators in searching for the true cause of the blast, when Lewis explained to reporters, that while desperately looking for the real cause of the explosion, his group stumbled upon the crouched body of J. O. Cantrell, highest-ranking boss inside the mine the night the mountain blew. Since Cantrell's body was actually the last victim recovered, the manner in which Lewis abruptly ended his sentence gave the impression that the discovery of Cantrell also exposed the true cause for the hellish explosion that killed more than 100 UMWA members. Newspapers, as well as the UMWA Journal, published Lewis's sarcastic statement implying that Cantrell caused the Orient blast, which was not actually fact.

During the mid-1930s, bitter disputes erupted between various factions within the AFL when specific union leaders staunchly disagreed about which American industries needed targeting for union organizing. Lewis steadfastly supported expanding the AFL's umbrella to bring in the steel workers, automobile assembly workers, and tire workers, but at the AFL's convention in Atlantic City in 1935, William Hutcheson, president of the Carpenters union, interrupted a union representative who was giving a speech meant to encourage organizing the American tire workers. Hutcheson, who strongly opposed organizing workers from mass production industries, made his interruption with a point of order, however, John L. Lewis, after taking the podium, announced that Hutcheson's point of order was "small potatoes." From where he sat in the crowd, the tiny-framed Hutcheson loudly proclaimed, "I was raised on small potatoes; that's why I am so small," which drew a big laugh from the crowd. Angrily, Lewis left the podium, knocked Hutcheson to the floor, relit his cigar, and retuned to the stage to speak. Lewis intended for his punch to fire-up those who supported union expansion, and the blow did just that!

In 1936, John L. Lewis, along with eight other heads of major unions within the AFL that endorsed expansion, including the newly formed United Auto Workers, withdrew from the AFL and formed the CIO. Lewis became president of the fledging CIO, but he also kept his UMWA top position.

The Roosevelt Administration's National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (Wagner Act) paved the way for organized labor in America, but Roosevelt was infuriated when, in 1937, the CIO staged a strike for its steel workers and automobile workers. When Roosevelt publicly scolded the CIO for Lewis's staged sit-down, Lewis quickly became angry over the chastisement. In 1939, stilled enraged over President Roosevelt's rebuke of his CIO, and fearing that Roosevelt had begun to sound like a warmonger, John L. Lewis announced that he would not back President Roosevelt if FDR ran for a third term in 1940. Lewis, although a lifetime Republican, had actually backed Roosevelt for the presidential elections of 1932 and 1936, however in 1939, Lewis spoke in a tone insinuating that Roosevelt was seeking dictatorial rule by pursuing a third term. Lewis quickly announced that he would retire from the CIO if its membership backed Roosevelt, instead of the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, for the 1940 presidential election. Following 85% of the CIO's membership voting for FDR, in 1941 Lewis, true to his word, resigned his head position with the CIO. In 1942, Lewis abruptly withdrew his UMWA from the umbrella of the CIO.

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, practically all trade unions throughout the United States, including the UMWA, announced a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war. However the UMWA did not live up to its no-strike promise when in 1943, Lewis called nearly 300,000 UMWA members from America's mines. Lewis's work stoppage during wartime again infuriated President Roosevelt, who issued an executive order seizing control of unionized coalmines.

John L. Lewis's strike in 1943 may have been the legendary labor leader's greatest blunder as Lewis's clash with a much adored wartime president was extremely negative in promoting the union cause. There were 1,388 U.S. coalminers killed on the job in 1940, 1,266 in 1941, and 1,471 in 1942—an average of more than 26 per week. More than anything else, union coalminers needed the support of the American public in order to allow union leadership to force Congress to enact stricter safety standards, but the coal strike in 1943 eroded much of the public's support for unions. U.S. citizens from all walks-of-life, including younger coalminers who were dodging bullets on battlefields abroad, lined up behind Roosevelt, their wartime president.

Federal seizure of UMWA affiliated mines ended the 1943 coal strike, but Roosevelt's chastising statements seemed filled with tones of disgust for all union miners. FDR's scolding of a labor force, where most miners were beyond 45 years of age, cut UMWA miners to the very bone. The majority of the coalminers born 1900-1926 went to fight in the "mother-of-all-wars," as Uncle Sam inducted every able-bodied male less than 46 years of age. Here are some excerpts from Roosevelt's harsh rebuke of that elderly UMWA workforce.

Aside from United Mine Workers' coal mining, the making of war munitions and supplies has gone ahead extremely well. Aside from United Mine Workers coal mining, the no-strike pledge by organized labor has been well kept, the few small, unauthorized strikes which have occurred having affected only a very small faction of 1 percent of production.

The action of the leaders of the United Mine Workers coal miners has been intolerable—and has rightly stirred up the anger and disapproval of the overwhelming mass of the American people.

Before the leaders of the United Mine Workers decided to direct the miners to return to work, the Government had taken steps to set up the machinery for inducting into the armed services all miners subject to the Selective Service Act, who absented themselves without just cause from work in the mines under Government operation.

As the Selective Service Act does not authorize the induction of men above 45 years into the armed services, I intended to request the Congress to raise the age limit for non-combat military service to 65 years. I shall make that request of the Congress so that if at any time in the future there should be a threat of interruption of work in plants, mines, or establishments owned by the Government, or taken possession of by the Government, the machinery will be available for prompt action.

President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 and Vice President Harry S. Truman took over as commander-in-chief. By executive order of President Truman, on August 6 and August 9, American planes dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which resulted in the unconditional surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945. In September of 1945, numerous unions throughout America staged sit-downs to demand better wages as the no-strike pledge was no longer in effect. The no-strike pledge, along with an executive order freezing wages during World War II, had prevented union workers from receiving any pay raises for the duration of the war. Now the war was over, unions demanded more pay! Seizing on opportunity created when American political leaders became extremely fearful that hundreds of strikes staged throughout American industry following the end of the war would serve as a catalyst to produce another Great Depression, John L. Lewis demanded that coal operators provide UMWA members with healthcare and retirement benefits.

The pre-paid system where mine operators cut monthly stipends from miners' paychecks in order to provide medical services had broken-down prior to World War II, as many companies were using the system to reap profits, while failing to provide even mediocre medical services. Months before America entered the war, a federal commission composed chiefly of physicians, determined that throughout much of America's coalfields, especially the Appalachia regions of Southern West Virginia, Western Virginia, and Southeastern Kentucky, healthcare services were insufficient, well below par. Nevertheless, World War II had caused the UMWA to put demands for better healthcare services on hold, but now that the war was over, acquiring healthcare services and pensions for UMWA miners became the number one priority of John L. Lewis.

In the spring of 1946, John L. Lewis sat down with executives of the Bituminous Coal Organization Association (BCOA) and demanded that mine operators pay 10 cents in royalties for every ton that its organization mined into a fund to provide healthcare and pension benefits for UMWA miners. However, bituminous operators ardently rejected Lewis's demand, which resulted in Lewis calling 350,000 miners from America's coalmines on April 1, 1946.

On May 10, 1946, President Truman summoned John L. Lewis and BCOA officials to the White House, but at that meeting, BCOA officials adamantly refused to establish a health and retirement fund through royalty payments. Faced with the possibility that an extended coal strike could stifle post-war economic recovery, Truman quickly issued an executive order instructing the Secretary of the Interior to seize control of BCOA operated mines, and to hammer-out an agreement with UMWA officials. Following Truman's order, Julius Krug, Secretary of the Interior, seized BCOA mines and immediately ordered all union miners back to work. However, UMWA miners stubbornly ignored Krug's order and stayed home, which resulted in President Truman quickly summoning Lewis and Secretary Krug to the White House. Following a weekend of negotiations between Krug and Lewis, the historic Krug-Lewis Agreement was reached, which resulted in union coalminers returning to the pits.

The Krug-Lewis Agreement created the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund, which would provide healthcare services for UMWA miners and their families, and provide retirement benefits for elderly or disabled miners, and to widows of qualifying miners. The Krug-Lewis Agreement also established a commission, headed by Admiral Joel T. Boone of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, to survey condition of healthcare services in America's coalfields.

Immediately upon inspection of healthcare facilities in U.S coalfields by the Boone Commission, the commission reported that three-fourths of the hospitals located in major mining regions, especially the Appalachia region, were inadequate, and failed to provide good healthcare services for most residents, including residents not tied to the mining industry. The Boone study reported, "The present practice of medicine in the coal fields on a contract basis cannot be supported. They are synonymous with many abuses. They are undesirable and in many instances deplorable."

Upon the U.S government returning the bituminous mines to operators, BCOA operators began mining under new guidelines where BCOA companies paid royalties of 10 cents per ton for every ton produced by UMWA laborers into the newly established UMWA Health and Retirement Fund. Five cents of the royalty was to provide healthcare services for miners and their families, and five cents was to provide retirement benefits for UMWA miners, or their widows.

Trustees of the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund quickly established ten regional offices to provide payments to doctors and hospitals that furnished healthcare services to UMWA miners and their families. With the federal government guaranteeing loans to finance the construction of several UMWA hospitals, managers of the fund quickly established ten Miners' Memorial Hospitals in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, the Appalachian region where healthcare was sorely deficient. The UMWA Fund pioneered one of the first "healthcare group services" with a "single-payer system" where healthcare providers outside the UMWA hospital system could receive fees for services within weeks of providing treatments. Ultimately, the fund provided free healthcare for more than 350,000 members, and their families, one of America's first large scale, 100% free, healthcare service providers in U.S. history. Remember, these UMWA miners were furnishing America with half of its energy needs, which helped to evolve America into the industrial Goliath of the world. Because very few citizens were willing to work in the most hazardous work environment in the world, insuring that UMWA miners received good healthcare services was a superb investment for America!

Eventually, the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund became so valuable to union coalminers that the union declared April 1, the day that John L. Lewis called his members from the mine to demand health and retirement benefits, John L. Lewis Day, a national UMWA holiday. However, pundit mine operators usually referred to the union's holiday as "April Fools Holiday."

Although President Truman yielded much to trade unions following the numerous strikes that evolved during the months following the end of World War II, members of Congress had gotten their belly full of union sit-downs by 1947. Hence, in June of 1947, a Republican Congress, which held the necessary votes to override an attempted veto by President Truman, enacted the Taft-Hartley Act. Taft-Hartley outlawed closed shops by guaranteeing employees the right "not" to join a union, required unions to give a 60-day notice before calling a strike, restricted union political contributions, allowed for an 80-day cooling-off period in situations where strikes could harm the well-being of the nation, and required union officials to take a oath against Communism. John L. Lewis staunchly opposed passage of the Taft-Hartley Act specifically because of those statutes regulating labor strikes.

Following the Krug-Lewis Agreement in 1946, the UMWA wanted to begin providing pensions to its elderly membership immediately, however the BCOA insisted that enough time needed allotted to allow the fund to accumulate before beginning pension payouts. Eventually, serious disputes evolved pertaining to when pension payouts to elderly miners would begin, and in March of 1948, John L. Lewis again called his membership from America's bituminous coalmines. President Truman quickly used stipulations of the Taft-Hartley Act to acquire an injunction that ordered miners back to the pits.

In response to Truman's injunction to end the coal strike, John L. Lewis stood before huge crowds of his membership, and while giving a spectacular wink, grinning from ear-to-ear, and nodding, Lewis commanded his rank-and-file members to end their sit-down. Ironically, UMWA miners obeyed Lewis's wink and nod, not his verbal command, and stayed home, which resulted in John L. Lewis receiving the first fines levied under the Taft-Hartley Act for criminal contempt.

Because President Truman desperately wished to avoid a prolonged coal strike during post-war recovery, Truman instructed Joseph Martin, Speaker of the House, and Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire to negotiate a deal between BCOA officials and UMWA officials where elderly UMWA miners could begin drawing pensions. Senator Bridges insisted that two years was long enough for senior miners to wait, thus resulting in Trustees of the fund agreeing that payouts to "qualifying" miners and widows would begin immediately. Senator Bridges also convinced Trustees to define "qualifying" as miners at least 62 years old, who held a minimum of 20 years of signatory service (worked for BCOA operators for 20 years), which resulted in Horace Ainscough of Wyoming receiving the first UMWA pension check in September of 1948. Oddly, during his tenure in office, President Truman invoked stipulations within the Taft-Hartley Act, legislation that he tried to veto, on at least 12 different occasions.

In 1952, a proud John L. Lewis stood glaring over President Truman's shoulder, as Truman signed the 1952 Coal Mine Health and Safety Act into effect. However, by the 1950s, many American political leaders began to feel that autocratic rule within America's trade unions had bred corruption and deceit. In response to fears concerning corruption invading union rule, in 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower pushed the Landrum-Griffin Act (Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act) through Congress. The Landrum-Griffin Act demanded full disclosure of union affairs and the Act mandated that unions hold periodic elections with secret ballots. Ironically, the Landrum-Griffin Act would eventually save the UMWA from its on despotic rule.

Following passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act, the power of America's most prominent union leaders quickly began to fade. In 1960, John L. Lewis retired from the UMWA and Vice-president Thomas Kennedy assumed Lewis's leadership position. Miners unanimously elected William Anthony Boyle (Tony Boyle) as their new vice president however, Kennedy's health failed in 1962 thus Tony Boyle took over the top position in 1963. Boyle ruled the miners with the same autocratic style as John L. Lewis had, but as a whole, rank-and-file miners were not nearly as fond of Boyle as they had been of Lewis. At times, Boyle also removed district officials when they challenged him for his position, which ultimately led to Boyle's downfall.

In 1965, Boyle removed union district president Joseph (Jock) Yablonski from his position because Yablonski seemed to be gaining too much support from rank-and-file membership. However, in 1969, Jock Yablonski challenged Boyle for the UMWA presidency in what appeared to be shaping up as a close, and heated, election. Although Boyle won that UMWA national election by a 2-1 margin, Yablonski used stipulations within the Landrum-Griffin Act to request that the U.S. Labor Department investigate election fraud.

Jock Yablonski launched his election fraud complaint on December 18, 1969, but by December 31 of that same year, Yablonski was dead. Tony Boyle secretly hired hitmen to snuff-out Yablonski, and those hitmen murdered Yablonski, his wife, and his 25-year-old daughter while they slept at Yablonski's home.

The day that the murders of the Yablonski family made headlines, 20,000 UMWA coalminers in West Virginia went on strike for one day protesting the scandalous act in which that they suspected their own union president's involvement. It took federal investigators nearly two years to unravel the Yablonski murder mysteries, and in the end, those investigations proved many union members correct, as Boyle was indeed the culprit. Investigators for the Labor Department, along with FBI agents, also discovered that Boyle had actually used embezzled union funds to pay the hitmen.

Tony Boyle, UMWA president from 1963-1972, died in prison at the age of 83 while serving three consecutive life terms for the murders of the Yablonski family.

Following Tony Boyle's murder conviction, rank-and-file members of the UMWA elected Arnold Miller as their new president. Miller, a third generation coalminer, who was quite good-natured, was an extremely patriotic soul who possessed a funny looking ear caused from a wound that he received during World War II. Miller volunteered for the U.S. Army during the war and took several bullets in the invasion of Normandy, which resulted in him having more than 20 surgeries. Although Arnold Miller possessed many positive personality traits, he did not possess the bulldog tenacity required to maintain control over the rugged rank-and-file miners. He was no John L. Lewis!

While campaigning for president of the UMWA, Arnold Miller promised union members that he would allow rank-and-file members to pre-approve all contract proposals before he actually signed any binding agreement with BCOA executives. After successfully winning the UMWA presidency, Miller delivered on his promise but too much democracy within UMWA ranks proved to be disastrous for the union.

In 1974, Miller's miners, unable to ratify a contract proposal, struck 28 days, returning to work after President Nixon threatened them with a federal court injunction under guidelines of the Taft-Hartley Act. In union country, the 1970s became a decade filled with wildcat strikes (unauthorized strikes). If a particular local union became upset over matters at a mine site, local officials often called sit-downs and after a two or three-day mine production shutdown, it was common for miners to return to work unable to explain why they had walked away from their job in the first place. In past years, John L. Lewis had pulled union locals' charters and appointed new local officials when miners participated in wildcats, but Arnold Miller did not have a clue as how to hold local officers in step with policies that promoted the UMWA throughout North America.

Skyrocketing oil prices during the late-1970s drove the price of coal through the roof, which resulted in mining companies receiving extraordinarily high prices for their product through much of the 1970s. Union coalminers, being aware of the potential profit for mine operators selling coal at sky-high prices, struck randomly with little regard to repercussions that could occur if the coal market should take a drastic downturn, and it would. As sporadic wildcatting continued, especially in the metallurgical coalfields of the Appalachia region where operators were receiving three and four-times the cash for a ton of coal, as were steam-coal producers, Arnold Miller began losing control of his union. As wildcatting flourished, many U.S. citizens began to doubt the dependability of any sort of union labor.

When the UMWA contract expired on December 6, 1977, more than 150,000 UMWA miners walked-off the job. Miller and his negotiating team thought they had hammered-out a good contract deal with the BCOA in the first week of February 1978, however, rank-and-file members voted the proposal down on February 6. The main snag to contract negotiations hinged around the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund, which had become severely underfunded for various reasons, and resulted in BCOA operators viewing the fund as far too short to keep throwing royalty payments into what they considered a black hole.

In January of 1978, a Presidential Coal Commission reported that healthcare services in America's coalfields had vastly improved over those services provided to mining families prior to the 1950s. The commission suggested that the UMWA Fund was greatly responsible for improvements in healthcare facilities throughout the Appalachia region because the fund had helped to lure skilled providers with its quick payments for services, and through its modern Miners' Memorial Hospitals. In fact, the original architect of the UMWA Health and Retirement Fund, John L. Lewis, had actually received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in 1964 due to the important role that his UMWA Fund played in achieving better healthcare services throughout the Appalachian coalfields. Nevertheless, by the 1970s, the fund had become highly shorted because of rapidly escalating healthcare costs, families visiting doctor offices much too often in a system absent co-pays, crooked providers submitting thousands of fictitious bills, and rampant double billing. Ironically, the rapid reimbursement attributes of the fund that had been responsible for elevating healthcare services for miners, was now allowing abuses to strangle the entire system.

In the new contract proposal that lay on Miller's negotiating table, the draft that BCOA operators would accept but rank-and-file members despised, BCOA operators would purchase medical insurance for its active miners. The proposed medical insurance would pay 80% of medical expenses for union miners, and their family members, whereas the UMWA Fund's "gold card' was paying 100% —there may have been $5 co-pay for a time with the initial miner's medical card. Healthcare coverage became the major sticking point for Miller's contract negotiations, as union miners were mad as hell that Arnold Miller would even consider surrendering their priceless medical card. Rank-and-file members wanted to know who would furnish them with medical insurance after they retired from a small mining outfit, whereas the company quickly followed the RICH, old tradition of going broke just before opening a new mine, while operating under a new name.

On March 6, 1978, President Carter used provisions within the Taft-Hartley Act to obtain an injunction that ordered Miller's miners back to work. Irate over the possibility of losing their treasured medical card, union miners remained on the picket line; most were packing heat too!

Finally, on March 19, after getting beat down by a 103-day strike, UMWA rank-and-file members returned to the mines after reluctantly approving a contract where they surrendered their priceless UMWA healthcare card for a medical insurance with provided 80/20 coverage. On March 29, 1978, Arnold Miller still frazzled from his desperate attempts to hammer-out a deal that was acceptable to his members, suffered a stroke, following a heart attack. Although the UMWA leadership abruptly changed hands, inefficient leadership throughout much of the decade of the 1970s had created doubts about the dependability of UMWA labor, and the long 103-day strike proved to be the straw that broke the union's back. UMWA membership waned.

As the 1980s began, many large mining companies hired numerous small contract operators to develop various undersized mines in mammoth coal boundaries, instead of depending on one huge, underground complex. A major portion of those small, fly-by-night outfits operated on a shoe-string budget where the outfits went broke and filed bankruptcy within a couple years after start up, while owing millions of dollars to the UMWA Retirement Fund. Those numerous bankruptcies left the trust so short that it would be impossible for the Fund to provide full pensions to vested retirees once they became of retirement age. Although those large mining companies quickly replaced bankrupted contractors with new subcontractors, which provided miners with jobs, it did nothing to shore-up existent shortages in the Fund.

During the late-1980s, a few of the larger BCOA operators withdrew from the BCOA altogether, as they felt that they were throwing man-hour royalty payments into a retirement fund that grew its liabilities with each passing month. Withdrawals of some large operators from the BCOA proved disasters to an already underfunded trust, and in 1989, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole appointed the Coal Commission to find a feasible solution for making the UMWA Fund solvent prior to thousands of union miners, with decades of signatory service, applying for their retirements.

Following recommendation of the Coal Commission, in 1992, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced legislation in Congress that would allow for the transfer of surplus funds from the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fund, into the underfunded UMWA Health and Retirement Fund. After the U.S. Congress passed Rockefeller's Coal Act in 1992, and money was transferred into the UMWA Fund, nonunion operators cried foul. Ironically, the nonunion coal operators were actually the major contributors to the Reclamation Fund now that UMWA membership had dwindled significantly during the 1970s and 1980s. Nonunion operators claimed the transfers amounted to Socialism. However, old union miners that had already worked decades at the most hazardous occupation in the world—most hazardous after factoring in Black Lung—claimed that only an aristocratic form of government would allow deceitful corporate executives to shirk paying promised benefits by utilizing corporate shell games played through subcontractors, while paying themselves fortunes in salaries. Although nonunion operators held legitimate arguments against transferring funds from the Reclamation Fund, old union miners' arguments that supported the transfers were valid too.
By the end of the twentieth century, the saga of the mighty UMWA had come nearly full circle. Founded in 1890, the UMWA had evolved from a bargaining organization that coalmine operators initially refused to recognize, to the most powerful trade union in the world with more than 350,000 members working in U.S. mines by the late-1940s, all of which carried full coverage medical cards. Today, only several thousand active laborers belong to the UMWA, which accounts for a nearly 91% reduction since 1941. However, much of that reduction can be attributed to a 79% overall decline in U.S. coalmining jobs since 1941.

In America since 1950, improved coalmining technologies and enhanced mining systems vastly increased coal production per-man-hour, which resulted in the loss of thousands of mining jobs. Due to new technologies for smelting iron initially developed during the 1960s, many steel mills now blow mists of coke-dust mixed with powdered iron ore into smelting furnaces instead of filling furnaces with coke-briquettes and chunks of ore. This new smelting technology, along with China's increased production of steel, and America's discovery of more efficient methods to produce lightweight alloys, has significantly reduced America's use of metallurgical coal. In fact, metallurgical coal production now accounts for less than 5% of total U.S. coal output, whereas prior to the 1960s, metallurgical coal accounted for 45% of all U.S. coal production.

Agreeing or disagreeing with the transfers from the Reclamation Fund, and loving or hating the union, there can be no denying that for quite some time in America, and in Canada, the UMWA used all its political influence to acquire health and retirement benefits for its membership, and to force legislators to enact sound mining laws.

You did know that there was a time when many Canadian miners also belonged to the UMWA! In fact, in 1958, one of the most violent mountain bumps ever to occur on the continent of North America occurred at a UMWA affiliated mine at Springhill, Nova Scotia. Ironically, it has been those very mining tragedies, like Springhill, which have served to promote safer underground mines. Although the heart wrenching Springhill disaster would teach the coalmining world a valuable lesson concerning the need for good mining practices, nearly five decades later, a deep canyon in Utah would serve as a reminder of just how quickly critical lessons can be forgotten.

Chapter 7

Springhill's Colossal "Mountain Bump"

Severe mountain bumps are actually seismic events that result from specific underground mining practices in deeply buried coal beds. Through the years, mountain bumps have resulted in several awful mine disasters! Mountain bumps killed: five miners at Wise, VA in 1929; eight at Gilberton, PA in 1930; six at Praco, AL in 1938; and five at Crucible, PA in 1945. In 1948, six coalminers died at Dante, VA due to a mountain bump, and that same year, six died at Caples, WV from the phenomena. In West Virginia, mountain bumps killed five miners at Glen Rogers in 1957 and six at Lundale in 1958.13 Also in 1958, perhaps the most devastating mountain bump ever to occur on the continent of North America jarred a coalmine tucked deeply beneath the tiny mining community of Springhill, Nova Scotia, in Canada. The Springhill tragedy was heart wrenching!

A severe "mountain bump," referred to as bump, bounce, burst, or outburst in specific mining regions, is the progressive overloading of coal supports with vertical stresses to the degree that coal pillars abruptly explode. The term "bump" actually originates from the bumping sound made high overhead when extremely thick rock strata makes a major shift along a fracture line, following the yielding of coal pillar supports.

On the surface, severe mountain bumps often shake the ground similar to mild earthquakes. Even though mountain bumps usually register on seismographs, geologists can easily differentiate bumps from quakes because bump activity is restricted to small areas. One reason today's geologists, using seismographs, have little difficulty in identifying mountain bumps is due to extensive studies of bumps by Canadian geologist and mining engineers, during the three decades following the 1920s, especially those studies done in the extremely deep coal beds in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

In North America, for more than a century, mine operators have primarily used two basic methods for extracting deeply buried coal beds: the "room and pillar method" and the "longwall retreat mining method." During the room and pillar method of mining, miners "develop" entries (tunnels) by extracting coal in a honeycombing manner, where miners purposely leave huge coal pillars for roof support. In driving on solid (developing the initial tunnels), miners actually leave more coal standing for support than what they extract, but upon reaching the coal boundary, miners reverse their direction of assault as they begin the orderly extraction of coal pillars in "retreat mining" mode. Soon following the extraction of a row of support pillars, the roof caves-in. These intentional cave-ins are necessary to prevent undue vertical stresses created by cantilevered roof strata left hanging. Intentional roof falls are essential to safe retreat mining! However, retreat pillar mining can become quite tricky when attempting to extract as much coal as possible to allow mine roofs to cave-in quickly, while at the same time, insuring that equipment and miners are not covered with intentional cave-ins. By placing strong vertical supports, timbers or hydraulic jacks, at proper locations, cantilevered roof strata can be made to break off near desired locations. Nevertheless, intentional roof falls can also be quite risky since cave-ins often fail to stay within intended parameters, and the precise timing of cave-ins are impossible to predict.

Once, following an awful calamity caused by a mountain bump, a news commentator covering the catastrophe commented, "retreat pillar mining is extremely hazardous, and the practice should be banned," which is an utterly unreasonable statement. Banning retreat pillar mining would make about as much sense as attempting to ban all big-rigs from the highway because semi-trucks often destroy several passenger vehicles during one crash. In fact, mining companies usually incorporate retreat pillar mining with the room-and-pillar method of mining in order to safely, and efficiently, mine small boundaries, or extract low seam boundaries while avoiding the potential for mountain bumps. Mountain bumps are usually the result of mine roofs that stubbornly resist collapsing in mined-out regions.

The second method used to extract deeply buried boundaries of coal is the "longwall retreat method." Many people think that the longwall method is a relatively new mining method, but nothing could be farther from the truth. One primitive form of longwall mining evolved in England during the 1700s when miners dug and blasted coal across long walls of coal, and used wooden supports to shelter their narrow workspace. As the mined-out region away from the coal wall supplied excessive vertical stress to support posts, the roof caved-in tightly behind where miners extracted coal along the wall. By the 1940s, miners were using bottom-shearing machines, jackhammers and blasting agents to loosen coal across 500-foot longwall faces, and pack-walls to shelter their workspace. Pack-walls consisted of cribs built of square, wooden cribbing blocks, where miners packed refuse rock inside cribs, and between the spacing of cribs.

In the first picture, miners shovel coal, which they have blasted from the longwall face at their backs, onto a conveyor chain-line. Cribs built from square cribbing blocks stand on the left side of the conveyor line and provide the primary roof support to protect these hand-loaders. Notice how the vertical supports make for an extremely tight workspace! Miners often packed refuse rock in all open spaces along crib-lines, and in the middle of cribs, to form pack-walls for roof support.

The second picture illustrates a modern longwall shearer, chain-line as a conveyor system, and huge chocks set against the mine roof to serve as roof support. Today's longwall mining units are the most efficient underground mining systems ever devised, as modern longwalls are capable of excavating several-hundred tons of coal an hour, sometimes a thousand.

Modern longwall mining systems often utilize shearers to cut 36-inch swaths across 1,000-foot longwall faces, as mammoth hydraulic jacks (chocks) shield the miners' workplace. When things go as planned, the mine roof quickly cave-ins tightly behind the mammoth chocks. Although modern shearers, chocks, and conveyor-lines allow current longwall systems to produce coal significantly faster, considerably safer, and with fewer men than longwall systems prior to the 1960s, the sequence of extracting longwall blocks has remained primarily the same for decades.

The most destructive mountain bump on the continent of North America occurred in a coalmine using the longwall mining method in Nova Scotia in 1958 where coal was hand-loaded onto a conveyor system. The horrendous bump in Nova Scotia knocked the mining world back on its heels, and taught mining experts a lesson on just how severe mountain bumps could be if mine operators ignore critical warning signs.

The coal seams underneath Springhill, Nova Scotia, are unique in that the seams actually folded millions of years ago when the earth's plates shifted, which left portions of Springhill's seams pitched more than 30 degrees—portions of beds literally stood upright. Ironically, at the folds, some coal beds outcropped (lay exposed) in driveways before seams dropped nearly a mile below the earth's surface. Initially, there were at least seven mineable coal beds buried beneath Springhill, and because the No. 2 seam averaged 9 feet in height, it was one of the most valued of all seven beds.

In 1873, Canadian miners opened the Springhill No. 2 Mine by developing, at the outcrop, two extremely pitched parallel slopes into the No. 2 seam. By 1917, as miners worked the 5400 level of the mine, mountain bumps began to cause significant hindrance to production—the sloped 5400 level was actually at a vertical depth of 2,200 feet. In 1924, after consulting with the chief mining engineer for the USBM, Dr. Rice, the operator of No. 2 Mine switched to the longwall retreat method of mining in order to reduce tendencies for mountain bumps.

In 1958, Springhill No. 2 miners yet used the longwall system to mine coal. Miners working the longwall faces used air chisels, hand picks, and blasting agents to loosen coal to accommodate hand-loading (shoveling). Miners shoveled loose coal onto a noisy pan-line that dumped onto a conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt dumped coal into boxcars, which ran on rails. A cable hoist ultimately pulled the loaded boxcars up the 30% slope to the outside.

Miners inside Springhill No. 2 built pack-walls for their chock-line supports by erecting dozens of wooden cribs in a straight line, and by packing refuse rock in all open spaces along the crib lines.

Although early pack-walls, as used at Springhill, would be a great disadvantage to modern, mobile, hydraulic chock systems, those early pack-walls provided the necessary roof support for coalmining companies to obtain high-output mining for those perspective eras.

In 1958, to establish high-production at No. 2 mine, the standard longwall retreat procedure consisted of longwall crews mining three adjacent longwall blocks (mammoth coal pillars) in unison, while other mine crews worked at developing additional longwall blocks elsewhere in the mine. Longwall blocks were 400 feet wide, approximately 5,000 feet deep, and around 9 feet high. Twenty-two miners shoveled coal along each 400-foot longwall face.

The Mighty Mountain Bump

On October 23, 1958, at approximately 3:00 p.m., 174 Canadians catch the hoist-lowered trolley down the 30% slope into Springhill No. 2 Mine. The majority of this second shift gang belongs to UMWA Local 4514. They are good natured, rugged, and hardworking miners that rarely miss a shift's work, and never participate in unauthorized strikes. Second shift loading crews quickly take up positions on all three active longwalls blocks and begin loosening and shoveling coal. Hand-loading coal across walls, where the air is terribly dusty, is dangerous and difficult work.

Around 7:00 p.m. inside No. 2, the mountain loudly bumps, and vibrates the mine floor with such severity that miners suddenly halt work. Immediately, miners stop the irritating sounds of loud pan-lines and listen for other abnormal bumps, but when all sounds okay, miners hurriedly resume shoveling coal. Because Springhill miners receive a bonus-tonnage rate after loading beyond a specified quantity of coal, production crews kick into high gear with their shoveling since the baby-bump has thrown loose, easy, gravy coal all across the mine floor near the active walls.

Inside No. 2 Mine around 8:05 p.m., near the 13800 wall, four loud thuds occur in rapid succession, but with these earsplitting bumps, the mountain delivers a hammer-like blow. The mighty blow pulverizes outer edges of all three active walls as mine floors catapult upwards, hurtling numerous miners against the mine roof, as outbursts of coal bury dozens of miners. Quickly, a blinding dust storm rolls across most active sections of No. 2 Mine and an eerie hush rapidly infiltrates the mine as the roaring sounds of vibrating pan-lines and conveyor lines abruptly halt. The mountain at Springhill has delivered its mighty bump, and it is a gargantuan one at that!

Arthur Noiles, an underground overman (boss), along with two other miners, are near the 13000 level when the catastrophic mountain bump occurs. Noiles, at first thinks that his world has come to end.

Within seconds following the mammoth bounce, gigantic shockwaves jet 2,000 feet up as houses shake, windows rattle, and dishes jangle. In response to the tremendous ground vibration, several Springhill residents rush to the mine office and offer their services. Off-duty bosses, staff for the Department of Mines, UMWA miners, and UMWA Safety Committeemen rush to volunteer. Arnold Burden, a local doctor that practices at the town clinic also offers his assistance.

Mine manger George Calder quickly organizes 13 of the volunteers to accompany him down the front slope, but Calder initially denies Dr. Burden entrance to the mine because Burden's services are much to valuable to risk losing him while exploring the first few hundred feet in.

Calder and his volunteers quickly drop to the slope bottom where Calder orders Noiles and dozens of other miners to catch the trolley out. Additionally, Calder calls outside ordering the hoisting attendant to begin dropping in mine rescue teams and Dr. Burden.

Around 9:30 p.m., Dr. Burden and ten mine rescue crewmembers arrive underground at the level slope landing. Burden is barefaced (without breathing device) while rescue crewmembers carry un-donned McCaa SCBA strapped to their back, which are bulky, weighing in at approximately 38 pounds. Additionally, mine rescue team members carry smaller, un-donned, 1-hour, Chemox apparatuses weighing about 13 pounds, which may help with maneuverability when finagling through tight spaces.

In an attempt to explore inside No. 2 Mine rapidly, Calder and his gang scamper through the mine only halting occasionally to hang curtain to replace blown-down stoppings. After Calder determines that the 13800 wall may be the easiest to access, he hurriedly dispatches mine rescue teams accompanied by Dr. Burden toward the 13800 wall. Because heaving floors and outbursts of coal have blocked most accesses to the 13800 wall, rescuers use picks to dig holes in pack-walls to achieve travelways through sections of the gob line (regions with intentional cave-ins). Although the gob line is not a safe or easy path to travel, without hesitation, trapped miners scamper through newly chiseled holes, scurry across falls, and begin their march toward the outside. It is a solemn sight that rescuers see, black-faced miners limping along while securely clutching a dangling arm, hobbling while grasping a contorted leg, or tightly pressing a bloodstained handkerchief against a cheek. Although victims grimace with pain, they whimper little, and shed nary a tear.

Even though rescuers rushing to help miners trapped inside Springhill No. 2 Mine are elated to discover survivors, rescue personnel become disheartened when they notice bright puddles of blood oozing from underneath mounds of coal. Hurriedly, exploring crewmembers strike chalk marks high on mine walls near bright puddles so they can recognize the spot when they return specifically to recover bodies. As for now, the dead will have to wait until rescuers finish searching for survivors.

Unable to explore the entire length of the 13800 wall, a half-dozen rescue crewmembers, accompanied by Dr. Burden, begin exploring up the 13400 wall. Burden and his gang quickly come upon a group of rescuers gathered around Leon Melanson, who rescuers have been unable to dig free. Melanson lays packed to his neck in coal, with only a small section of his left shoulder, and a portion of his face, exposed. Conscious and coherent, Melanson moans occasionally as he struggles to breathe, thus Dr. Burden quickly injects Melanson with Demerol. However, Doc swiftly moves on administering treatment for broken bones, bleeding wounds, and severely bruised trunks, as rescuers continue freeing trapped miners.

After a few hours of treating victims in vicinity of the 13400 wall, Doc receives word from rescue crews that they need him to return to Leon Melanson. It seems that Melanson is sitting on a buried miner, whose leg is folded across Melanson's chest, which prevents crews from jerking Melanson free. Rescuers want Doc to return and saw off the leg of the deceased miner so they can snatch Melanson to safety without digging any more!

Quickly, Dr. Burden rushes back to Leon Melanson where he finds Melanson again experiencing excruciating pain. Without hesitation, Doc shoots-up Melanson again with Demerol, but Doc thinks that there is something strange about that mangled leg, which supposedly has Melanson fouled, something too odd for Doc to put a finger on.

Suddenly, and out-of-the-blue, Doc informs rescuers that the contorted leg could actually belong to Melanson, and Doc wants rescuers to dig both Melanson and the dead man free. Now rescuers are utterly astonished that Doc could suggest such a ridiculous thing, as Melanson would surely recognize, and feel, his own leg. After whispering back and forth, rescuers confer that pressure from all the hazardous lurking underground is starting to cloud Doc Burden's thinking. However, rescuers are unaware that neither tragedy, nor danger, rattles Doc because Doc treated many horribly mangled war victims during World War II. Doctor Burden insists that rescuers dig deep enough to uncover Melanson, and his deceased sidekick.

Quickly, rescuers comply with Burden's command and dig deeper, to find that Doc is right; the mangled leg indeed belongs to Melanson. Rescuers immediately snatch Melanson free and get him to the outside.

Sadly, Leon Melanson will endure more torment in the following days as hospital staff amputates his smashed leg in a desperation move to save his life—like a cat with nine lives, the rugged Melanson survived Springhill's mine explosion in 1956, as well as Springhill's mammoth mountain bump.

At Springhill No. 2 Mine, October 24, 1958 ends with 81 miners escaping the catastrophe, and recovery crews recouping 6 bodies. Somewhere in the dark, damp, and partially toxic-filled abyss, 87 Canadian miners lay either trapped, or dead.

In days following October 24, Springhill rescue workers risk their lives while exploring in extraordinarily dangerous environments in bold attempts to reach survivors. However, the morale of fatigued rescue crews quickly erodes in the wave of shattered mine roofs, extremely high concentrations of CH4 that often exceed 18%, oxygen deficiencies, additional heaving of mine floors, destroyed pack-walls, and signs indicating other bumps imminent. Even though additional mine rescue teams are called in from other regions of Canada, a feeling of hopelessness quickly settles in with nervous, exhausted rescue personnel. Then on October 29, exhausted crews working to free a path to the 13000 wall hear Gordon Kemp holler out. Astonishingly, Kemp and eleven comrades have survived six days of entrapment with little food or water even though one miner suffers from internal injuries and another agonizes with a broken leg.

Rescuers quickly run a pipe within 61 feet of Kemp and his comrades, and squirt compressed air through into the trap-zone. Next, rescuers use a wire stretcher threaded on a hemp rope and pull loose coal away from the trap-zone, but as the walk space narrows, miners form a bucket-line and pass buckets of coal away from the entombment. Because work along the bucket-line progresses extremely slow, rescuers push 100 feet of ½-inch diameter copper tubing into the trap-zone and pump lifesaving liquid nourishment to the distressed miners. Practically starving, Kemp's gang gulps down nourishment fed through the giant straw, and hang tight until 2:30 a.m. on October 30, when rescuers dig through and free all 12. Astonishingly, the rugged Canadians have toughed it out for an entire week, but all appear in good spirits, even the busted-up ones.

The rescue of Gordon Kemp and his 11 comrades restores hope within rescue crews working in the decimated No. 2 Mine and in turn, rescuers work tirelessly at locating other missing men.

On November 1, marking the eighth day following the Springhill mountain bump, rescuers' tireless efforts payoff at 4 a.m. when crews exploring the 13000 wall find six more survivors. Just prior to 7:00 a.m., rescuers find and snatch one more lost miner free, and get him outside.

On November 6, 1958, rescue crews remove the 74th body from Springhill No. 2 Mine, but following one rescued victim succumbing to injuries on November 23, the victims-tally finishes at 75.

Following the end to the Springhill tragedy, in January of 1959, a commission held public hearings to explore the causes for the mammoth mountain bump, hoping to avert similar catastrophes. The fact that Springhill No. 2 Mine was one of the deepest coalmines in the continent of North America, other coal beds above No. 2 had already been mined, and portions of the roof strata were strong composite sandstone that slowed intentional cave-ins, all helped to contribute to the terrible Springhill tragedy. However, a more serious underlying cause to the Springhill bump may be in the fact that, even though the No. 2 seam lay on a terrible incline, the east side of the mine was developed, and retreated, as the mine drove deeper and deeper down the grade. In fact, longwall retreat mining should have first begun with longwall blocks developed in the deepest recesses of the mine, the 14200 level, not the upper levels of the terrible sloped coal bed.

At the public hearings held in 1959, a union laborer mentioned that the mountain consistently warned Springhill miners that stresses from previous mined-out longwall blocks were riding with miners as they advanced down the grade. However, none of mine management paid serious attention to all the mountain's portentous warning signs.

For the grand heroics of those courageous residents of Springhill who dashed underground during some of the direst underground conditions imaginable in a coalmine, the town of Springhill received the Carnegie Hero Award. It was the first time in history that a community ever received the commendation.

Primarily due to Springhill's catastrophic mountain bump, which was the first major mining disaster ever extensively covered by a major television broadcast, CBS, today, the mining world is a lot smarter concerning mountain bumps. Nevertheless, the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah, in 2007, reminded us that even with today's modern mining techniques, catastrophic mountain bumps will yet occur when operators ignore warning signs.

Chapter 8

Forever Entombed at Farmington

During the two decades of the 1940s and 1950s, as more efficient methods of extracting and shuttling coal underground evolved, coalmining throughout America changed significantly. In the late-1940s, the evolution of roof-bolts, expansion bolts anchored in holes drilled in the mine roof, as the primary means of roof support paved the way for mine operators to mechanize. Timbers and cribs used for roof supports had once severely hampered the movement of large equipment underground because mine roofs often collapsed following equipment incidentally dislodging props. Because large equipment could easily shuttle about underneath roof-bolts, mine operators readily incorporated bolts into their roof support plans, thus making the way for coal-hauling and excavating equipment to buzz around, underground, like mad bees.

As mines in America mechanized, tons produced per-man-hour significantly increased, which ultimately resulted in the layoffs of thousands of coalminers. Heck, the coalminer could not catch a break because the more coal that he produced, the more jobs were lost. Around 1950, when mechanization began seriously creeping into America's coalmines, 483,000 miners labored in America's collieries. After the dust settled from mechanization around 1964, 150,000 U.S coalminers were all left standing. In America during the late-1950s, a considerable number of mining accidents occurred in small, contract mines that employed less than 15 men because those small mines were exempt from federal regulation. However, in 1961, the U.S. Congress amended the 1952 Act to hold jurisdiction over all coalmines, even the smallest of producers.

The 1960s proved a decade of enlightenment for America as President John F. Kennedy challenged us to land on the moon, and American began stepping forward to meet its new challenges. The decade also ushered in good times for America economically, even though there was much civil unrest in specific regions, especially the South. Although the black man had been unshackled for an entire century by the time the late-1960s rolled in, television broadcasts aired the dirty little secret concerning many southern states still denying African-Americans the right to vote, eat in public restaurants, and use of public restrooms. Even though there were only 222 coalmining fatalities in America's mines in 1967, many of America's mine operators were keeping a secret concerning their industry, in that thousands coalminers were actually dying a slow suffocating death from lung disease. The onset of the horrific, asphyxiating disease seemed to afflict miners sometime after reaching 50 years of age, but once diagnosed, progression of the disease advanced shockingly fast. Hence, many of America's seasoned coalminers were suffering an inhumane death before reaching their mid-60s! Mine operators had known about the lung disease as early as the 1930s when physicians were signing death certificates, "cause of death," "occupational pneumonia." Following significant autopsies research during the early-1960s, experts in the medical field began referring to the horrid lung disease as Pneumoconiosis. Because miners often found pronouncing Pneumoconiosis to be a tongue twister, they simply referred to their pulmonary nightmare as "black lung."

In January 1967, as three astronauts performed a simulated launch while seated in a cabin pressurized with 100% oxygen, Apollo I burned up on the launch pad, killing three of America's fines. In response to the disaster with Apollo I, NASA turned to the more than 40-year-old technology first perfected by the Draeger Company, oxygen generation through potassium super oxide, to supply oxygen in space capsules. Nevertheless, as efficient as potassium super oxide was in generating oxygen for space flight, and for mine rescue gear, mining experts deemed the technology too expensive for America's coalminers to hold on standby in the event of a mine explosion. Although there had been more than an 80% reduction in the number of coalmining fatalities from 1947 to 1967, there was plenty of room for improvement in mine safety. Sadly, much of those needed improvements would come riding in with winds from a cataclysmic explosion at No. 9 Mine located about seven miles north of Monongah, at Farmington, West Virginia.

The gently rolling hills that stand guard over the calm, meandering Monongahela River provides concealment for the Pittsburgh coal bed, the coal seam that has yielded more tons of bituminous coal via underground-production, than any other coal seam in North America, perhaps in the world. In the autumn of 1968, the tender slopes watching over the Monongahela River again stood ready to interrupt the serenity along the river valley and create a nightmare for many coalmining families in Northern West Virginia.

Initially established in 1864, Consolidated Coal Company—with slight variations of the "Consolidated" name like, CONSOL, etc., over the years—mined coal in America for nearly 150 years. From its initial inception, Consolidated mined bituminous coal from the Monongahela River Basin where the mining company, along with its many different subsidiaries, rapidly grew into the largest underground producer of bituminous coal in the world. It stayed as the top-producer for decades.

When comparing the safety record of Consolidated to other mining companies during the last half of the 20th Century, Consolidated Coal ranked near the top of the list as one of the safest mining companies in America. In fact, Consolidated Coal and U.S. Steel Mining Company spent fortunes through the years insuring that they had some of the best trained and finest equipped mine rescue teams on the planet. Regardless of how safety conscious any mining outfit appears, it only takes a couple of seconds with the wrong conditions inside any coalmine, and that mine, in the blink of an eye, can turn into the worst hellhole imaginable.

Jamison Coal and Coke Company initially opened the No. 9 Mine at Farmington in 1910, but Consolidated Coal purchased the mine in 1954. By 1968, Mountaineer Coal Company, a subsidiary of Consolidated, operated No. 9 Mine, which consisted of nearly 50 square miles of active and abandoned works. Because of No. 9's extensive mined-out regions, its return airways expelled nearly 7,918,000 cubic feet of highly combustible methane every 24 hours─about 94,000 cubic feet of methane will heat an average sized house in a northern state, for one year.

The Big Blast

The evening of November 19, 1968 was a cold, snow-flurry day in the northern coalfields of West Virginia. In the seven days leading up to November 19, barometer readings around Farmington frequently dipped to less than 29 inches of mercury─a condition that typically promotes methane to bleed-out into the active works of coalmines. During the evening shift on November 19, 1968, George Wilson, section foreman for 7-South Section, loses nearly 2½ hours of production when excessive accumulations of methane forces Wilson to de-energize his section electricity and to improve ventilation. On Main West Section during the very same shift, Zack Springer, loading machine operator, shuts down his loading machine twice and makes repairs to ventilation because excessive concentrations of methane are building near face regions (extraction regions). Because No. 9 Mine is such an enormous underground complex and many of its methane bleeder entries have caved-in, and have gathered water, it is getting harder and harder to provide adequate ventilation for the ten production sections as more of the mine becomes worked-out. To compound hazards posed by buildups of methane that are occurring quite frequently inside No. 9, there are major accumulations of dry coal dust throughout the mine, and the cold snap has exacerbated those dusty conditions since cold air circulating through mines tend to jerk all the moisture from the mine, and re-deposit it outside. Just in the last two weeks, several union miners have made complaints concerning accumulations of excessive coal dust to Stanley Plachta, union Safety Committeeman.

A little past midnight on November 20, 1968, ninety-nine Mountaineer Coal Company miners, the hoot-owl shift, plunge underground and take over production duties from second shift crews. Most of the hoot-owl crews are composed of six to eight men, and nothing out of ordinary occurs as various squads initially start puking out coal—face work, extracting coal, is very redundant work, but someone must keep America's lights burning.

By 5:30 a.m. on November 20, about the time that a few Farmington dayshift miners kill their alarm clocks and rollover to re-snuggle in anticipation of catching five more minutes of shuteye, a slight vibration tickles the grass and pavements in regions around Farmington. Unknown to sleepy Farmington residents, more than 600 feet beneath their snug little town, a methane ignition has just occurred. As an enormous shockwave kicks out from one of No. 9's coal producing sections, huge volumes of dry coal dust suspend into the mine atmosphere, and as a lagging fireball, fueled by methane, ignites that suspended coal dust, another shock surge develops, and barrels ahead. The second shockwave is mammoth, and as it speeds more than 1,000 feet per second through the Westside of No. 9, it kicks up additional coal dust, and further feeds the lagging fireball that is now fueled by pure coal dust.

The awesome shock surge from the methane-coal-dust explosion inside No. 9 Mine destroys overcasts and stoppings as it crunches mortar joints, and flings 70-pound cinderblocks hundreds of feet through crosscut entries. As the fearsome force breaches the surface at Llewellyn Shaft, the bathhouse building and the lamp house-supply building crumble. The giant shock surge obliterates the hoisting facility in Llewellyn Shaft, and goes on to demolish several automobiles parked in the asphalted parking lot. Even though Nos. 3 and 4 fans above Mods Run and Llewellyn shafts are approximately 8,000 feet apart, tremendous shockwaves destroy both fans in the blink of an eye. This blast, with its violent intensity, is the "Big Boy," the methane-coal-dust explosion that rattles the very fabric that makes-up those rugged men who toil underground for a living.

A little more than an hour following the terrible blast inside No. 9 Mine, Robert Mullins and Henry Conway, mechanics for the underground shop near the Athas Shaft, ride the Athas elevator up to safety. Mullins and Conway are the first two lucky-miners out.

Because No. 9 Mine is such an extensively large underground complex, ironically, seven miners working the A-Face Section, on the Eastside of the mine, are actually so far from the initial flash that they feel nothing out of the ordinary at 5:30 a.m. In fact, following the blast, this crew remains on their section loading coal cars for nearly an hour before someone calls inside ordering the crew to evacuate. Roy Wilson, mechanic for A-Face crew, answers the mine phone and receives the message ordering the crew to report to the slope bottom immediately, but no one mentions to Roy, that in all likelihood, there has been an explosion on the distant Westside of the mine. Wilson quickly relays the evacuation order to his boss, Jimmie Herron, and Herron rapidly gathers his face workers, kills the section electricity, and he and his gang head toward the surface. As A-Face crewmembers board their jeep, they find the jeep's reverse contactor welded-in, hence the gang lopes to the main track entry and try using a locomotive normally meant to pull loaded coal cars, but the trolley power is off. With little delay, the crew sets out hoofing-it. Continuing on foot in seven feet of mining height, A-Face crew dashes to the slope bottom where they meet-up with four other straggler miners, and at 7:00 a.m., all catch the hoist up the slope to the surface.

Now the midnight production crew of 7-South Section is loading coal at 5:30 a.m. when they abruptly lose their mine power. In most instances where mining crews lose electricity, a crewmember calls outside reporting the incident and then the crew sits around waiting to hear a reply from the outside indicating what might have caused the problem. However, 7-South crew's answer for their power-loss does not come from a surface crewmember, but rather their answer comes riding in with a whoosh-whoosh sound, followed by a turbulent windstorm of blinding dust.

As the winds die and an eerie darkness rolls over 7-South crew, Foreman Wilson yells out to his crew ordering them to get to the power transformer, find a self-rescuer, and strap-on. To prevent from getting split-up, 7-South crew squawks and chatters loudly as they fumble their way to the electrical distribution box. Crewmembers quickly don their self-rescuers (diminutive gasmasks), grab their coats, gather their lunch buckets containing drinking water, and retrieve two large all-service gasmasks, as they tear-off towards the outside. As the fleeing 7-South crew arrives near the mouth of their section, they discover an overcast (key ventilation structure) and several stoppings blown-out with no fresh air coming their way. Quickly, Wilson decides that getting his crew to the unfinished Mahan airshaft, nearby, is their only shot at surviving.

No. 9 Mine's Mahan Shaft is a new mineshaft that Mountaineer Coal sunk explicitly to improve mine ventilation, and to cut-down on travel time, but the shaft is unfinished, as management awaits arrival of hoisting gear from the manufacturer. Nevertheless, if 7-South crew can make their way to the Mahan Shaft and find fresh air swirling, perhaps they can hang-tough until someone scampers to lift them out with some sort of emergency lift.

Miraculously, around 6:30 a.m., 7-South crew strikes pay dirt when they reach the Mahan Shaft and find fresh eddies of air. Meanwhile on the surface at mine offices, mining officials from the USBM and the WV State Department of Mines arrive. Several of Consol's mine rescue teams are already in route to Fairmont, and USBM rescue teams and West Virginia Department of Mines teams are barreling-down on Fairmont too.

At about 7:45 a.m. on November 20, officials from No. 9 Mine, accompanied by Federal Mine Inspector Dobis and State Inspector Ashcraft, arrive at the Mahan Shaft. Officials quickly lower a mine phone attached to a copper wire down through the airshaft and within minutes, they make contact with 7-South crew and learn that the crew is struggling in bad air. The rescue gang swiftly lowers several all-purpose gasmasks down via a rope hoping that the apparatuses will buy a little time to allow for the arrival of a slow-moving crane that is already in route to Mahan. Shop mechanic Alex Kovarich and his sidekicks have already robbed a small, steel bucket normally used for shaft construction, from Mods Run intake shaft and they have the bucket sitting on the ground ready for attachment to the crane. However, at approximately 8:00 a.m., another blast rocks No. 9 Mine that sends suffocating smoke and toxic fumes up the entire length of the Mahan Shaft. The blanket of toxic afterdamp quickly sickens 7-South crewmembers as some begin to choke and gag, while others puke. A few distressed miners begin to blackout. Where is that crane!

Finally, at 8:50 a.m., following the construction crane arriving at the Mahan Shaft and crews attaching the tiny bucket to the crane's steel cable, the crane operator begins meticulously dropping the bucket, capable of accommodating three men, down through the mineshaft. At 10:08 a.m., the crane operator snatches the two most distressed miners out to safety. Practicing little caution while dropping the bucket for its second descent, the crane operator hurriedly sinks the bucket, and plucks three more miners to fresh air at 10:22 a.m. At 10:40 a.m., the crane operator hoists the last three members of 7-South crew to daylight!

Following the exit of 7-South crew from the explosion-riddled Farmington mine, there are 78 miners trapped somewhere in the infernal abyss. Although some of the best trained mine rescue teams on the planet sit on the surface waiting to enter No 9, old-man-mountain is sending some rather ominous warnings as he pukes dark curls of smoke, sparks, and ash high into the air over Farmington. At 9:30 a.m., a huge flame leaps more than 75 feet above the Llewellyn Shaft! Smoke continues billowing from Mods Run and Llewellyn shafts throughout much of the day on November 20 with only occasional interruptions of the gloomy plumes when the mountain spits flames high overhead. Sadly, the day ends at Farmington without anyone hearing a peep from the 78 trapped miners!

On November 21, management for No. 9 Mine, in a move to reduce airflow believed to be fanning the flames at the foot of Mods Run Shaft, instructs workers to place concrete caps over Mods Run intake and return airways. However, on November 22, a violent blast blows both caps high into the air, and two hours later, a bigger explosion scatters debris 2,000 feet from the Mods Run shaft opening. This last cannon-like flash catapults a 1000-gallon, steel, storage tank up the full length of the 600-foot airshaft, and as the tank violently splashes back to earth, the ground rumbles as if daring rescue crewmembers to come-on-in.

On November 22, surface drilling rigs begin mincing earth strata over No. 9 Mine in attempts to extend boreholes down to locations where rescue officials believe that trapped miners might be hunkered-down. As drills slowly grind the boreholes, on November 24 while the mountain consistently belches smoke and sporadically hiccups flames from the mineshafts, the Robinson Run No. 95 Mine rescue team and the Williams Mine rescue team enter into No. 9 Mine to explore. West Virginia inspector Walter Miller and USBM inspector M.W. McManus accompany the Robinson Run team, while WV inspector John Ashcraft and USBM inspector Joe Marshalek accompany the Williams rescue team—somewhere down the road, Walter Miller and John Ashcraft will head the WV Department of Mines. Both rescue teams enter into No. 9 in the Eastside of the mine, the side not affected by the blast where A-Face crew had continued production following the initial explosion. The Robinson Run team explores 12,000 feet but the team finds no serious threats on the Eastside where mine ventilation all seems to be intact. The Williams team finds nothing out of the ordinary in their exploration until they reach regions near the Plum Run borehole where they detect carbon monoxide, and crewmembers discover coked coal on the roof, which indicates that the blast dissipated at the borehole. The Williams team returns to the surface at 5:55 p.m. and the Robinson Run team arrives on the surface about five minutes later. Dangers are much too great in the Westside of No. 9 Mine to try exploration there!

By the end of the day on November 24, odds of there being survivors inside the volatile Westside of No. 9 Mine are running rather slim, but because miners in the past have often exhibited extraordinary knacks for surviving against insurmountable odds, rescuers will wait on additional boreholes before making a final call on whether to abandon the rescue effort. Although mine management and government agencies will provide much of the input in the final assessment of whether to continue with the rescue effort, in the end, rescue crewmembers themselves will decide if they will take additional risks.

By November 28, drilling crews have finished sinking eight boreholes into the active works of No. 9 Mine. However, air samples drawn from the boreholes show oxygen concentrations and carbon monoxide levels rather pathetic for those hoping for survivors.

Officials from Consolidated Coal, Mountaineer Coal Company, West Virginia Department of Mines, U.S. Bureau of Mines, and the UMWA participate in a meeting on November 29 and all parties agree that there could be no more survivors inside No. 9 Mine. All officials concur that the only recourse to extinguish raging mine fires is to seal the mine thus depriving the fires of oxygen. Much to the disapproval of family members of the 78 missing victims, on November 30, workers set concrete caps over all shaft opening, seal the sloped-drift, and shutdown the two remaining ventilation fans for the unharmed Eastside of No. 9 Mine. Following workers sealing the mine, management sets a target date for breaking the seals as September 12, 1969, provided air samples show practically no oxygen or carbon monoxide, which will indicate the fires have smothered out.

Christmas came sadly for many Farmington residents in 1968. Winter ended quickly, yielding to a new spring, and September rolled around ushering in anticipation for opening the tomb at Farmington. Just like planned, on September 12, 1969, crews chiseled and lifted away the concrete slabs seated over the Athas Shaft, and unsealed the mammoth catacomb! In the beginning, few mining experts actually knew of the many obstacles that recovery workers at No. 9 Mine would face, and no one expected that recovery efforts could last for an entire decade.

Since many entries in No. 9 Mine were developed with a self-supporting arch where miners purposely left cap-coal to prevent roof decay by prohibiting roof strata from being exposed to ventilating currents, mine fires caused an astonishing number of roof falls when cap-coal burned away. Many falls were 30, 40, and 50 feet high! Water, enormous roof falls, methane levels in the 60-97% range, and oxygen deficiencies were just a few of the many obstacles that rescue teams had to confront as they probed forward recovering Farmington victims. The mine recovery work was very slow, and the task was extremely dangerous, but mine rescue and recovery teams slowly grinded out their campaign by erecting permanent stoppings, building seals, installing dewatering pumps, clearing roof falls that could not be sidestepped, and restoring electricity to sections of the mine that were 600 feet behind probing apparatus teams.

Mine recovery crews found the first two Farmington victims in October of 1969 but it was actually December 1970 before crews found more victims. The recovery effort went forward with four bodies being recovered in January 1971, seven in June 1971, six in May 1972, nine in September 1972, nine in March 1974, and so-on. Recovery workers discovered their last Farmington victim in December of 1977, and although this victim only brought the recovery tally to 59, crews permanently sealed No. 9 Mine in November of 1978.

In the end, the dangerous recovery efforts at Farmington lasted ten years, and during that decade-long recovery, one worker was killed while operating a mine locomotive and another died from natural causes while working underground. Information gathered by the Bureau of Mines during the long grueling recovery gave important signs concerning much of what transpired underground on November 20, 1968. Federal investigators thought that the initial explosion probably occurred due to an ineffective bleeder system, which resulted in inadequate ventilation to gob lines that allowed methane to seep into one of the production sections. In all likelihood, a poorly maintained piece of mining machinery, or a faulty trailing cable, supplied the ignition spark for the initial blast. Investigators also felt that low barometric pressures, accumulations of fine coal dust, insufficient application of limestone dust to dilute combustible coal dust, and inadequate testing for methane might have been underlying factors for Farmington's mega-blast.

From further evidence gathered through that decade-long recovery effort, there is little doubt that at least three crews, 21 men, inside No. 9 survived the savagery of the initial blast only to succumb to afterdamp after fleeing 1,800-2,600 feet from their working faces. Because those 21 were able to run such great distances before falling-out, we can deduce that the hopcalite (chemical that renders CO harmless in gasmasks) in the men's self-rescuers rapidly depleted before crewmembers could travel to atmospheres free of afterdamp. Those 30-minute diminutive gasmasks did not afford the protection needed to evacuate from a large mine, nor did the units provide adequate protection where carbon monoxide concentrations exceeded the 1% range!

Could 1-hour oxygen-generating units have provided enough protection to allow those 21 to have escaped Farmington? To answer "yes," would be pure speculation, but to answer "no," would be utilizing the same mindset that actually denied all underground miners real protection following mine explosions for nearly 60 years. The technology to generate oxygen by utilizing potassium super oxide cartridges was initially developed by the Draeger Company during the early-1920s, yet, it was possible that miners perished at Farmington in November of 1968 because industry experts felt those innovations were too expensive, and held little practical use during the everyday routine of mining. Now that is a cold hard-fact without any speculation!

Today, in memory of the coalminers that died during the 1968 Farmington Mine Disaster, a beautiful black-granite slab containing 78 names stands near the Farmington mine site. As beautiful and serene as the setting is where that memorial slab stands, the memorial site does not even start to emphasize the importance of the Farmington Mine Disaster and the role it played in getting underground miners all across America a safer workplace. Because of the Farmington Mine Disaster, in 1969, the U.S. Congress passed the most comprehensive mine safety legislation ever enacted.

The Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 required the inspection of all underground coalmines four times annually, established mandatory fines for violations of code, and instituted criminal penalties for willful neglect of federal code. The Act declared every underground coalmine in America as "gaseous," and gave miners the right to request a federal inspection anytime that they felt conditions in a mine were unsafe. The Act prohibited coalmine operators from ventilating more than one mining unit with a single split of air—forbid sweeping dust-polluted air that had already ventilated one mining unit, across another mining unit. The 1969 Act also set respirable dust standards, and established benefits to miners who became disabled due to Black Lung Disease. However, as sweeping as the new legislation was, it failed to address many longstanding safety issues, such as supplying oxygen-generating devices to all men who worked underground.

Chapter 9

Swept Away by an Act of God

Throughout the years of the twentieth century, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky most often led our nation in the underground-production of bituminous coal, but there has also been a price to pay for being top dog, as these chief producers have also yielded the most mine disasters. Although citizens in coal-producing states are stunned when ghastly mine tragedies strike home turf, citizens are rarely overwhelmed because most have seen those same heartbreaking calamities occur time-and-again. In February of 1972, an awful mining related misfortune fell upon folks living along the Buffalo Creek region in West Virginia, and this particular calamity caught most of us off-guard. Here, in West Virginia, it has always been one's self-choosing to be an underground miner; shoot, no one twists our arms! However, when the black water gobbled up all those women, children, and elderly folk in 1972, it was different, because that particular incident had nothing to do with self-choice.

To get a good feeling for what transpired on that raining February morning when the wastewater impoundments on Buffalo Creek collapsed, we need to know a little about how those impoundments got there in the first place.

In 1945, the Lorado Mining Company opened an underground mine in the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek and in 1947, the company completed construction of its coal preparation plant. Upon completion of its cleaning plant, Lorado dumped slurry wastewater from its plant into a pond, which fed directly into the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek.

Wet-washers and washing tables in coal prep plants separate refuse (rock, slate, and low-grade coal) from high quality coal. Prior to the development of efficient filtration technologies, water discharged from coal washers contained thick suspensions of small coal particles, referred to as "coal slurry." During the first half of the twentieth century, in the Appalachian coalfields, the dumping of slurry into streams was common practice. Although those black discharges messed up the ecosystem in a hurry, if a man does not have a job, his least concern is whether frogs, fish, crawdads, or snakes are thriving in streams—or whether the Great Horned Owl can find a tree tall enough to supply a suitable roost.

The "damn the ecology" mindset is an ideology that most West Virginians have never totally agreed with, nevertheless, most citizens recognize that coal, in one way or another, has always served the meat and potatoes on everyone's dinner tables in mining country. Actually, the answer for deterring the senseless polluting of streams with slurry water was rather simple. By pumping thick wastewater from preparation plants into settlement ponds (wastewater impoundments), tiny coal particles stratify deep in lower levels of ponds thus causing only the clearer water to push to the surface. Drain tubes (skimmers) located near the surface of settlement ponds allow cleaner surface water to excrete, hence, water discharged from several ponds built in sequence allows only clean water to flow into watersheds.

In 1960, in response to a water pollution citation issued by the West Virginia Water Resources Commission, the Lorado Mining Company constructed a wastewater impoundment near the mouth of the Middle Fork of Buffalo Creek. However, because of a depressed coal market, Lorado Mining Company shutdown its entire Middle Fork mining complex in 1963. No one benefits from the closing of mining complexes, but closings do occur quite frequently during lean markets years. In 1964, Buffalo Mining Company, a subsidiary of Pittston Coal Company, purchased the Middle Fork complex and in 1966, Buffalo Mining Company built a second impoundment upstream from the No. 1 Dam. Both dams on Middle Fork consisted primarily of refuse (slate-rock mixed with poor-grade coal) dumped across the hollow.

During decades prior to the 1970s, in the Appalachia region, a great number of mining outfits built their wastewater dams simply by dumping refuse material across small hollows, which killed two birds with one stone. Mining companies got dams that held black wastewater, and refuse dumpsites, all in one package. In order to build strong dams from refuse material, for packing purposes, it is necessary to stratify dirt layers in with refuse layers, but prior 1972, mining companies used little dirt when building their dams. Astonishingly, many of the old refuse dumps in the Appalachian coalfields measured 200 feet or more in height, with little or no dirt compacted-in.

In reaction to a slurry-impoundment collapse in October of 1966 in Wales, where 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults were killed, the UMWA mailed out memorandums to all its local union halls in the Appalachia region requesting that union members report any potentially hazardous refuse dams in their region. In response to one of those UMWA memorandums, Frank Brown, recording secretary for the Lorado UMWA local, wrote to UMWA District 17 officials warning of a potential collapse of the impoundments on the Middle Fork; 17's officials forwarded a copy of Brown's letter to the USBM.

The Wales tragedy itself raised some very serious concerns among top USBM officials about stability of refuse dams in the Appalachia region, which resulted in the Bureau dispatching inspectors throughout the Appalachian coalfields in November and December of 1966 to examine 38 slurry impoundments. On December 9, 1966, a federal inspector determined that the No. 1 Dam on the Middle Fork was not susceptible to large slides. However, the inspector, in his written report, suggested that the No. 1 Dam was vulnerable to washouts by excessive rain runoff because of inadequately sized drains.

In 1967, due to heavy rains where runoff topped the No. 2 Dam on Middle Fork, parts of No. 1 Dam washed out which resulted in flooding along Buffalo Creek. Immediately, citizens living along Buffalo Creek launched complaints about the flooding to the Governor's Office in Charleston, which resulted in the West Virginia DNR issuing pollution citations for the black runoff. Additionally, West Virginia officials ordered Buffalo Mining to strengthen impoundments on the Middle Fork. In response to state agencies, Buffalo Mining Company widened the No. 2 Dam, and installed larger overflow pipes.

In 1968, because of numerous written complaints by citizens living in Saunders, the nearest mining camp to the Middle Fork mining complex, Governor Hulett Smith sent his state engineer to assess the situation on Buffalo Creek. Even though Smith's engineer reported that there was no danger of washout of the No. 1 Dam, the DNR issued a notice ordering Buffalo Mining to build a third dam upstream from the first two refuse dams. Buffalo Mining responded by building a third dam in 1968, and followed with a fourth dam a few months later. All dams constructed on the Middle Fork consisted primarily of bone and slate dumped across the hollow, with no significant quantities of dirt layered in for compacting purposes.

During a rainy February in 1971, parts of the No. 2 Dam on Middle Fork washed out thus sending black water, again, gushing down the creek. Following repairs of No. 2 Dam, in March of 1971, No. 3 Dam partially failed resulting in another slurry discharge.

The dam...n redundancy with flooding on the Buffalo Creek quickly becomes old with residents, and they get riled. Although locals persistently raised hell to their government representatives in Charleston, they only received empty promises, and more flooding!

The Torrential Downpour

The week of February 20-26, 1972 was a cool, rainy week for the coalfields of Southern West Virginia as torrential downpours sporadically occurred throughout Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. By Friday afternoon, the ground was completely saturated and Buffalo Creek was running at full capacity, as the stream occasionally snaked from its banks. Moms living near the creek, fearing that other dam failures were eminent, warned their kids to stay away from the branch.

On Friday evening February 25, with rains pecking at rooftops hard enough to drown-out the sounds from TV sets, citizens of Saunders, particularly mothers, worried whether the refuse dams would hold through the night. Grumpy, old disabled miners in Saunders appeared especially anxious, as some paced the floor. Officials of Buffalo Mining Company also got restless, as they assigned an employee to check on the condition of the No. 3 Dam every two hours. Around dark, the sheriff of Logan County became concerned as he dispatched two of his deputies to Buffalo Mining to offer assistance in the event that mining officials felt that Saunders might need evacuated. However, when the deputies approached company supervisors, officials informed officers that the dam situation was not critical enough to warrant evacuation.

As daylight broke on Saturday morning February 26, even with nervousness haunting adults living in the upper mining camps along Buffalo Creek, many of the kids in camp sat glued to the TV tube watching Bugs Bunny. Around 8:05 a.m., while numerous young'uns laughed at cartoons, the upper dam on the Middle Fork broke, which results in the sequenced failure of the three remaining dams. The series of impoundment collapses sends 138 million gallons of black water roaring, like a speeding freight train, through upper regions of Buffalo Creek! In Saunders, when fidgety mothers run to the front door to check out the roaring sound, they quickly discover a 10-foot wall of ghastly, black water barreling-down upon their abodes. Instantly recognizing the killer-wave, mothers wasted nary a precious second as they yanked toddlers from cribs, grade-schoolers from fronting television sets, and adolescents from beds, and herded the young'uns toward higher ground! As citizens dashed toward the summits, the lethal wave devoured a few houses standing on the left side of the creek bed, but quickly crossed and plucked out several houses on the right bank, before crisscrossing to gobble-up more dwellings on the left. Within five minutes, the mammoth black wall leveled much of the camp of Saunders, and barreled-down on the next mining camp.

The ugly, stench-filled slurry made fast work of most of the camp-houses in Lorado, and within minutes, the wave consumed houses in Craneco, Lundale, and Stowe. The ravaging water plucked-up mobile homes, automobiles, old men, children, and women with toddlers in hand. Thank God, bridges across Buffalo Creek became jammed with remnants of houses, which slowed the assault of the lethal swell significantly. Nevertheless, a slower flood continued as it wiped out houses in Crates, Latrobe, Robinette, Amherstdale, and Belco. After consuming many dwelling in small mining camps all alone Buffalo Creek, the giant, black swell abruptly ended its devastation when it splashed over into the Guyandotte River at Mann, West Virginia around 10 a.m.

In the end, the flood on the Buffalo Creek destroyed 507 homes, 44 mobile homes, 30 businesses, and 1000 automobiles. The flood imposed 50 million dollars in damages to private property, and 15 million dollars in damages to roads and bridges. Most heart wrenching of all, the violent wave devoured 125 residents, as it swept some more than a dozen miles downstream!

In as little as two hours, on a rainy February morning, the worst fears of residents living along Buffalo Creek became reality, when millions of gallons of thick, black, stinky water gushed through their valley. Although residents had endured minor flooding for years while clinging to empty promises, they would also have to endure a travesty as result of the crooked handling of aid and compensation for the flooding.

Hours following the nasty floodwater splashing into the Guyandotte, Pittston Coal Company officials proclaimed the Buffalo Creek Disaster an "Act of God." Company officials said that there was no way that their dams could have held all the rain that the Almighty poured in.

Quickly, word from the Governor's Office came over the radio, but his words seemed filled with overtones implying that no one was to blame for the ominous calamity, and that a similar disaster could easily fall on folks living in mining country. As Governor Arch Moore and his top aid sat in front of TV cameras, both commented on the catastrophe. The governor's top-aid commented:

We cannot predict when weather conditions will get together to precipitate this large amount of rain but we know it will happen again. Somebody has to put the effort into making a coal-bank secure. There is only a certain amount of labor available anywhere and a certain amount of knowledge, and ultimately the dollars in labor must come from the consumer.

If the consumer is not willing to pay, the power company can't pay, the coal company can't pay, and you know who pays it, that is the people on Buffalo Creek.14

At that same press meeting, Governor Moore once again reiterated that under the right circumstances, another similar tragedy could easily repeat.

The statements issued from the Governor's Office concerning why the waste impoundments on Buffalo Creek failed, was based upon the false premise that consumers are unwilling to pay higher prices for coal and electricity, therefore, industry is unable to bear the bunt of added-cost necessary to make conditions safer. The price for coal, and electricity produced from coal, just like the price of gasoline, has never been set specifically according to what consumers are willing to pay. Prices for those commodities are very often set according to the profits desired by company executives—four dollars for a gallon of gasoline in 2007 proves that fact. Additionally, it was a little far-fetched for anyone to proclaim the Buffalo Creek Disaster an "Act of God." The Reverend Charles Crumm, a disabled coalminer who lived in the flood-ravaged region, probably explained it best when he testified before the "Citizens Commission to Investigate the Buffalo Creek Disaster." Crumm stated to the commission, "... I never saw God drive the first slate truck in the hollow...."15 Ironically, citizens in Logan County formed their own commission to investigate the Buffalo Creek tragedy following Moore appointing an ad hoc commission composed solely of citizens supportive of corporate interests.

Following the Buffalo Creek flood, 625 adult survivors filed a class action lawsuit against Pittston Coal Company seeking 64 million dollars in damages. Lead plaintiff in the suit was Dennis Prince, whose wife, Margie, was swept five miles downstream by the flood.

In June of 1974, lawyers for plaintiffs of the class action suit reached an out-of-court settlement with Pittston for 13.5 million dollars, one-half of the Pittston's 27 million dollars profit for the year 1972. After lawyers withheld legal fees from the settlement, the settlement averaged-out to about $13,000 per claimant. A second class action suit followed on behalf of 348 children who were not involved in the initial class action suit, but this suit too was settled outside the courtroom for a mere 4.8 million dollars.

Just what sort of monetary value would you place on your wife, child, father, or mother? Remember, there is considerable cost with an appropriate burial!

Chiefly to gain political influence with West Virginia's electorate, the attorney general for West Virginia sued Pittston Coal Company for an astounding 100 million dollars for disaster relief, cleanup costs, and punitive damages related to the Buffalo Creek flood. However, three days before Governor Moore left office in 1977, Moore made a settlement in behalf of the state of West Virginia for one-million dollars; the suit ended. Did Moore make that meager settlement because he was aware that no-good could come from saddling Pittston with excessive liabilities for the flood, or did Governor Moore's real reasons for dropping the suit come from concealed ulterior motives?

Governor Moore initially served two terms as governor of West Virginia from 1969-1977. In 1975, federal prosecutors filed charges against Governor Moore alleging that he attempted to extort $25,000 from a company seeking a banking charter, but a jury acquitted Moore of those charges. After unsuccessfully seeking a third term in 1980, Moore won the 1984 governor's race to become West Virginia's only three-term governor. Following Moore's third term, he ran again in 1988 but he was easily defeated amid swirling rumors of corruption. The newly elected governor of West Virginia encouraged investigations into Moore's dealings with mine operators and coal barons, and those inquiries uncovered alarming cases of fraud. In a 1990 corruption trial, a coal baron from Raleigh County, West Virginia testified that he made payments of $573,000 to Governor Moore in return for West Virginia exempting the Maben Energy coalmining groups from paying into West Virginia's Black Lung Fund. Ironically, the coal baron delivered his half-million dollar, plus, payment to Governor Moore in a McDonalds' carryout bag.

In 1990, Arch Moore received a five-year-ten-month prison sentence for extorting funds from the CEO of Maben Energy groups, and consequently, the West Virginia Bar Association barred Moore from practicing law. Oddly, I was working as an underground miner at a Maben Energy subsidiary when Maben's CEO handed over those big smacks, thus I cannot help but wonder if Pittston officials may have handed out a few snacks to make Pittston's liabilities for the Buffalo Creek Flood disappear.

As the saying goes in mining country, some folks catch the elevator, while other folks get the shaft. Following the Buffalo Creek flood, many residents living along Buffalo Creek, in Logan County, again, got the shaft! One-hundred-twenty-five citizens of West Virginia, including 43 children, perished on February 26, 1972 primarily because federal, nor state, mining regulation required dirt be compacted in with layers of refuse, at mine refuse dump sites.

Chapter 10

Disaster in a Silver Mine

Most Americans, especially easterners, associate coal with any sort of underground mining, but through the years some of America's worst mining tragedies have occurred in mines other than coalmines. In 1917, 163 miners perished from smoke in a copper mine at Butte, Montana. In the early-1930s, near Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, 476 migrant workers perished from silicosis while digging a water diversion tunnel to produce hydroelectricity. The majority that perished while digging the Hawks Nest Tunnel were African-Americans who had traveled from the Deep South to find work during the Great Depression; many died within months of starting work. On May 2, 1972, at the Sunshine silver mine near Kellogg, Idaho, 91 silver miners suffocated from smoke when scrap timbers caught on fire, most likely, due to spontaneous combustion in a backfilled stope area. Few federal regulations existed that governed metal mines when the Sunshine Mine Disaster occurred, but the heart-wrenching demise of Idaho's silver miners resulted in the enactment of many new regulations governing metal mines. In fact, the Sunshine tragedy helped to spawn new safety regulations pertaining to underground mining in general, including coalmining.

Around 11:40 a.m. on May 2, 1972, after gulping down lunch, Norman Ulrich and Arnold Anderson, electricians, detect smoke on the 3700 level of the Sunshine Mine as the two exit Sunshine's huge underground maintenance shop. The two immediately yell out a warning about a possible fire! Hurriedly, two bosses join the two electricians in attempting to backtrack smoke currents and locate the blaze, but no one is able to find any sort fire, even as smoke quickly thickens. Around 12:03 p.m., supervisor Gene Johnson calls outside ordering that surface personnel activate the stench-warning system to alert all underground miners to evacuate the mine—the stench-warning system, through compressed air expelled by air-tools, disperses the same odor contained within a gas grill's propane tank to warn of gas leaks. With miners working on twelve different levels of the Sunshine Mine, most miners begin to evacuate the mine by about 12:10 p.m., after smelling smoke, not the stench. However, by 12:15 p.m., miners on specific levels of the mine are struggling to stay afoot as dense, suffocating smoke fills numerous levels of the mine.

As toxic fumes begin to infiltrate most working levels of the Sunshine Mine, miners hold two options to escape to the surface. Both escape possibilities depend on miners from the lower levels of the mine riding the elevator-cage in No. 10 Shaft to the 3100 level of the silver mine. Once miners reach the 3100 level, they can travel by foot, or by rail, to the Silver Summit Escapeway, or to the Jewell Shaft Escapeway—the two escape routes lie on opposite ends of the mine. Because the Silver Summit Escapeway is a return ventilation airway where it serves to sweep stifling fumes away from the active works, it rapidly fills with suffocating smoke hence leaving the Jewel Shaft escape as the only hope for miners evading the asphyxiating haze.

Most Sunshine miners that swiftly find their way to the 3100 level, ride the mine-rails to the Jewell Shaft where someone immediately hoists them to the safety. However, a few courageous miners, including Greg Dionne, after reaching the upper 3100 level, decide to catch the elevator-cage back down to assist comrades in distress.

Greg Dionne, a former cager (elevator attendant), re-boards the cage at 12:17 p.m., and as he descends, he makes short-stops at the 3700 and 4400 levels to pick-up distressed comrades. After filling the elevator-cage to capacity on the 4600 level, Dionne sends the cage back to the 3100 level where his comrades can evacuate but Dionne remains at the 4600 landing to help stragglers yet stumbling-in, prepare to board the cage after its next descent.

After climbing aboard the elevator-cage, Repairman Delbert Dusty Rhoads and his sidekick Arnold Anderson both arrive at the 3100 level around 12:24 p.m., but strangely, neither rush toward the Jewell Shaft to escape. Instead, after determining that the huge underground ventilation fan located on the 3400 level is chiefly responsible for rapidly dispersing smoke throughout the mine, the two repairmen reboard and travel back down to the 3400 where they rush to a phone and call outside requesting permission to kill the fan circuit. Because only top-chain supervisors have authority to stop mine ventilation fans, Rhoads and Anderson impatiently wait for permission, but oddly, all supervisors that possess authority to stop the fan are attending a stockholders' meeting more than 45 miles from the mine site. Hence, uncertain whether miners on lowest levels of the mine have already escaped, and fearing that killing the fan could exacerbate conditions on lower levels, without permission, fifty-seven-year-old Dusty Rhoads never de-energizes the mammoth underground fan. Ironically, Anderson and Rhoads' courageous move meant to buy time for their comrades, burns away their own valuable time, and both meet with the Grim Reaper as they await the cage's return to 3400 landing.

Back on the 3100 level in the mist of stifling smoke, Harvey Dionne, Paul Johnson, and Jasper Beare quickly make their way to the Jewell Shaft and the three silver miners are waiting to be hoisted to surface when a coworker tells them about Roberto Diaz falling-out following Diaz commandeering a locomotive in an attempt to reach distressed miners. Harvey Dionne, Johnson, and Beare all leave the Jewell Shaft landing where fresh air is swirling, and go back to get Diaz but their rescue endeavor falls short. Although Harvey Dionne and Jasper Beare eventually find their way back to the Jewell Shaft and escape, Paul Johnson pays the ultimate sacrifice for going back to help rescue Diaz, his life.

Although 23-year-old Greg Dionne, who has two dependents at home, eventually finds his way back to the 3100 level, he burns away too much valuable time in assisting others. Hence, young Dionne succumbs to carbon monoxide before he can make his way to safety.

Supervisor Fred (Gene) Johnson, age 45, who first ordered the Sunshine Mine evacuated at 12:03 p.m., held steadfast at the No. 10 Shaft hoisting station while snapping out orders to miners that popped to the 3100 level telling them to use the Jewell Shaft escape route, and not try the toxic filled Silver Summit Escapeway. However, Johnson stands stalwart too long in barking out orders, which results in his demise.

At 1:00 p.m. on May 2, Don Beehner, Robert Launhartz, Larry Hawkins, and James Zingler enter into the Sunshine Mine through the Jewel Shaft in an attempt to help distressed miners evacuate; all wear 2-hour McCaa SCBA. Although the four-man team ultimately saves two distressed miners, Don Beehner falls as victim to carbon monoxide poisoning after sharing his oxygen mask with severely distressed Byron Schulz—Schulz had earlier partnered with Greg Dionne in yo-yoing the cage that saved dozens comrades. Ironically, Schulz survives the Sunshine disaster after Launhardt and Hawkins toss Schulz into a boxcar and shuttle him to the Jewell Shaft, but Beehner, after sharing his oxygen mask, never reaches safety.

At 1:02 p.m., while sitting in a hoist room filled with asphyxiating smoke that had already driven one hoisting attendant from the control room, Robert B. Scanlan makes his last push on the switch clutching the hoisting drum that raises and lowers the cage for the No. 10 Shaft. Sadly, miners trapped on lower levels of the Sunshine Mine continue to squall over the phone ordering Scanlan to drop the cage, but Scanlan lies dead in the hoist room with his hand near the switch.

After a few trapped miners on the 5200 level fail to raise hoistman Scanlan by phone, the gang attempts to erect a barricade, but carbon monoxide quickly overcomes the distressed crew before they can finish their first barricade wall. Sadly, nearly all hope for miners trapped below the 3100 level vanishes with the demise of hoist operator Scanlan.

More than 100 trained mine rescue personnel from seven different mining companies, including some from Canada, swarm to the Sunshine Mine in the afternoon of May 2, 1972. Unlike coalmines, metal mines do not typically emit methane. However, the many different working levels (depths) of metal mines more than complicate missions to rescue ore miners.

When May 7 rolled around marking the fifth day of the rescue effort at the Sunshine Mine, rescue crews had found no survivors however, teams had been unable to explore below the 3700 level of the mine because crews could not gain access to No. 10 hoisting station due to the concealment of bulkheads confining the fire. Desperate to explore below the 3100 level, USBM officials devise a scheme to search deeper by dropping a two-man capsule through the No. 12 borehole. The capsule ride will ultimately begin inside the Sunshine Mine on the 3700 level where a portable hoisting apparatus will drop the capsule 1,100 feet onto the 4800 level. The capsule approach is a long shot at best, and will be quite risky because the Sunshine Mining Company drilled the No. 12 borehole specifically for ventilation purposes, which resulted in the borehole being much smaller than hoisting shafts, and the borehole lacks smooth walls. Any protruding rocks inside the borehole holds the potential for fouling the capsule, or for dislodging after the capsule passes, which could result in a 100-pound slab striking the capsule as the chunk zooms in freefall.

Risky or not, a little past 9 p.m. on May 8, crews begins dropping the two-man capsule containing Bureau personnel toward the 4800 level of the Sunshine Mine. Initially, the two-man team discovers dangerous chunks of loose rocks clinging to the borehole's walls, which they carefully and meticulously pry loose and send free falling more than a thousand feet in advance of their decent. As the prying-task rapidly exhausts the team, alternate teams take over and scale rock for a couple hundred feet before ascending to let additional alternates take over. Finally, after 10 hours of treacherous decent, the capsule ultimately touches down on the 4800 level, but initially, the capsule-team cannot locate any survivors.

At 5:43 p.m. on May 9, a fresh Bureau crew explores the 4800 level of the Sunshine Mine to within 1,800 feet of No. 10 Shaft where they find Tom Wilkerson and Ron Flory. Miraculously, both silver miners have endured seven days inside the smoke-filled mine.

Following the rescue of Wilkerson and Flory, mine rescue teams continue searching for more Sunshine survivors, but sadly, crews only recover additional bodies. By May 13, rescue crews have recovered the bodies of all 91 victims of the Sunshine mine fire.

According to testimony of survivors of the Sunshine mine fire, coupled with evidence gathered from victims of the fire: 71 of the 173 miners who were underground when the fire broke-out donned self-rescuers (gas masks); 78 miners did not acquire self-rescuers from storage boxes; and it is uncertain whether 24 did, or did not. Because many survivors admitted that they did not attempt to acquire a self-rescuer, it became evident that many Sunshine miners lacked appropriate training in the use of self-rescue devices. As result of the inadequate training of Sunshine miners, in 1973 federal legislators enacted a statute requiring that all operators of underground mines, including coal and non-metal operators, train their employees annually in the use of self-rescue devices.

Several miners who survived the Sunshine mine fire claimed that their 30-minute self-rescuers were impossible to inhale through from get-go, therefore, they discarded the devices and made-do without, which resulted in USBM laboratories analyzing many self-rescuers recovered from the Sunshine Mine. Although several of the tested units proved to be operational, many units showed to be defective, and a few were found to be older than the manufacturer's suggested shelf life. Perhaps the most disturbing findings concerning self-rescuers used in the Sunshine mine fire came from victims that suffocated during the fire! Of the 91 Sunshine miners that perished, it is certain that 36 donned self-rescuers, and that many of those units operated as intended. Dusty Rhodes, Arnold Anderson, Greg Dionne, Gen Johnson, and Robert Scanlan were all among those 36 that strapped-on masks, yet, they perished while attempting to assist other miners in evacuating the smoke-filled mine. The demise of 36 silver miners wearing self-rescuers made it evident that 30 minutes was not enough time to evacuate from a huge underground complex, especially in instances where miners stop to help distressed comrades! Hence, in a spirit meant to gain miners more time to flee toxic mine atmospheres, in 1973, Congress enacted legislation requiring that mine operators furnish 1-hour self-rescuers (diminutive gasmasks) to all men working underground. However, the new mandate did not go far enough to require operators to supply miners with the superior SCSRs (oxygen-generating devices)—that law was coming though, as all needed was a few more tragedies.

Chapter 11

**Scotia's Black Eye**

Following the terrible Buffalo Creek and Sunshine Mine tragedies, the U.S. Congress whirled itself into a safety-fixing frenzy concerning underground mining, mine refuse dumps, and slurry impoundments. In May of 1973, the U.S. Congress removed the enforcement agency from the USBM by establishing the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA) within the Department of Interior, which helped appease UMWA's fears that the USBM had become too chummy with industry leaders. Although the USBM and MESA would continue to work hand-in-hand in attempting to achieve safer mines throughout America, the watchdog for enforcement, MESA, would now become a separate entity. However, in March of 1976, MESA received a terrible black eye from a gruesome mine tragedy in Eastern Kentucky, and before the mountain was through rumbling in the Bluegrass State, it would become evident that on the wrong given day, no mortal man is immune from the wrath of the mountain.

The Scotia Coal Company, a subsidiary of Blue Diamond Coal Company, opened its Scotia Mine near Ovenfork, Kentucky in 1962. The mine initially opened as a slope mine in a 72-inch thick section of the Imboden coal seam. In 1976, there were 275 underground miners producing coal from six production sections at Scotia.

In February of 1976, as miners advanced 2-Southeast Main Section, the coal seam thickened to eight feet in height, however, the continuous mining machine was not capable of cutting coal at that height, which resulted in management halting development of 2-Southeast Main. Quickly, the 2-Southeast Main crew pulled back approximately 1,700 feet and began developing entries (tunnels) to the left of 2-Southeast Main. On the mine map, engineers dubbed the new section, 2_Left Section. Normally, if management does not get in a hell-fired hurry, such a move from abandoning driving (developing) a region to developing a new section is routinely inconsequential provided faces are butted-off evenly with crosscut connections for ventilation, and provided that all permanent ventilation controls are constructed before coal production begins on the new section. However, management at the Scotia Mine got in a rush to restart coal production before permanent ventilation controls were set in place.

On March 8, 1976 at about 3:30 p.m., Federal Mine Inspector Cecil Davis arrives at the recently started 2-Left Section of the Scotia Mine to take respirable dust samples, where he immediately writes three citations for violations of federal code. One of Davis's notices cites the company's failure to maintain 9,000 cfm airflow in the last open crosscut, which is serious, but should be easy to rectify since Davis's measurement only falls 908 cfm short.

In order to acquire enough air to abate Davis's ventilation citation, the crew supervisor of 2-Left Section has two crewmembers install two curtains across Nos. 4 and 5 entries of 2-Southeast Main. The two air-robbing curtains deflect air current from the Main and send those currents into the crosscut where mine inspector Davis wrote the violation for not enough air, so Davis quickly abates the citation. However, Davis is unaware the air-robbing curtains were tacked up, and now the Mains sorely lacks enough ventilation to dilute and sweep away methane that has been bleeding into the Mains from a fissure in the mine floor. Although mine management is aware of the methane feeder, ventilation on the mains has always been effective enough to render the feeder harmless, but the two air-robbing curtains have allowed huge quantities of the explosive gas to accumulate deep in the Main.

Near the end of the second shift on March 8, while on their way outside, 2-Left crewmembers stop their mantrip near the two air-robbing curtains in Nos.4 and 5 entries. Following their supervisor's orders, Carlos Smith and Roy McKnight bolt from the mantrip and rip out the two air-robbing obstructions, which sends ventilation back into the abandoned Main. McKnight is a hustler, so it's no surprise he will be doubling a shift or two this week. In fact, McKnight will be running a locomotive tomorrow on dayshift, but neither McKnight nor his sidekicks are aware that the two air-robbing checks have already transformed the abandoned Main into a mammoth, cocked cannon where only a spark is needed to fire the gargantuan gun.

On March 9, 1976, just after 7:00 a.m., 106 dayshift coalminers enter the Scotia Mine near Ovenfork, Kentucky. Quickly, thirteen miners ride the rails into 2-Left Section where a ten-man crew begins producing coal. One miner takes up position to oversee the section conveyor-drive, and two miners begin work on the unfinished ventilation structures needed to supply permanent ventilation to the abandoned 2-Southeast Main headings.

At approximately 11:35 a.m., Roy McKnight and Lawrence Peavey both sit at the controls of battery-powered locomotives as they begin pushing a load of track-rails toward the abandoned Main headings. Peavey and McKnight's locomotives are hooked in tandem as both engines serve as pushers to the heavy load of steel, but the large trays of batteries supplying electricity to the locomotives are shabby, and several bad battery cells are cutout of the overall battery circuit. Additionally, the lids covering the 2,000-pound battery packs for the locomotives are quite bent-up and not in the best of shape, and most likely unknown to both locomotive operators, fuses providing short-circuit protection for one of the locomotives are bypassed. Nevertheless, the shabby electrical circuits of the two locomotives should not pose any real threat for Peavey and McKnight since their locomotives will be operating in fresh intake air where methane rarely accumulates. But unknown to Peavey and McKnight, disaster awaits their arrival since someone fiddled with the ventilation last night, a vital check-curtain now lies on the ground, and the Fire-boss (pre-shift examiner) failed to take methane readings in the abandoned 2-Southeast Main prior to the dayshift beginning.

If someone had informed McKnight and Peavey of all the minuscule hazards waiting to intermingle upon their arrival in the abandoned Main headings, in all likelihood, the two locomotive operators would have run in the opposite direction. Oh well, it is usually those well-hidden dangers inside a mine that result in injuries, and so will be the case with Peavey and hustling-Roy.

Inside the Scotia Mine, around 11:45 a.m., a vicious gush of wind brutally knocks John Hackworth, conveyor-drive attendant, to the ground—the two locomotive drivers have arrived at their final destination. Even though Hackworth's workstation is more than 3,000 feet outby where either Peavey or McKnight's locomotive has ignited methane, the violent gush rolls Hackworth down the conveyor entry. After hastily gathering his composure, Hackworth dashes to the phone and calls outside warning mine management that there has been an underground explosion. Next, Hackworth attempts to page 2-Left crew, but after several failed attempts, Hackworth dons his 1-hour self-rescuer and tears-off toward 2-Left Section, not in the direction of the outside. In his hurry to reach 2-Left crew, Hackworth advances nearly 2,200 feet before dense, toxic smog forces his retreat. Disgusted, Hackworth withdrawals before he can make any contact with his comrades.

Within an hour following the Scotia mine explosion, 91 miners scramble from the dark abyss, but the 13 miners working 2-Left, along with McKnight and Peavey, are unaccounted-for. Hoping that their 15 missing comrades managed to weather the blast, several miners accompany a few supervisors and scurry back underground in an attempt to reestablish ventilation with expectation that fresh air might serve as a lifesaver to the missing gang. Additionally, Scotia mine officials quickly notify MESA by phone that a section of their mine has exploded.

As soon as MESA receives notification of the Scotia explosion, the agency orders a MESA rescue team out of Morgantown, WV and a team out of Pittsburgh, PA flown to the Scotia region. MESA additionally requests that several mining companies operating in Kentucky and neighboring Virginia send their rescue teams to Ovenfork. In all, ten highly skilled mine rescue teams rush to Letcher County during the afternoon of March 9!

At approximately 4:30 p.m. on March 9, two mine rescue teams wearing SCBA plunge inside the blast-riddled mine at Ovenfork. Around 10:18 p.m., mine rescue teams locate the body of the first explosion victim, and a few minutes later, teams find the bodies of five members of 2-Left crew behind a partially constructed barricade. Evidence indicates that all five victims managed to don their self-rescuers (gasmasks) before hunkering behind their makeshift barricade.

At about 1:20 a.m. on March 10, slightly less than 13 hours following the Scotia blast, mine rescue teams discover the bodies of the last two unaccounted-for victims, the two locomotive operators. Close observation of the region around the locomotive operators points toward a spark from one of the locomotives as being the most likely ignition source for the methane blast.

While exploring in the region of the two locomotives, mine rescue teams discovered methane concentrations in the 3.5% to 5%+ range and carbon monoxide in the 0.2% range in Nos. 1 through 5 entries near No. 27-crosscuts in the abandoned Main. Although the 5%+ range for methane is within the lower explosive limit, and a 0.2% mixture of carbon monoxide can be very deadly with long enough exposure, rescue teams wearing SCBA cope with those dangerous atmospheric conditions and carry all 15 bodies to the surface before withdrawing from the mine. However, because rescue teams are unable to establish adequate ventilation to No. 27-crosscuts to sweep away dangerous mine gases, teams withdraw from the mine with the intentions of resuming mine recovery operations the next day.

Shortly after 4:00 p.m. on March 10, 1976, following a briefing, mine rescue teams reenter the Scotia Mine in an attempt to improve ventilation, and to establish a Fresh Air Base (FAB) at No. 22-crosscuts, the location where teams discovered the first body. However, following unsuccessful attempts to acquire better airflow, and upon a MESA mine rescue team reaching 22-crosscuts and discovering that the hard-wire communication system to the Command Center is no longer working, all rescue teams withdraw from the mine by 12:45 a.m. on March 11.

At 7:00 a.m. on March 11, rescue teams involved in Scotia's mine recovery effort reach consensus that recovery work will only resume following crews: installing a new phone line to the FAB; replacing some temporary stoppings with permanents; and restoring electricity to allow dewatering of a region and allow roof-bolt installations in a specific section of ragged roof. Around 2:00 p.m. on March 11, mine recovery crews reenter the Scotia Mine and begin performing their planned tasks, but crews perform no work in regions close to where rescue crewmembers detected methane the prior day.

Slightly past 10:30 p.m., more than a dozen recovery workers exit the Scotia Mine leaving only 13 men underground. At 11:30 p.m., the unimaginable occurs when the mine explodes again!

Ernest Collins and Rick Parker, company mechanics and electricians, are working several hundred feet outby the roof-bolting crew when the awesome force knocks both mechanics to the ground. Quickly gathering their composure, Collins and Parker hurriedly don their 1-hour self-rescuers, grab hold of a phone wire, and grope their way to safety on the outside. The other 11 mine recover workers, including three federal mine inspectors, are not as lucky as the blast claims all 11.

Following the second Scotia mine explosion, MESA again summons mine rescue teams to Ovenfork, this time 13. Again, MESA employees are among some of the first to explore the blast-riddled mine.

On March 12 around noon, a Westmoreland Coal Company mine rescue team discovers the bodies of all 11 victims of the second Scotia blast. Since rescue teams are uncertain about what caused the second blast, rescue crews rapidly withdraw from the mine before recovering any bodies to insure there will not be a third grisly repeat. With there being a possibility that simmering coals may have provided the ignition source for the second blast, recovery crews place seals over all mine openings in order to smother possible residual fires. Officials set a target date of July 14, 1976 to recover the 11 victims.

Through the years, recovery work in underground coalmines following ghastly explosions has shown to be quite hazardous. In fact, quite a few recovery workers and rescue personnel have perished in the past, and federal and state inspectors have sometimes been among those unfortunate victims. The first U.S. government employee to lose his life during mine rescue work was Joseph E. Evans. Evans died while plunging through a toxic mine atmosphere in an attempt to save miners trapped inside the Throop Mine in Pennsylvania on April 7, 1911.

There is little doubt that no individual who saddles his head with a hard-shell and ventures inside an underground mine is immune from the hazards associated with underground mining, and old-man-mountain has never shown any prejudice when picking his victims either. Strangely, the mountain sometimes claims its victims in a mocking-like manner too! Take for instance John Hackworth who survived the first Scotia blast and darted nearly a half-mile deeper inside looking for his crew, well Hackworth was not lucky twice. Mockingly, the mountain claimed fearless Hackworth while he participated in the dangerous mine recovery effort at Scotia.

Immediately upon crews sealing the Scotia Mine, the United States Bureau of Mines Laboratory at Mount Hope, West Virginia designed, and shipped to Scotia, a chromatographic system to continuously monitor mine gases. The Bureau's fancy new gas monitoring system was capable of measuring and graphing concentrations of mine gases every ten minutes.

On July 14, 1976, after readings of air samples from the chromatography indicated that it would be very unlikely that smoldering fires existed inside the Scotia Mine, rescue teams wearing 4-hour SCBAs, carrying non-spark tools, and totting permissible cable-reel phones, entered 250 feet into the Scotia Mine and erected temporary seals necessary to form the first airlock. Since air samples drawn from test boreholes indicated methane concentrations exceeded 55% near the victims' location, rescue teams worked meticulously at advancing their airlocks to insure no more ugly, fiery genies were unleashed from the black collieries at Ovenfork!

Rescue and recovery teams methodical advanced their airlocks and reestablished ventilation to shallow portions of the Scotia Mine throughout the remainder of the summer months. On November 3, 1976, mine recovery crews established a FAB within 1,000 feet of where victims of the second Scotia blast laid. Air samples drawn from test boreholes just inby the newly established FAB showed methane concentrations exceeded 48%, and although those high concentrations far exceeded the 5-15% explosion range for methane, those high ranges would inevitably pass through the extremely volatile 5-15% range as fresh air diluted methane concentrations when crews restored ventilation to the region.

Even though Scotia mine recovery crews held little doubt that the first Scotia blast was set off by either Peavey or McKnight's locomotive, recovery crews could only speculate as to the actually ignition source for the second Scotia blast, and that speculation hinged around a half-dozen possible scenarios. To neutralize one of those ignition source scenarios, on November 3, a mine rescue team composed of MESA staff, Kentucky Department of Mines personnel, and employees of Scotia Coal Company plunged through an airlock door at the FAB and removed batteries from the fire suppression system at 2-Left conveyor-drive.

Because one of the two locomotives believed to have provided the ignition for the first blast was equipped with an air compressor that automatically switched on when air brake pressure bled off, rescue personnel became suspicious that this particular locomotive may have supplied the ignition source for both blasts. In order to eliminate the danger of an electrical arc from the automatic switch for the air brake, on November 8, a rescue team darted into concentrations of methane exceeding 40% and disconnected the battery leads to both locomotives.

Following mine rescue teams removing at least two plausible ignition sources inside the Scotia Mine, during the following weeks, recovery crews reestablished ventilation to the entire 2-Southeast Main. By November 19, 1976, crews had completed their main objective and recovered the bodies of all victims claimed by the second brutal Scotia blast.

Even today, no one knows with certainty what caused the unsuspected second Scotia mine blast. MSHA experts now believe that the spark for the second explosion may have come from one of five possible sources: scoop batteries; batteries supplying power to a fire suppression system; phone batteries; smoldering coals yielded by the first explosion; or a spark created by a huge rock falling on the roof-bolting machine. The USBM tested all five suspected ignition sources under laboratory conditions and the Bureau was able to duplicate an explosion with all but the rock cave-in. Today, many MSHA experts lean towards the spark-from-cave-in theory as the most likely culprit, but that may be wishful thinking since such a freaky mishap would rule out any possibility that human error may have contributed to the second blast.

Maybe it is true that we actually learn more from our mistakes than our triumphs. The second Scotia explosion made the first mine recovery effort a failure, but in reality, we learned much more from that failed recovery effort than we could have ever learned from any normal mine recovery effort. Because of Scotia's twin blasts, today's mine rescue teams place great emphasis on recognizing possibly ignition sources before sending mine rescue teams underground. Additionally, as a result of the second unsuspected blast, sophisticated gas detecting gadgetry, similar to the chromatographic system designed at Mount Hope, is now used by numerous rescue teams, worldwide, prior to dispatching teams underground to insure that explosions have not yielded residual fires, which could supply secondary ignitions.

Perhaps the worst sting from the black eye that MESA suffered at Scotia came from litigation filed by the very coal company that MESA was assisting in the mine recovery effort. The investigative work for the twin explosions ended in May of 1977 however during September of 1977, while MESA was preparing to make its Scotia Accident Report open for public record, the Scotia Coal Company, along with its parent company Blue Diamond, filed a suit in Federal District Court seeking to block release of the Report. In response to that filed litigation, a Federal District Judge ordered that MESA could not release its Report prior to suit settlement unless the Report contained a caveat. That ordered caveat read:

COURT ORDER CAVEAT

Notice: This Report is the subject of a pending legal action in the Unites States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in the case of Blue Diamond Coal Co. v. Secretary of the Interior, et al. It has been adjudged in that action that there exist the appearances of agency impropriety which arguable affect the trustworthiness of this Report. The Report has been remanded to the Secretary for reconsideration.

January 24, 197816

Now in no way did MESA agree with inferences drawn from the proposed caveat, thus MESA never released its Accident Report.

In 1977, partly due to the embarrassment suffered by MESA due to litigation claiming MESA mishandled the initial Scotia mine recovery effort, the U.S. Congress established the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) thus transferring the enforcement division over America's coalmines back to the U.S. Department of Labor. However, in 1978, the Department of Labor renewed legal action in federal Court seeking to reverse the requirement of a caveat within the Scotia Accident Report, but following a prolonged legal battle, in 1985, the court upheld the caveat requirement. Additionally, the new 1985 court ruling went as far as to require the sealing of the Accident Report from public view until settlement of all pending tort litigation. However, the ruling did allow specific attorneys to have an in-camera view of the report.

Finally, in 1992, following the end to all Scotia tort litigation, a federal court notified the Department of Labor that it could release its Accident Report, provided, the report contained the caveat. In August of 1993, MSHA finally released the long-awaited Report! After sifting through the report, one can easily see why companies owning the Scotia Mine attempted to block MESA's—dubbed MSHA in 1977—findings. According to testimony contained within the Report, a few contributing factors to the first Scotia explosion actually amounted to criminal negligence. Company officials that operated the Scotia Mine had willfully violated the mine's ventilation plan by mining in 2-Left for an entire month without erecting permanent ventilation controls, and the company had failed to adequately examine airflow through the abandoned 2-Southeast Main where a fissure in the mine floor was known to feed methane into the Main. Additionally, the company had willfully failed to maintain electrically equipment in safe operating condition, initially failed to construct two air regulators called for by the mine ventilation plan, and failed to report a methane ignition that occurred four months prior to the twin blasts at Scotia. MSHA's recount made it evident that the Scotia Coal Company had willfully neglected federal code on many more occasions too!

Today, there is little doubt that Scotia Coal Company's judicial posturing within U.S. Federal Court was merely a ploy meant to conceal incriminating facts that were real contributors to the initial Scotia blast in order to kept tort settlements to a minimum. Sadly, some of Scotia's widows lived out the nightmare of the Scotia tragedy for 15 years as litigation lingered on and on, with seemingly no closure in sight. However, the never-admit-fault mindset backfired on mine operators in the 15 years that followed Scotia as many federal inspectors felt the caveat laid claim of improprieties by inspectors, instead of giving recognition to federal personnel for courageously participating in extremely dangerous mine recovery work. In fact, federal inspectors started coming-down on mine operators who willfully violated federal code with vengeance, to such degree that many companies were forced out of business during the depressed coal-market of the 1980s. Sadly, several miners became unemployed, as the unintended consequence, of inspectors swinging radically toward enforcing every letter of code—the average-Joe miner frequently suffers when there is too much regulation, but he often dies when there is too little.

Today, possibly the greatest legacy of the twin blasts at Scotia is reflected in America's mine rescue teams that are the best trained, finest equipped, and most skilled teams on the planet. However, one cannot help but wonder if somewhere down the road, MSHA personnel attempting to oversee a rescue mission might ponder too much about the Scotia debacle, and practice too much caution by delaying in sending rescue teams underground. During any mine rescue endeavor, every minute is as precious as a pot of gold to distressed miners waiting on rescue teams!

Chapter 12

Blanketed With Blackdamp

Once in a blue moon, a small mining accident where only a handful of lives are lost has served as the perfect catalyst to force lawmakers to enact sound mining regulations with real teeth. In fact, as late as 1978, no specific regulation required that mining companies furnish self-contained breathing apparatuses to underground miners, hence, an underground miner's only protection from toxic mine atmospheres was the 1-hour self-rescuer (diminutive gasmask) that he carried on his belt. Although that 1-hour device was a considerable improvement over the 30-minute mask that miners carried prior to the Sunshine Mine Disaster, the 1-hour unit was useless when donned in atmospheres containing oxygen deficiencies (blackdamp). By the time the late-1970s rolled in, the entire world knew about oxygen-generating technology, if for no other reason than because of our first moon-shot.

Ironically, a small mine disaster in Virginia where only a handful of men perished finally made some mining experts realize that the industry could hardly afford to not supply oxygen-generating apparatuses to coalminers. The underground miner did not need gravity boots, moon-dust, or something to lasso a comet in order to survive afterdamp following an explosion. He merely needed 50-plus-year-old technology, stored inside a moisture-proof carrying-case, positioned in very close proximately to where he worked. A device very similar to MSA's Chemox unit, first introduced in 1946, would have served the purpose just fine!

The Moss No. 3 Mine located at Duty, Virginia was opened in 1957. By the late-1970s, the underground complex consisted of extensive abandoned old works along with several coal-producing sections. By 1978, millions of gallons of water leaked into No. 3 Mine daily and mechanical pumps removed about 6 million gallons of water each day. Heavy rains during the first months of 1978 caused flooding in some of the active works of No. 3 Mine, therefore Clinchfield Coal Company devised a dewatering plan where the company would cut a diversion drainway 225-foot long, into the old works, hence allowing excessive mine water to naturally gush into Fryingpan Creek.

On March 17, 1978, Clinchfield Coal Company submitted its plan to MSHA for cutting the Drainway, and on March 28 Clinchfield began cutting the drain.

During the evening shift on Friday March 31, the continuous mining machine used in cutting the Drainway experienced a major mechanical failure, thus miners moved their machine back to the outside for easier repairs. At the time of the breakdown, the Drainway lacked about 34 feet in cutting through into the inaccessible old works. Before the second shift ended, miners reentered the Drainway and finished drilling test boreholes in the face region.

Standard coalmining protocol calls for miners to keep test holes drilled at least 20 feet in advance of faces, and keep 20-foot deep test holes drilled on mine ribs (walls), when extracting coal near abandoned mining works that are inaccessible to examination. Test holes prevent miners from unsuspectingly, cutting through into underground lakes or cutting into hazardous mine atmospheres. During earlier mining eras, there had been instances where miners accidentally cut through into underground pools where the water pressure was great enough to wash away 10-foot thick walls of coal, resulting in hydrostatic pressures shoving machines that weighed more than 15 tons, dozens of feet down mine entries. In fact, nine miners drown in a mine in Pennsylvania in 1977 when water from an adjacent, abandoned mine suddenly broke through the mine floor. In addition to test holes alerting miners about water hazards, miners can also detect methane, or blackdamp (oxygen deficient air), in old works by passing electronic detectors in, or near, test holes once holes penetrate old works.

Up until the mid-1990s, West Virginia mining code required that a flame safety lamp be use to check for blackdamp, oxygen deficiencies. Ah, the trusty ole flame safety lamp—AKA possum light—is an extraordinarily interesting mining instrument. Occasionally, someone comes up with a very simple gadget that performs its function perfectly and there is little room for improvement, like the mousetrap. The flame safety lamp is also one of those gadgets where there is little room for improvement.

Methane elongates, and provides a blue-cap, on the flame of a flame safety lamp, while blackdamp either diminishes, or extinguishes, the lamp's flame. A small-cap flame on a safety lamp is a more accurate indicator of methane than the long flame (walking flame), however, the small-cap flame can easily be jolted out, or extinguish when exposed to swift ventilation currents. Because methane concentrations exceeding 5% often result in extinguishment of a safety lamp when a miniature explosion occurs within confinement of the lamp's two gauze cups, law prohibited the re-flinting of a lamp near the test region since an explosion could easily migrate outside the lamp during flinting (striking). Since methane is lighter than air, while blackdamp is heavier than normal mine air, miners would hold safety lamps near the mine roof to accurately test for methane but near the mine floor to correctly test for blackdamp. Miners trained in the proper use of a flame safety lamp could easily detect methane, or blackdamp, if they followed the rules. Although electronic oxygen detectors were around prior to the 1980s, early electronic gadgets were easily knocked-off calibration, and instruments malfunctioned very often do to low battery power. Hence, up until the late 1990s, many states, including West Virginia, required that a flame safety lamp be available on each coal-producing section to check for blackdamp, oxygen deficiencies.

Nearly all old mining works that lack ventilation are very susceptible to blackdamp because coal, and oxygen-deficient water trickling through coal, absorbs oxygen. Coal itself can oxidize to some degree, which depletes oxygen also. Blackdamp, like methane, tends to migrate from behind sealed regions of a mine when barometric pressures drop.

In April of 1978, management overseeing the diversion drain project for Moss No. 3 Mine mistakenly concentrated on taking measures to insure that their Drainway crews did not ignite methane, or did not cut into a hidden lake, thus paid little attention to the possibility that a crew might unleash a deadly cloud of blackdamp. Even though supervisors recognized that the inaccessible region they were cutting toward had been sealed-off from active works by water, for years, blackdamp never became a primary concern.

At Moss No. 3 Drainway, on Monday April 3, 1978, surface crews haul a replacement continuous mining machine to the drift and Clinchfield's maintenance superintendent calls National Mine Service, a company that sells and leases mining equipment that owns the broke-down machine, and requests that National Mine Service repair their defective equipment. Coincidently, following the inspection of another mine, two MSHA mine inspectors, who are traveling back to MSHA headquarters, venture by on the mountain road. It looks odd seeing two mammoth mining machines sitting in the boonies so the two inspectors stop at the excavation region to inquire whether Clinchfield Coal is opening another mine. Mine Manager Henry Kiser quickly explains to the inspectors that the six or seven-day diversion drain project is near completion, and that he actually anticipates finishing the project tomorrow.

During early morning hours of April 4, 1978, Glen Beverly, Ambrose Conley, and Lawrence Shelby, from National Mine Service Company, arrive at the Drainway and begin repairing the malfunctioning continuous mining machine that sits on the outside. Today's dayshift labor crew that will be excavating coal from the Drainway consists of Earl Castle Jr., Charles Breeding, William Arden, and Jack Nowlin. Superintendent Richard Carson will be today's crew boss, and Maintenance Chief Marion Johnson will oversee repairs on any face equipment that malfunctions as the crew excavates. To insure there are no screw-ups resulting in injury when the mining machine cuts through into the old works, Superintendent Carson and Maintenance Chief Johnson will be standing by Charles Breeding's side when he punches the replacement continuous mining machine through into the old works because six eyeballs catch danger much quicker than two do.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m. on April 4, Breeding and Castle use a pneumatic drill to extend an already drilled test borehole, and after drilling only five additional feet, their drill bit minces through into the old works. Instantly, Breeding and Castle notice high-velocity air bleeding from the test hole into the Drainway as they let the auger steel spin loose coal from their test hole. Following Breeding and Castle withdrawing their drill steel, Superintendent Mullins, who has brought modified auger steel to the crew, along with Superintendent Carson, use an electronic methane detector and check for methane. Astonishingly, the two superintendents fail to detect noticeable concentrations of methane even though both feel certain that methane has to be locked somewhere behind the thin wall of coal left standing. Carson, thinking that the methane detector is malfunctioning, wisely darts outside and returns with a trusty ole flame safety lamp. After turning down the flame on the lamp to acquire a small-cap flame, the most efficient flame for detecting methane, Carson extends his lamp close to the mine roof near the test hole. The lamp's flame instantly extinguishes! Thinking that he actually had the flame on his lamp adjusted too low, resulting in snuff-out, Carson sends the lamp outside by one of his boys where the miner relights the lamp and quickly returns it to Superintendent Mullins.

Upon Superintendent Mullins receiving the relit safety lamp, he performs another test for methane but this time, there are no noticeable effects on the lamp. However with this second test, Mullins fails to pass the lamp within four feet of the test hole, and he passes the lamp near the mine roof looking for methane, but mistakenly fails to pass the lamp near the mine floor where blackdamp would linger.

With no traces of methane showing on the safety lamp, Mullins mutters instruction to his continuous mining machine operator that it is safe to start loading coal. At 11:45 a.m., Breeding starts the drums rotating on his mammoth coal-chomping machine while Superintendent Mullins takes up position along side Breeding. Superintendent Carson positions himself directly across from Breeding on the opposite of the mining machine, while Chief Marion Johnson takes location about six feet behind Breeding.

_Initially, Breeding tenderly plunges his machine forward slowly chomping down coal, as everyone is suspicious that methane has to be pinned-up somewhere in the old works. After filling four shuttle cars, Breeding's machine lunges ahead two or three feet effortlessly, which indicates cut-through. As a gush of air swooshes across the face of Mullins, he yells to Breeding, "hold it; I believe the thing is through."_ 17 _The noise from the mammoth earth-grinding machine barely silences before Mullins hears strange hollering coming from the opposite side of the mining machine. In response to the odd commotions, Superintendent Mullins rapidly darts underneath the conveyor boom where he finds Superintendent Carson muttering that something is wrong and that he needs to get outside. By now, machine operator Charles Breeding is feeling woozy as he begins to blackout. It is lights-out for Chief Johnson too! Mullins, down on his hands and knees, grabs Chief Johnson and tries dragging him to fresh air, but Johnson is too heavy to budge. Mullins quickly switches his grip to Charles Breeding's shirt collar and slowly skids his machine operator about 100 feet to a waterhole, but after exhaustion abruptly sets in, Mullins abandons his continuous mining machine operator. Stumbling and staggering, Superintendent Mullins manages to stay afoot long enough to fumble his way from the mine drift, where he flaps his arms and yells for help._

On the surface at the Drainway drift, after catching sight of Superintendent Mullins flailing his arms for help, Earl Castle Jr. darts underground where he discovers Breeding laying face down in the mud. Castle hurriedly rolls Breeding over, loosens his clothing and clears mud from his airways, but upon recognizing that Breeding is breathing easier, Castle abandons his comrade and plunges deeper inside to check on Johnson and Carson. Meanwhile, William Arden and Jack Nowlin, roof-bolting crew, abandon their lunch break on surface and rush inside to assist distressed miners.

The three National Mine Service technicians that are engaged in repairing the spare mining machine near the drift also hear Superintendent Mullins' cry for help. Abruptly tossing their tools aside, the three gather cap-lights from their cars and dart toward Mullins. In the meantime, MSHA employees, Ray Ross, Frank Mann, and Willis Ison have coincidently stopped by for a spot-inspection after, last evening, hearing from two coworkers how closely the Drainway project is near completion; Clinchfield's chief safety director M. L. West accompanies the MSHA officials. Sensing trouble from all the commotion, the inspection gang straps on cap-lights and rushes to assist Mullins, who staggers while mumbling that his crew is down due to bad air.

As an array of coalmining specialists madly scramble to help unconscious miners inside the Drainway, in likelihood, it sets heavy in the mind of every would-be-rescuer that no one carries anything that will afford them protection from lethal blackdamp.

Earl Castle, who initially rushed inside and rolled Breeding over to insure that Breeding could suck in fresh air, but who then plunged deeper inside, is now terribly distressed as he lies partially unconscious on the mine floor.

Quickly, MSHA officials Ross, Mann, and Ison, along with safety director M. L. West and Lawrence Shelby of National Mine Service, follow Superintendent Mullins deeper into the Drainway. Glen Beverly, National Mine technician, has finally buckled on a light, thus he too rushes underground. However, West and Ross rapidly become sick, and upon recognizing that disorientation is setting in, wisely withdraw from the Drainway. Glen Beverly speedily spots the bright-red T-shirt of the collapsed Jack Nowlin, but Beverly pegs-out before he can help Jack—things are getting crazy inside the Drainway!

Following Superintendent Mullins and Frank Mann escorting Charles Breeding from the Drainway, Ray Ross, who has shaken off the ill effects of the blackdamp after breathing fresh air, accompanies Mann back inside the drift to escort Jack Nowlin outside. Ross and Mann quickly return a second trip to escort Beverly outside, while Ison and Shelby, with dogged persistence, continue pressing forward in anticipation of performing a fast rescue near the face region. After about 10 minutes, while Willis Ison, William Arden, Lawrence Shelby, Chief Johnson, Superintendent Carson, and Earl Castle are unaccounted-for, Mine Manager Henry Kiser responds to a call for assistance and speeds his truck toward the Drainway. However, upon reaching the drift, MSHA officials Ross and Mann turn Kiser away as they explain that only personnel wearing oxygen-generating apparatuses will be allowed to enter the Drainway; the dangers are too great.

Following Ray Ross, Frank Mann, Henry Kiser, and M. L. West determining that the exhaust fan for the Drainway is sucking blackdamp out into the excavation region, at 1:08 p.m., the gang reverses the fan in hopes that positive pressure from a blowing fan will push the lethal air back into the old works.

Astonishingly, at 1:28 p.m., approximately 20 minutes following the fan reversal, and while personnel at the Drainway wait for a helicopter to touch down with mine rescue personnel, Earl Castle comes staggering out of the Drainway portal on his own accord. Although Castle has been inside the Drainway where deadly blackdamp lingers for approximately 40 minutes, fresh air from the ventilation reversal somehow revives Castle.

Even though mine rescue personnel have yet to arrive at the Moss No. 3 Mine facility, at 1:30 p.m., a helicopter delivers three Drager SCBAs to the Drainway. In anticipation that rescue teams will start arriving at the mine office any moment, the whirly-bird quickly flies off to fetch rescue personnel. By now, W. B. Crouch has arrived at the Drainway so he and M. L. West give-it their best shot at donning the new Drager apparatuses but their efforts are fruitless, as both supervisors are unfamiliar with the Dragers.

At approximately 2:00 p.m., the chopper returns to the Drainway carrying mine rescue crewmembers, and by 2:35 p.m., rescue personnel have recovered the bodies of Superintendent Carson, Chief Marion Johnson, William Arden, Lawrence Shelby, and MSHA Subdistrict Manager Willis Ison.

Willis Ison and Lawrence Shelby paid the ultimate price for their refusal to abandon their rescue effort, oh, but the two stood tall on a spring day in 1978! Roof-bolter William Arden, who abandoned his safe position on the surface during his dinner break to rush in and assist his comrades, also paid the ultimate sacrifice for his heroics because the mountain claimed Arden too. Chief Johnson and Superintendent Carson so cared for their mining crew that both were willing to serve as lookout while their machine operator cut into a potentially hazardous mine atmosphere, which resulted in both sucking in lethal blackdamp. However, Johnson and Carson might have stood much better odds of being rescued if their comrades had carried oxygen-generating devices instead of diminutive gasmasks.

When assessing what went wrong to cause the Moss No. 3 disaster, one cannot ignore the fact that following the incident, there were several citations issued to Clinchfield Coal Company for its failure to follow specific sections of the Act. Although by far the majority of those violations were not real contributors to the incident, the company's failure to maintain line curtain within 10 feet of the working face, and the company's failure to acquire accurate air samples from test boreholes were both key factors.

The fellows that mine coal underground break a few rules every day. Heck, nobody is perfect. How many driving rules do all of us violate during our everyday routine of driving down America's highways? Yes, some drivers speed, and most often, nothing happens, but when they do lose control and collide, those seatbelts and airbags usually keep them pretty darn safe. Miners often get in a hurry to produce coal, or to finish a task quickly, and they bend, or break, the rules, but just like all those careless drivers on our highways, sometime it helps to have elaborate safety equipment.

Willis Ison, William Arden, and Lawrence Shelby were not guilty of breaking any rules when, without regard for their own wellbeing, they rushed inside the Drainway in an attempt to save fellow miners in distress. All three stood tall and acted heroically, where many would have panic and froze in their tracks. Sadly, if Shelby, Ison, and Arden had carried oxygen-producing devices, they could have waltzed inside the Drainway without exposing themselves to great risk. Ultimately, all three's names could have been plastered on the front page of newspapers for their heroics, instead of obscurely displaying on an obituary page.

By 1981, a federal mandate required mine operators to furnish self-contained self-rescue devices (SCSRs) that produced oxygen for one hour, to all underground coalminers. Those initial SCSRs cost a whopping $350 per unit, and there is little doubt that furnishing coalminers with expensive SCSRs resulted in everyone's electricity bill raising a few pennies, and the price of an automobile increasing a dollar or two. Were those initial SCSRs, which closely resembled the Chemox units, worth industry's investment?

Once in 1996, I donned an expensive SCSR in order to reach a smoke-filled entry where a conveyor-drive had malfunctioned and the drive was spinning to such degree that friction was starting a fire. Someone had purposely bridged-out a malfunctioning conveyor-slip switch to avoid a production loss, however, the drive failed to automatically shutdown as designed when a huge rock stalled the conveyor. Donning my expensive SCSR allowed me to wade through the thick, blue, suffocating smoke easily to shutdown the drive but following that incident, mine management asked me why I did not use my inexpensive diminutive gasmask that I also carried, instead of the expensive SCSR. Excitement was the simple answer for my error, but only in an industry that once kept closer tabs on its mules, than it did on its men, could one anticipate such an inquiry!

Shown are components of a modern CSE-SR-100, 1-hour, self-contained self-rescuer. The minute oxygen cylinder within the device supplies a starter supply of oxygen to fill the bag, following a miner pulling the actuator tag after removing the unit from its protective carrying-case. Upon activating, KO2 in the device generates oxygen and scrubs carbon dioxide from the system. The nose clip is a vital component of the unit to insure that a user only breaths air from the bag. Swimming goggles are stored in all SCSR carrying-cases to provide miners with eye protection in dust or smoke-filled environments. Although the technology to use KO2 to produce oxygen and scrub carbon dioxide existed during the mid-1920s, it was as late as 1981 before law mandated that mine operators furnish similar devices to all underground coalminers. Early in 2010, some SCSRs, as the one pictured above, showed to have defective actuator cylinders, however, the units can be started manually simply by blowing three or four huge breaths into the bag.

Chapter 13

Sago

On January 2, 2006, near Tallmansville, West Virginia, strange weather blanketed the coalfields of Northern West Virginia as thunderous clamor from low-lying clouds rattled windows, and vibrated the ground. In the Mountain State, there are few thunderstorms in January, but Mother Nature sure produced plenty of zigzags illuminating the sky on Monday, January 2.

In general, lightning is no real threat to miners working deep underground because all electrical circuits entering the mine must be equipped with lightning arrestors, and the requirement for coalmines to have elaborate low-resistance earth grounding beds exceeds the standards set within most other industries. Despite those facts, there have been a few isolated instances during the last 120 years where experts thought lightning provided the ignition source for methane in old, abandoned, worked-out regions of coalmines. Because of the difficulty in discovering locations for metal well casings near old, abandoned farms where forests now replace once green pastureland, miners often, unknowingly, cut into metal well casings during retreat mining. Although inadvertently cutting into and exposing a metal well casing poses little immediate threat to miners, an exposed well casing can provide a potential ignition source from methane, provided lightning, by some freak incident, crashes to ground in proximately to where the casing exposes at the surface.

A few seconds past 6 a.m. on January 2, 2nd-Left Parallel crew glides their mantrip down the track-rails as the crew suddenly disappears beneath the mountaintop covering the Sago Mine. About five minutes later, the 12-man crew of 1st-Left Section, accompanied by three other underground miners, plunge their mantrip down the rails and they too disappear under the hill summit—no more sounds of thunder in here boys.

Yet to arrive at their working section at 6:26 a.m., 1st-Left crew still sits aboard their mantrip when a sudden gush of wind violently flings hats, cap-lamps, eyeglasses, and dinner buckets away from their ride. The awesome blast of wind even bounces one miner from the mantrip! Although the crew fails to hear an earsplitting boom, the viciousness of the winds accompanied by a whoosh-whoosh sound gives certainty to an event that strikes trepidation in the very heart of those rugged individuals who toil beneath the mountain for their living, an underground explosion. As crewmembers scamper to replace their hats and readjust cap-lights, smoke diffused with black dust darkens visibility to less than a foot as grit stings in crewmembers' eyes. Within moments, gas detectors carried by specific crewmembers give audible alarms, but because of dense smog, display readouts are impossibly to see. With only inches of visibility, 1st-Left crew attempts to retreat their mantrip down the rails, however their ride quickly hangs on debris, which forces the crew to set out on foot. At once, Owen Jones (crew boss) instructs his men to walk the track entry to the outside, and he urges his gang to try to stay together during evacuation.

As members of 1st-Left crew anxiously scamper to elude afterdamp left by the Sago mine blast, only seven of the 12-man crew don their SCSR, 1-hour oxygen-generating apparatus. As dense smog cloaks scattered debris in the track entry, crewmembers stumble quite often hence some try clinging to comrades' belts, belt-loops, and shirttails to avoid separation. One evacuating crewmember is missing a hardhat, and another carries a broken cap-lamp. Because several men who have strapped-on their SCSR are struggling to breath during evacuation, crewmembers quickly splinter into separate groups. As the lead gang rushes ahead, they zigzag backwards and forwards through man-doors in stoppings while desperately searching for smoke-free air. Crewmembers frequently pause to help those in their party who stumble, and to allow lagging groups to catch-up, as the crew is determined to leave no man behind!

As factions of 1st-Left crew arrive at No. 37-crosscuts on No. 4 conveyor-belt, visibility suddenly increases to nearly 10 feet, which allows the entire crew to aggregate. Supervisor Jones rushes to a nearby mine phone and calls outside informing management that an explosion has occurred underground, and that mine rescue teams are likely needed. Quickly, Jones instructs his boys to continue traveling the primary intake escapeway to the outside, however, he informs his crew that he will be going back to look for his brother, who works on the other coal producing section. Although some of Jones's crew insist that Jones think of his own safety, and evacuate with them, Jones ignores the warning and turns back.

As Jones hurriedly backtracks inside the Sago Mine, he is absent a hardhat as his was lost in the initial, blinding windstorm. Even though Jones' gas detector repeatedly gives audible alarms, there will be no retreat because blood is much thicker than noxious mine air!

Once mine Superintendent Jeffery Toler receives verification from Jones of the Sago explosion, Toler immediately contacts four miners working shallow inside and orders the four outside. Toler quickly organizes with Safety Director James Schoonover, Maintenance Superintendent Denver Wilfong, and Maintenance Chief Vernon Hofer and the four board a couple of personnel carriers and dart underground. The gang of supervisors quickly find, and pick-up, John Boni, but hurriedly plunge deeper inside where they intercept 1st-Left crew. Wilfong, Hofer, and Boni turn around and transport 1st-Left crew to the outside, while Toler and Schoonover ride the rails deeper inside in search of the unaccounted-for 2nd-Left Parallel crew.

Around 7:15 a.m., Superintendent Toler calls outside and orders personnel on the surface to contact mine rescue teams, state mining officials, and federal mining officials to inform them of the Sago explosion. During Toler's phone transmission, Jones interrupts, telling Toler of his whereabouts and informing the superintendent of the damage to ventilation controls that he has already found. At once, Toler orders his crew foreman to discontinue his advance before afterdamp overcomes him, and instructs Jones to sit tight as he will pick him up soon.

Superintendent Toler and James Schoonover quickly locate Jones, and while Jones staffs a hard-wire phone, Toler and Schoonover plunge farther down the track and evaluate conditions deeper inside. After advancing to No. 43-crosscuts on No. 4 conveyor-belt, the two supervisors find several ventilating stoppings torn out, which results in no air movement, but suddenly, Toler and Schoonover realize that they forgot to grab gas detectors prior to rushing underground! In response to their error, the two supervisors hurriedly retreat to a mine phone where ventilation is greatly improved and Toler calls outside instructing Wilfong and Hofer to bring in gas detectors, a hardhat for Foreman Owens, and brattice cloth and other supplies to make temporary repairs to damaged stoppings.

By 7:45 a.m., Wilfong, Hofer, Toler, Schoonover, and Jones are working at a frantic pace repairing ventilation controls. As the gang repairs smashed stoppings, CO detectors alarm on high, but instruments fallback to low alarm immediately as curtains are battened-down. None of the would-be-rescuers dons an SCSR in anticipation that the units will be desperately needed as they advance closer to the lost crew.

In response to a call made by Sago mine officials in reporting the Sago explosion to state and federal administrators, at about 8:15 a.m. on January 2, WVMHS&T Inspector Collins arrives at the Sago Mine office. Inside the Sago Mine, the unconventional rescue gang has already made temporarily repairs to seven damaged stoppings and the gang is attempting to repair more, when around 8:35 a.m., Sago personnel on the surface notify the would-be-rescue gang that Federal Mine Inspector Satterfield has called by phone and issued a 103(k) Order for the mine. Since the Order prohibits anyone other than trained, mine rescue personnel from entering the Sago Mine, the unconventional rescue gang will now have to evacuate. Nevertheless, since the would-be rescuers realize that SCSRs worn by their lost crew will only last about an hour, despite the 103 (k) Order, the squad continues with their rescue endeavor as they repair three more stoppings and patch-up one damaged overcast.

As the would-be rescue gang advances to No. 58-crosscuts on No. 4 conveyor-belt, their only gas detector with remaining battery-life pegs the scale, which indicates CO concentrations beyond the instrument's ability to read. Instantly, the gang retreats outby a few hundred feet where they find air swirling, and squalls out to the lost crew. As the gang listens intently for some sort of a reply, they hear only faint creaks and pops made by the mountain—perhaps an eerie reminder from the mountain that those who enter the underground are always at its mercy.

Dense smoke and high concentrations of carbon monoxide found near 58-crosscuts, along with the 103 (k) Order, leave the unconventional rescue gang with no other choice but to retreat from the Sago Mine. Following pondering over the severity of situation as result of all the damage to ventilation controls, the unconventional rescue gang disconnects battery-leads supplying power to their mantrip, and walks to the surface.

On the morning of January 2, 2006, in response to a call by MSHA requesting help for a rescue mission at Sago, several mine rescue teams from Northern West Virginia, Southwestern Pennsylvania, and Indiana rush towards Tallmansville, West Virginia. Around 11:30 a.m., two Barbour County mine rescue teams arrive at the disaster site, and by 12:15 p.m., both teams are ready to don equipment. However, Command does not immediately call on teams to enter the mine because handheld gas detectors show high CO readings near the return drift. In fact, at 12:20 p.m., following detection of 330 ppm CO inside one surface building, Federal Inspector Vanover issues an imminent danger order commanding all individuals not participating in the rescue effort to withdraw from the pit area and all surface buildings. Subsequently, officials from MSHA and WVMHS&T decide that personnel will monitor CO levels at Sago's return drift for several hours prior to sending rescue teams underground—steadily increasing CO levels in return airways over several hours usually indicate the presence of residual mine fires.

Somewhere between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of January 2, a Consol rescue team arrives at the Sago with a chromatograph and by 3:00 p.m., Consol technicians have their chromatograph setup, calibrated, and measuring gases at the return drift. At 4:00 p.m., the Sago mine operator submits written request for rescue teams to enter the mine, but MSHA and WVMHS&T inspectors deny the request because CO readings remain high. Later, at 4:55 p.m., the Sago operator again asks permission to send teams underground and this time, MSHA and state mining officials agree, as both signoff on the request.

At 5:l5 p.m., with rescue teams rearing-to-go, and mine management feeling stunned that rescue teams have been denied access thus far, federal and state mining authorities give the green light for teams to plunge underground. Because Consol's Robinson Run "A" rescue team is a veteran team with years of mine rescue training, "A" team plunges through the fan-house for the initial exploration endeavor, while the Blacksville No. 2 rescue team serves as backup—it has now been eleven hours since the Sago explosion.

Initial exploration of the Sago Mine by the Robinson Run team goes rather quickly, until the team runs into delay while waiting for electricity to be re-energized to a dewatering pump in order to prevent main travelways from blocking with water. The pump resumes pushing water at 7:55 p.m., and rescuers return exploring at 8:05 p.m. At 2:13 a.m. on January 3, an exploring rescue team discovers a red light glowing in the distance, thus explorers immediately withdraw from the mine because the glowing light indicates that someone forgot to de-energize the Atmospheric Monitoring System (AMS).

Sago's AMS monitors for outbreaks of fire during normal production shifts, and since Scotia's twin blasts three decades earlier had taught mine rescue personnel the critical importance of de-energizing all electrical circuits, including battery-powered circuits, preceding mine recovery efforts, sight of the red light instantly drives Sago explorers from the mine.

Following personnel killing the power source to Sago's AMS at 3:57 a.m. on January 3, Command holds rescue teams outside for additional time in order to allow a surface drilling crew to punch its first test borehole through into 2nd-Left Parallel Section, because red-hot drill bits can sometimes provide ignition sources for methane. Immediately upon drillers' bit mincing through within a few hundred feet of the face region, drillers bang on their drill steel, but fail to detect any sort of comeback response. Quickly, surface crews pump an air sample from the test hole that analyzes at 1,054 ppm CO, but other mine gases measure near the normal range—rescuers can easily deal with those toxic CO levels via their SCBAs. Around 6:30 a.m., surface crews lower a camera through the No.1 Borehole and although the camera shows the mine undisturbed in the region around the test hole, the camera detects no visual signs of life.

At approximately 6:57 a.m., it has now been more than 24 hours following the ignition at Sago, when mine rescue teams return to exploring inside. At 7:34 a.m., a group of rescue personnel sends a trial robot up the tracks towards 2nd-Left Parallel, while another rescue team explores the main intake, but at 8:48 a.m., the robot becomes disabled when it hangs on debris in the track entry.

Exploration of the explosion-riddled Sago Mine continues throughout the day of January 3, and at 5:20 in the afternoon, in the track entry, rescuers discover the first body. Evidence indicates that the first victim, the overseer of a conveyor line, never had a chance to don his SCSR. As rescue teams continue advancing, shortly after 6:15 p.m. they locate remnants of the North Mains seals. Because the explosion scattered the Omega Blocks that formed the seals in an outby direction, rescue crews determine that the explosion originated from behind the sealed area in a mined-out region, which is good news. If the lost crew had already reached the face region prior to ignition, the crew would have been somewhat shielded from the direct force of the blast, and the crew would have been farther away from the origin of the blast than 1st-Left crew had been; all of 1st-Left crew survived.

At 7:48 p.m. on January 3, an exploring rescue team finds 2nd-Left Parallel crew's mantrip, and 20 minutes later, the team discovers the discarded carrying-cases for 12 SCSRs. The discarded cases tell a story that all mine rescue teams have been longing to hear: the 12-man crew indeed survived the blast, and if crewmembers managed to barricade, they could easily be hunkered-down, and waiting. The ole adrenaline pumps begin pushing at high speed with rescue crewmembers as team members kick into high gear with doing what they have trained hundreds of hours to do: save lives!

At 9:40 p.m., as oxygen supplies begin to deplete within 4-hour SCBAs worn by the exploring team, the team retreats to the Fresh Air Base (FAB). It has now been more than 39 hours since the Sago explosion and everyone involved in the rescue effort is starting to recognize that a rescue must come soon if the effort is to result in a rescue, and not simply body recovery. Hence, after conferring with rescue team commanders, Command devises a plan where rescue teams will abandon the standard practice of building airlocks to advance the FAB, and instead, teams will plunge much deeper than the 1,000 feet maximum called for by standard rescue protocol.

Because the spool of wire that accompanies permissible hard-wire phones carried by mine rescue teams is only 1,000 feet long, rescue teams exploring 1,000 feet beyond the FAB inside Sago will use permissible handheld radios to provide one critical leg of communication with the FAB. However, with the scheme that utilizes radios, there also runs a risk of losing communication, since wireless radios will only transmit for a few hundred feet underground because radio signals are usually absorbed, or refracted, when radios are carried around obstacles. With the special communications scheme, if a crewmember of an exploring-team becomes distressed, or goes-down, and communications become interrupted, backups at the FAB will have no way of knowing that they should swarm to help.

It is now the McElroy mine rescue team's turn to lead exploration in 2nd-Left Parallel Section, and all crewmembers agree to abandon standard exploration protocol and boldly plunge more than 1,000 feet beyond the FAB in an all out push to save the miners. Initially, one of the four permissible wireless radios available to teams, malfunctions, leaving only three wireless radios on hand—you cannot run to your local Wal-Mart and purchase a permissible wireless radio that is incapable of igniting methane, ones like mine rescue teams use.

The risky communication scheme for the final push requires that one McElroy team member stay back at a distance and act as a go-between wireless operator, so after receiving a message via wireless from his crew, he can relay that message more than 600 feet back, to a pair of Tri-State crewmembers. The two Tri-State crewmembers carry the third wireless radio and a voice-activated hard-wire phone. Once the Tri-State wireless operator receives a message, he will repeat that message to his teammate, who will in turn relay the dispatch 1,000 feet to the FAB via the hard-wire phone and miners at the FAB will then relay the message to Command, outside.

As the McElroy mine rescue team advances toward the face region in 2nd-Left Parallel Section, a knee-deep waterhole in the track entry forces McElroy to reroute, however with the rerouting, the team quickly loses radio signal with their go-between man. In order to regain a clear signal, the go-between darts out of the track entry to catch a glimpse of distant lights from his crew. With lights in sight, the go-between receives his team's message but now, he has no wireless signal with the Tri-State crew positioned behind him. The go-between quickly backpedals several hundred feet to where he sees lights from the Tri-State pair, and then he relays to Tri-State. The go-between is sporting 35 pounds of mine rescue gear, which includes a full-face, rubber sealed, oxygen mask and to complicate matters, he is wading through a knee-deep waterhole with each trip to transmit, and to receive. If the go-between accidentally contorts his facemask and sucks in enough carbon monoxide to blackout, in all likelihood, he will die before rescue crewmembers actually realize he is distressed.

As the McElroy mine rescue team plunges nearly 920 feet beyond their go-between radio operator, the go-between suddenly realizes that his darting back and forth he is exposing his teammates to extra risk by leaving them without communication for extended periods. Hence, the go-between ceases repeating messages for verification with Tri-State so that he can sprint back quicker, which should result in less time of disrupted communications with McElroy.

_It has now been nearly 41 hours since the Sago Mine exploded, 30 hours since rescue teams plunged underground, and as the McElroy team nears the face region of 2nd-Left Parallel, rescuers hear moaning coming from behind a curtain. As McElroy teammates abruptly begin chattering, and the go-between standing nearly 900 feet back, hears over his radio, "there's noises, there's guys behind it...we've got to go around another break" ("break" is another term for a crosscut)."_ 18 _However, the go-between quickly loses his radio signal as explorers circle around!_

_As the exploring McElroy team rushes behind a curtain where moans originate, they discover a semiconscious Randal McCloy, who clings to life by barely a thread. Without hesitation, some McElroy team members begin treating McCloy, while others check for vital signs from McCloy's comrades; wild chatter evolves from behind the curtained-off area. A MEU (Medical Emergency Unit) team member bolts from the curtained-off area and darts to the power distribution center and grabs a stretcher, however, since he now has a clear shot to radio the go-between, he relays over his handheld that they have found "all 12 guys......we have one alive."_ 19 _Additionally, the MEU member requests for help, however, the batteries on his handheld are getting weak, which results in the go-between receiving a jumbled and broken message. The go-between interprets that garbled message as, "we need help, we've found them, we found all the men, we need help."_ 20 _The go-between hurriedly backpedals, splashes through the knee-deep waterhole, and relays the message, as he understands it: they have found them all; two men are down; and they need help immediately._

_Quickly, before repeating his transmission to Tri-State for verification, the out-of-breath go-between dashes back to radio McElroy. However, Tri-State inaccurately interprets one phrase within the jumbled single-transmission as they found "12 alive,"_ 21 _which they relay to the FAB by hard-wire phone just prior to abandoning their post and running to aid the 12. The communications leg from Tri-State to the FAB is now disrupted as Tri-State crewmembers rush deeper into the toxic mine to aid with rescuing Sago's lost crew, while personnel at the FAB relays to Command that all 12 miners have been found alive. At once, personnel from the Governor's Office, who lurk in the Command Center, hear word come over the mine phone that all victims have been found alive—standard mine rescue protocol for the last four decades had prohibited personnel not associated with a rescue mission from being in the Command Center. Those staffers quickly bolt from the Command Center, and run across the street to the Sago Baptist Church, where they blurt out to the governor that rescue teams have found all 12 miners alive. Reporters lurking nearby overhear the false news, and within minutes, erroneous reports concerning the rescue at Sago circle the globe via 24-hour television news networks._

As flawed information rounds the globe, deep inside the Sago Mine, McElroy crewmembers wade through waterholes, walk around obstacles, and climb over piles of debris in an atmosphere polluted with carbon monoxide, while toting Randal McCloy on a stretcher. Huffing-and-puffing through facemasks designed specifically to prevent changing facial expressions from altering seals, McElroy crewmembers fight off fatigue as they rush their patient toward the FAB, while having no clue about the circulation of erroneous news.

On the surface, as reporters question anxiously waiting family members about their feelings concerning the good news of their loved ones being found alive, family members enthusiastically answer reporters while grinning from ear-to-ear. However, several minutes later, those grins abruptly wilt as anguish, misery, and resentment settles in when family members learn the truth, only one Sago miner survived. How could this happen? Was this some sort of cruel trick? How could someone be so careless as to let such deceit arise out of awful human tragedy? Sadly, the story at Sago suddenly focuses on a communications mix-up rather than the tragedy of loosing 12 coalminers!

In the days following the Sago rescue, no reporter bothered to piece together a story concerning the real reason why the communications glitch occurred. No journalist reported that mine rescue teams at Sago, out of pure respect for victims' family members, waived normal rescue protocol by carry all bodies from the mine well before reestablishing ventilation to the affected region.

The public rarely hears about the courageous acts of mine rescue crewmembers and we never see crewmembers pull down their facemask to pose for cameras, or give public interviews. Why is that? Well, for the last several decades, mine rescue teams have operated by a strict code of discretion where exploring crewmembers will not refer to victims by names, or occupations, but rather crewmember refer to victims as numbers. Teams operate under such prudence to assure that bystanders lurking nearby on the surface cannot overhear messages pertaining to specific victims that blare from mine speakerphones, and in turn, spread that information to relatives of victims. Sometimes, ONE word added, or, delete, from a specific message can completely alter implications of a particular dispatch! For more than four prior decades, only personnel associated with mine rescue missions, company officials, state and federal mining officials, mine rescue personnel, and representatives of labor were allowed in command centers. Sago broke that 40-year tradition, which turned out not to be a good thing!

Understandably, most of us tend to lose interest in stories concerning mine disasters once rescue operations have ended; it is natural. Did you know that two miners who were working at the Sago complex when the Sago explosion occurred committed suicide? The mine dispatcher (outside communications man), and Boni who survived the explosion, both took their own life. Chisolm committed suicide on August 29, 2006, and Boni, who initially ceased evacuation of the mine and went back to assist with getting 1st-Left crew out, took his own life during the last week of September 2006. Various friends of Chisolm and Boni felt the haunting left by the Sago tragedy caused both men to commit suicide, which further deepens the sad saga of Sago.

Perhaps it is those tragic mine disasters where much controversy swirls that catches our attention the most, that starts us all to thinking, and the Sago Mine Disaster sure had its share of controversy. Initially, at Sago, mine management waited nearly an hour before attempting to alert federal and state officials, while supervisors darted underground to assist crews. The Sago blast occurred on a holiday weekend, which resulted in Sago management only contacting answering machines, initially, as most state of federal mining authorities were away for the holiday. Many coalminers throughout the state of West Virginia held serious concerns that mine rescue teams were not allowed to enter the Sago Mine for several hours following arrival of the first rescue team at the site. Unexplained, personnel not associated with the Sago rescue mission were allowed in the Command Center, which broke from decades of mine rescue tradition, and resulted in the leaking of erroneous information concerning the real number of survivors.

Because the Sago rescue endeavor fell short by only a few hours in rescuing eleven additional miners, there was much finger pointing following the Sago tragedy. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never strapped on 35 pounds of rescue gear, stood staring into a dark abyss filled with toxic afterdamp and volatile methane, and thought of momma and the kids while nervously anticipating getting the word to plunge inside, to point a finger.

After reading MSHA's Sago Fatality Report in detail, one can conclude that no one particular blunder can be sited for causing the demise of 12 miners at Sago, and if the survival of Randal McCloy had anything to do with a divine miracle, well, God delivered His miracle in the form of 13 courageous mine rescue teams. However, that Fatality Report does indicate that inadequate training regarding when to barricade, and insufficient instructions as to how to erect airtight barricades, were both contributors to the demise of at least 11 of the 12 Sago victims. That, my friend, is a tragedy in itself.

Chapter 14

Barricade Chambers

Much of the basics pertaining to when, where, and how to properly barricade inside a mine were established many decades prior to the Sago Mine Disaster but training became lax in our modern mining era because so few underground explosions were occurring nationwide, and because of those amazing oxygen-generating apparatuses (SCSRs) that miners did eventually get, around 1981. With SCSRs, under most circumstances, miners can safely evacuate a mine following an underground blast, or mine fire, but of course, there are always exceptions to the norm. With very little training pertaining to the art of barricading, the 12 Sago victims who sought refuge behind brattice cloth were futile in their attempt to barricade when they failed to hang multiply layers of curtain and make their sanctuary as airtight as possible. Hence, the Sago Mine Disaster actually renewed the century-old dispute pertaining to whether barricading was a safe and effective method to ward off afterdamp, and whether there should be federal mandates requiring mine operators to provide ready-made barricade chambers in all underground coalmines.

Even though during the two months following the Sago tragedy, ready-made barricade chambers saved 72 potash miners in Canada, and chambers saved 3 miners in a nickel mine in Australia, here in America, lobbyists renewed the combustible-argument against chambers as the UMWA tried to reintroduce debate to endorse chambers. As matter of fact, in February of 2006, Bob Friend, deputy director of MSHA, announced that barricade chambers would not work in America's coalmines because combustible coal around chambers created a hazard in itself, chambers would make miners feel too secure and suppress their desire to escape, and many coalmines lacked the necessary height to install chambers.22 Friend stated, "coal is a different beast,"23 while attempting to explain why barricade chambers worked well in metal and non-metal mines but could not provide protection in coalmines.

Although many coalmines situated in America's metallurgical coal seams are less than 42 inches in height, miners cut, or shoot, boom-holes (high spots) in these low mines at various locations throughout the mines in order to provide the height required for setting conveyor-drives and establishing transfer points for conveyors. Because the establishment of boom-holes in low coalmines is standard mining practice, using low coalmining height as an argument against ready-made chambers held little credence. In fact, it is much more difficult to evacuate from the low height coalmines, which makes chambers more useful in the low seams. Even though low mining height may hamper the use of mobile, portable chambers in underground mines, it is much easier to construct durable, stationary barricade chambers in low mining height than establish durable, fixed chambers in high coal beds. Additionally, the century-old combustible-argument against barricade chambers never held any real merit from the beginning. In fact, a U.S. government sponsored study pertaining how to implement ready-made barricade chambers in America's coalmines should have debunked most arguments against chambers in 1983, but opponents of refuge chambers buried that 1983 report in a sea of bureaucratic red tape.

Throughout much of our modern mining era following the introduction of SCSRs as standard safety gear carried by miners every day, most underground coalminers insisted that they would never attempt to use any sort of barricade to survive the aftermath of an explosion, as they felt escape was the only option to surviving a mine blast. Ironically, during much earlier decades of the twentieth century, the coalminer himself often provided much resistance to innovative solutions meant to increase his odds at surviving mine blasts. During the early 1900s, many coalminers refused to accept the premise that coal dust by itself will fuel an underground blast. Since some of those early underground explosions were the result of miners using loose coal, in lieu of clay, to tamp blasting agents, one of the U.S. Bureau of Mines' first projects was to establish an experimental gallery where it could explode pure coal dust in a controlled environment to demonstrate to coalminers about the volatility of coal dust. However, a substantial number of coalminers refused to accept the results of demonstrations carried out in a 100-foot gallery, and not a coalmine. In response to those skeptics, the Bureau quickly established its first Experimental Mine on a 38-acre tract near Pittsburgh in 1910.

During the first several decades following its inception, the USBM also found it difficult to convince all coalminers that barricading was an alternative survival technique for instances where escape following an explosion was impossible. Some of the arguments against using the barricade tactic to survive afterdamp held credence, since so many variables come in to play for miners trapped by a mine blast. All mine explosions differ in magnitude, and since most miners who survive a blast are usually working away from the flashpoint, survivors are usually in a precarious predicament of instinctively guessing the location of the detonation. Coal seam height, distance crews are underground, location of an explosion in respect to crew's position, availability of a ready-made chambers or availability of material to construct an adequate barricade, and severity of injuries received by comrades all become important variables in determining whether a crew should abandon an evacuation attempt, and holdup by barricading.

The USBM—MESA and MSHA in more modern mining eras—always insisted that miners should only attempt to survive the aftermath of an underground blast by barricading as a last resort where evacuation appeared impossible.

Section 315 of the 1969 Coal Mining Health and Safety Act allowed for the Secretary of Labor, or his authorized representative, to require rescue chambers inside any U.S. mine, which resulted in the USBM contracting Westinghouse Corporation, in 1970, to develop prototype self-contained rescue (refuge) chambers. However, Westinghouse's two prototypes proved too cumbersome, costly, and the chemically produced atmospheres within the models only performed marginally, resulting in the Secretary choosing not to require chambers until improved technologies where developed.

In 1978, the USBM contracted Foster-Miller Associates (FMA), an engineering company, to conduct an extensive study pertaining to prior underground explosions and fires, and to develop guidelines for employing ready-made barricade chambers inside America's coalmines. After five years of research, FMA published its findings in October of 1983. According to the Foster-Miller Study, barricades saved 324 miners for the period 1909-1922, 552 miners for the period 1923-1939, and 30 miners for the war era 1940-1946. Although no U.S. miners saved themselves by barricading for the post war era 1947-1953, 68 survived inside barricades for the era 1954-1969, and 29 endured by barricading for the era 1970-1980.24

The Foster-Miller Study also researched 41 major underground fires and explosions that occurred in U.S. coalmines from 1940-1980 where 3,871 miners were underground during the events. Mine blasts killed 652 miners of those 3,871 instantly, while 1,509 were completely unaffected because they worked in regions far removed from the flashpoint. However, of the 1,710 miners in those 41 events that where at risk of toxic mine atmospheres, 1,179 were successful in evacuating mines, while 309 miners died during attempts to evacuate, which results in a 79% survival rate for those that attempted to evacuate. In those same 41 mine disasters, dire conditions caused 222 miners to seek refuge by barricading; however, only 127 of those hunkered-down, survived, which produces a 57% survival rate for miners that barricaded. The results of the Foster-Miller Study for the 40-year period of 1940-1980 leaves us with little doubt that odds of surviving the aftermath of a blast, or a mine fire, were much greater with evacuation attempts. Nevertheless, those 1,003 miners that survived by barricading during the period 1909-1980 leaves us with little doubt that airtight barricades can often save miners.24

One specific underground explosion that was carefully scrutinized in FMA's research serves as a perfect examples as to the importance of the proper training on when, where, and how to survive by barricading. On February 4, 1957, the Bishop 34 Mine in McDowell County, West Virginia blew-up killing 37 men. In December of that same year, No. 31 Mine, an affiliate of No. 34 Mine that was located just a few miles down the road, blew-up killing 11 miners; however, during the December explosion, 14 miners saved themselves by barricading. In response to those February and December explosions at Pocahontas Fuel Corporation's two mines, each week during safety meetings with their crews, Pocahontas Fuel bosses discussed the appropriate actions for their crews to take if they should ever became involved in an explosion, and bosses emphasized the important role that proper barricading could serve in saving trapped miners.24

Astonishingly, on October 27, 1958, No. 34 Mine blew-up again when methane ignited on 2-Left Section. Twenty-two miners died instantly! Because the blast failed to sever communications with all but the region that exploded, the General Mine Foreman immediately phoned crews ordering them to evacuate the mine. One-hundred-forty-eight miners walked out of No. 34 Mine within an hour of the explosion. However, supervisors on Pine Ridge-Left and Pine Ridge-Main sections informed the General Mine Foreman that they had felt the blast, that thick clouds of dust had blanketed both sections, and that they were taking their crews to barricade—the two crews had 30-minute self-rescue devices to provide protection from afterdamp.24

On Pine Ridge-Main Section, 2 supervisors and 20 miners knocked out stoppings to short-circuit ventilation currents and retreated to the face region where they built five, three-ply, brattice cloth barricades across five face entries to form their refuge space. On Pine Ridge-Left Section, 2 supervisors and 13 miners knocked out portions of stoppings to short-circuit ventilation and retreated inby (further inside) to erect four-ply cloth barricades across mine entries. The two different crews hunkered-down inside two separate barricades while waiting on their comrades to rescue them. Rescue crews reached the Pine Ridge-Main crew in about an hour, but it was more than two hours before a mine rescue team reached the Pine Ridge-Left production crew. In both rescue endeavors, rescue teams passed through afterdamp containing high concentrations of carbon monoxide before reaching the hunkered-down miners.24

Without doubt, the 37 miners that survived at Bishop No. 34 Mine by barricading exemplify how the appropriate training in the art of barricading can save miners from the aftermath of an underground explosion. On the other hand, those 148 miners who survived by evacuating the mine, illustrate that they indeed took the proper recourse by scurrying from the mine. There were two different circumstances, with two different solutions, but because of good training, Pocahontas Fuel miners at Bishop acted appropriately under both circumstances.

When discussing the art of barricading, one should recognize the critical importance in making any barricade airtight. Bishop's miners trapped on Pine Ridge-Left Section used four plies of curtain across some entries and they would have used at least four layers across all entries if they had not ran short on brattice curtain, as they were determined to make their barricades airtight, airtight, and airtight! However, we must also recognize that, through the years, several miners have perished while hold-up behind poorly erected barricades, or behind barricades erected at inappropriate locations.

On March 8, 1960, an underground fire in the Island Creek No. 22 Mine at Holden, West Virginia trapped 20 miners; one trapped was the safety engineer. Because communications to the outside remained intact, the safety engineer informed the dispatcher by phone that he was directing crews to the Elk Creek Slope Portal. Two of the 20 miners who thought the Elk Creek portal was a bad choice, refused to go with the rest of the gang. These two went around the fire through old works where they crawled on their bellies for hundreds of yards. After four hours of difficult and dangerous maneuvering, the two mavericks successfully made their way outside. Later, two other miners of the remaining 18 chose to split from the main party, which resulted in the safety engineer leading 15 miners toward the Elk Creek portal. Unable to reach the outside because asphyxiating smoke, the gang-of-16 eventually attempted to hang brattice cloth and form a barricade. Because ventilating currents swept most smoke from the fire to the Elk Creek portal, all 16 perished in a matter of hours as they had made the wrong choice as where to barricade. The last two miners that split from the main group also succumbed, which resulted in rescue crews recovering 18 bodies one week following the outbreak of fire at Holden.24

The Island Creek fire serves as the perfect example of how making the wrong choices concerning when, where, and how to barricade can be disastrous, while the two survivors at Island Creek exemplify how dogged persistence in evacuation attempts can payoff.

For the mining era 1942-1982, there are numerous instances where barricades yielded joyous outcomes for trapped miners. In 1943, six miners survived by barricading at the Three Point Mine in Kentucky, while 18 survived by barricading in the Nu-Rex Mine in Tennessee that same year. In 1945, eight miners survived for 54 hours while hunkered-down behind a barricade in the Belva No. 1 Mine in Kentucky; however, one of the Belva survivors died two days following the rescue, and another died several months later. In 1963, seven coalminers survived by barricading in the Crane Creek Mine in Utah, and in 1966, eleven miners held out by barricading for two hours in the Siltix Mine at Mount Hope, West Virginia. One of the most significant survival feats attributed to barricading took place deep inside a zinc mine at Gordonville, Tennessee, in 1978, where ready-made chambers were already incorporate.

The Gordonville zinc mine consisted of a single tunnel that extended nearly 1.5 miles underground that provided an escape route in situations of emergency. On April 19, 1978, a scoop (massive equipment containing a huge scoop-bucket) caught on fire about 3,500 feet from the mine portal while 29 miners were working inby. The scoop operator and another miner managed to charge around the fire and escape, but 27 miners became trapped when smoke swept to the excavation area.

Immediately following the escape of the two Gordonsville miners, management quickly shutdown the ventilation fan and organized a firefighting crew. Because mine management had already established three refuge chambers near the active works that held food, water, and airlines supplying compressed air, the 27 trapped zinc-miners waltzed into those chambers and easily held out for more than an hour while firefighting crews extinguished the fire; it was a cakewalk. The astonishingly simplistic survival tactic of Gordonville miners motivated the USBM to contract Foster-Miller for the research needed to establish guidelines governing the establishment of barricade chambers inside America's underground coalmines.

The Foster-Miller Study went as far as to research the circumstances surrounding nearly 350 major explosions and fires that occurred in coalmines throughout America following 1908, and those researchers determined that only during the Farmington Mine Disaster was it likely that durable, ready-made chambers could not have provided adequate protection for survivors of mine explosions.24

Foster-Miller Associates stated in their study:

Controversy shrouds the implementation of underground rescue chambers. One side argues that rescue chambers are a life saving tool, while the other argues that rescue chambers may seduce miners away from escape thereby contributing to a net life risking situation. The background statement to the scope of work under which this program was performed indicated that, "in the event of a fire or explosion in a coal mine, the Bureau of Mines considers the primary means for men to escape from underground is by their own egress through properly designated and well maintained escapeways. However, in the event all exit routes are blocked, the trapped men must be protected against noxious air and secondary explosions until rescued." With this background, the FMA project staff has avoided entanglements in the controversy and has directed the program towards the pragmatic view that the job is to determine what is the best way to implement rescue chambers and not to determine whether rescue chambers are desirable, necessary or undesirable. Only through this sort of approach can the technology for rescue chambers be advanced, thereby allowing a rational decision on implementation.24

Although the Foster-Miller Report titled "Development of Guidelines for Rescue Chambers" was submitted to the Bureau in 1983, and FMA's research indicated that properly constructed rescue chambers having air supplied through boreholes, compressed airlines, or bottled oxygen could provide protection for survivors of coalmine explosions, government bureaucrats quickly buried the Report. See, the oxygen-producing units granted to miners by a 1980 federal statute had made it possible for miners to wade through hazardous atmosphere during an escape, and since the Reagan Administration believed strongly in less regulation of American industries, the Foster-Miller Report was quickly repressed. Even though the USBM had always insisted that a miner's primary method for surviving fires and explosions was evacuation through properly maintained escapeways, history had proven that explosions often block escape routes. Nevertheless, the topic of ready-made, barricade chambers inside America's coalmines stayed hush-hush for nearly three decades following Foster-Miller's report, but following Sago's horrific blast, whispers of a need for barricade chambers began to recirculate.

As early as 1986, South Africa passed legislation requiring refuge chambers in all its underground coalmines. South Africa's mandate went as far as to necessitate boreholes from the surface penetrating into chambers to allow a method to pipe air, food, and water down to hunkered-down miners.

As early as 1977, Manitoba Province in Canada passed statutes that allowed the province's Chief Mining Engineer to require refuge chambers in its mine, and during 1993-1994, other provincial coal ministries in Canada implemented operation "Tommyknocker," an extensive research project that determined, without doubt, that portable chambers would provide adequate protection for trapped coalminers. Operation Tommyknocker went as far as to monitor Canadian mine rescue teams while they lived in portable underground refuge chambers for periods of several days. Tommyknocker's researchers monitored live conditions inside a chamber, including carbon dioxide buildup, CO2 scrubber performance with different systems, and vital signs for guinea-pig-miners. Following extremely encouraging results from Operation Tommyknocker, Alberta and British Columbia Provinces passed mandates by 1997 that required refuge chambers in provincial coalmines.

England actually established elaborate refuge bays in at least ten of its larger coalmines during the 1980s, and some of England's chambers were capable of sustaining life for 100 miners, two days—Britain has some of the deepest coalmines in the world.

When May of 2006 rolled around, the Darby mine in Eastern Kentucky was loading with methane, and preparing to rattle the ground. Darby's blast would finally end America's debate about the worthwhile of ready-made barricades chambers inside coalmines.

Chapter 15

Darby

In 2006, Kentucky Darby, LLC, operated the Darby No. 1 Mine about 26 miles east of Harlan, Kentucky. Darby No. 1 Mine was a small coalmining operation that employed 31 underground miners and 3 surface workers. The mine operated nonunion, and it produced approximately 20,000 tons of coal monthly.

During the two years prior to May 2006, the Darby mine suffered no lost-time accidents indicating that Darby was a pretty darn safe mining operation—if there is such a thing as a safe coalmine.

Near March 22, 2006, following the completion of mining operations in the A-Left Section of Darby Mine, two supervisors oversaw crews as they erected three seals (24" thick masonry walls) near the mouth of A-Left panel, which completely isolated the abandoned panel from the active works. For construction of the seals, crews used modern Omega Blocks. Omega Blocks are huge, rectangular blocks molded from very lightweight, synthetic material and although Omega Blocks resemble cinderblocks in appearance, a razor-knife can actually slice though Omegas.

In America, prior to establishing any underground mine, the operator is required to obtain an Approved Ventilation Plan from MSHA, and within that plan is listed the criterion for constructing mine seals. However, Kentucky Darby failed to build it's A-Left Section seals according to its Plan in that all block joints were not cemented, and metal roof-support straps above two of the seals where never removed. Because these seals were located far away from production work, and the seals stood within 15 feet of a main return airway where huge volumes of air constantly swept across seal faces, the seals were actually isolated from nearly all ignition sources for methane.

Over the years, a great number of coalminers have been killed while abating imminent dangers inside a mine when miners' actions actually triggered even more critical hazardous than were initially foreseen. For example, several miners have perished through the years while pulling down small pieces of loose roof strata, when those small pieces served as triggers to abruptly release mammoth cave-ins. Strangely, underground, it seems that so many variables pertaining to safety intertwine, and often, attempting to correct blunders, lead to gaffs that are more serious in nature.

The failure of seals during the Sago mine blast resulted in MSHA developing serious concerns that seals in other coalmines could experience similar failures if subjected to comparable forces during explosions. Hence, by the first week of May 2006, MSHA inspectors were examining seals in all underground mines while peeking through some strong bifocals. As all underground coalmine operators became acutely aware that MSHA personnel would be examining all underground seals thoroughly, Darby officials examined their own seals with a little more scrutiny and immediately recognized that the protruding roof straps above two of their seals violated federal code. Since removing the straps with a cutting torch would quickly rectify noncompliance, the mine manager instructed his production crew supervisor to cut and remove the straps following second shift production duties ending on May 19.

At 11:00 p.m. on May 19, 2006, while the second shift is finishing up with production duties inside the Darby mine, the hoot-owl crew, consisting of George Petra (foreman), Roy Middleton (electrician), Paris Thomas (mechanic), and Paul Ledford (roof-bolter operator), dart underground to perform maintenance work and catch-up on roof-bolting.

Following the second shift finishing their production duties around 12:45 a.m. on May 20, all of the crew, except for Amon Brock and Jimmy Lee, hop aboard a mantrip and roll toward the outside. Foreman Brock and Lee (shuttle car operator) load the cutting torches and bottled gas aboard their personnel carrier and the two head down the main return entry to remove those protruding, metal straps that were inadvertently left extending from the top of two return seals. The two need to get-her-done before an inspector arrives specifically to examine the seals and perhaps writes a withdrawal order due to the straps creating the potential for an explosion.

Brock and Lee arrive at the return seals a few minutes prior to 1:00 a.m. where the two hurriedly fasten the gas regulators to the oxygen and acetylene bottles and fire-up the ole cutting torch. As a brilliant, beautiful, blue blaze melts away at the first strap protruding from the No. 3 Seal, and the torch trigger sends a hiss of oxygen blowing away molten slag, bright-yellow fireflies migrate through a channel constructed within the strap, and yellow flickers dance over into no-mans-land behind the No. 3 Seal. Abruptly, the mountain roars to life as all three return seals blow to smithereens, and the two-man crew unexpectedly takes the full force of a cannon-like blast. The enormous explosion sends the crew's mantrip barrel-rolling hundreds of feet, ripping away three wheels and reducing the ride to a pile of twisted steel.

Moments past 1:00 a.m. six crewmembers of the second shift, that are headed home, feel a violent gust of wind roll across them as they walk from the mine drift. At first thought, crewmembers believe that a huge roof fall probably created the jet of air but as seconds wane by and smoke and burnt-odor begin rolling from the mine portals, few have doubt that the mine has exploded.

The hoot-owl gang composed of Petra, Middleton, Thomas, and Ledford are near the face region performing their regular scheduled tasks when the vicious winds come gushing in. Petra wastes little time in gathering his men and informing them that two second shift crewmembers are using cutting torches in the main return, and in all probability, the two have ignited methane. Quickly, the four-man crew hops aboard two personnel carriers and heads outside. In all likelihood, all four miners realize that getting to the surface will be extremely dangerous and difficult, because their only escape route lies right through the explosion zone. However, the gang also realizes that weeks earlier at Sago, one Sago crew made the wrong choice when they chose to hunker-down and wait on rescue teams. Hence, this Darby crew will not risk making that same bad choice and instead, will use their wit to save themselves by escaping to the surface.

The fleeing hoot-owl gang drives their two personnel carriers only a few hundred feet beyond the section before they begin encountering thick suffocating smoke, which forces the four to don their SCSRs, and to transfer to one ride. As visibility becomes less than two-foot, and driving a straight line becomes impossible, the gang's mantrip suddenly hangs on debris about 300 feet outby the power transformer center, which forces the group to set out on foot. Ledford and Middleton, the youngest members of the hoot-owl gang at age 35, take the lead, while 53-year-old Thomas and 49-year-old Petra lag behind. The added respiration that comes with fleeing on foot, quickly causes every man's SCSR to generate great heat, and creates much resistance to breathing. As extreme fatigue rushes in with crewmembers, Ledford and Middleton jerk their mouthpieces out and discuss which entries might provide the best routes for evacuation. Since visibility is practically zero now, Ledford and Middleton agree that it will be wise to feel their way down the high-voltage cable, but the two come into disagreement about which direction of the cable actually leads outside. Because Middleton feels that he and his sidekick may have already lost their bearing, Middleton turns back in tracking the cable, but Ledford presses forward while sensing that he understands which end of the cable lies outside.

Petra and Thomas quickly fall behind in evacuation of the Darby mine as both miners have inhaled far too much coal dust during their quarter-century of laboring underground to run from a mine while sporting overheated SCSRs that are showing much resistance to breathing. Thomas, in search of better visibility, darts through a man-door in a stopping and tries evacuating down the return, but Petra stays steady with his course. Ledford, by using the high-voltage cable in the conveyor neutral entry as his guide, has already passed the explosion zone and leads his comrades by several hundred feet, but due to extreme fatigue, Ledford suddenly passes-out. Middleton, after backtracking toward the power distribution center and finding the correct bearing, struggles with exhaustion as he now tracks the high-voltage cable in the correct direction.

Following lying unconscious for several minutes near No. 3 conveyor-drive, Ledford slowly regains consciousness, and staggers through a man-door into intake air. Abruptly, Ledford again collapses due to breathing through an overheated SCSR that provides much resistance to every breath pulled in.

Approximately five minutes following smoke rolling from the Darby mine portals, Darby officials contact Robert Rhea, MSHA Field Office Supervisor, and tell him about the Darby explosion; officials also notify the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing (KOMSL). Because of the rapid reporting of the Darby explosion, MSHA Inspector Kevin Doan arrives at the Darby mine office at 1:54 a.m. where Doan immediately issues a 103 (k) Order prohibiting everyone except rescue workers from entering the mine. Doan hurriedly ventures to the mine fan where he detects 2.6 % methane and 500 ppm carbon monoxide with his handheld detector.

Within five minutes of Inspector Doan's arrival at Darby, MSHA inspectors Rhea and Jackson show-up, and personnel from KOMSL also arrive. KOMSL personnel, MSHA personnel, and Kentucky Darby personnel quickly establish a Command Center on the surface where staff decides that some of the group will hurriedly explore the intake entries "barefaced," while continuous monitoring for mine gases via handheld detectors.

Without backup and barefaced, at 2:32 a.m., MSHA inspectors Rhea, Jackson, and Doan, along with inspector Todd Middleton (KOMSL) and Mark Sizemore (Darby mine supervisor), plunge inside No. 1 Mine intake drift to explore. KOMSL supervisor Ronnie Hampton and mine superintendent Ralph Napier staff the Command Center, while KOMSL rescue specialist J. J. White takes up position at the portal to act as a go-between wireless radio operator. Although the rescue gang is well aware that their bold rescue move breaks against standard mine rescue protocol, in all likelihood, every member of the group understands that the Grim Reaper might not have won at Sago if rescue crews could have been dispatched a couple of hours earlier.

Several crewmembers of organized mine rescue teams begin arriving at Darby around 3:00 a.m. At 3:08 a.m., the Command Center contacts John Pyles, MSHA District 7 Assistant District Manager, by phone informing him rescue teams have begun arriving at Darby but non-team personnel continue exploring underground. Immediately, Pyles orders all personnel other than organized teams to evacuate the mine, but before that message can be relayed underground via handheld radios, the unconventional rescue gang catches sight of a cap-light in the distance. Elated to see any sort of indication that there might be survivors, the unconventional gang rushes to the light where they find Ledford, down, with his SCSR strapped on, his mouthpiece in place, but with his nose clip and goggles missing. Ledford immediately mumbles that his three sidekicks are probably no more than a few hundred feet back. At once, the squad calls outside on the wireless radio requesting that Command send a personnel carrier for Ledford, and within minutes, Napier and shift foreman Mitchell Lunsford arrive with a ride. Napier hurriedly transports Ledford outside but Lunsford remains underground to assist with trying to locate Ledford's three sidekicks.

After finding Ledford in such dire physical condition, but learning that at least three more miners survived the explosion, Rhea, Jackson, Doan, Middleton, Sizemore, and Lunsford kick into hurry-up mode with their efforts to save the other survivors. As some members of the unconventional rescue gang advance a few hundred feet inby No. 3 conveyor-drive, carbon monoxide readings on handhelds suddenly surge from 80 ppm to off-scale, thus forcing the gang to retreat to fresh air at No. 3 conveyor drive, where they establish a FAB. Since communication to Command via wireless radios has been greatly sporadic up to now, the gang quickly splices into an underground phone line and creates continuous communications with the outside. However, two of the unconventional gang hurriedly exit the FAB and try exploring through a different airway, but high CO readings forces the barefaced explorers to quickly retreat.

Meanwhile on the surface at the Darby mine office, conventional mine rescue teams are preparing equipment, obtaining maps, and acquiring briefings as they organize to enter into the blast-riddled mine. At 4:00 a.m., the Harlan KOMSL rescue team darts inside and after reaching the already established FAB, the team immediately goes under oxygen and begins exploring return airways. At 4:15 a.m., the Harlan team advances to a shining light, where they find one of the hoot-owl crew who exhibits no signs of life.

At 4:32 a.m., the Lone Mountain mine rescue team No. 1 plunges underground, and at 4:40 a.m., the Lone Mountain mine rescue team No. 2 scampers beneath the summit. At 4:50 a.m., No. 1 team goes under oxygen and leaves the FAB to explore inby, and within 15 minute, the team strikes pay dirt when it observes the glow from a cap-light. Sadly, upon rushing to the shining beam, No. 1 team discovers another body!

Before 8:30 a.m. on May 20, mine rescue teams are swarming inside the Darby mine like mad honeybees. By now, the Barbourville KOMSL, James River Coal, and Martin KOMSL teams have all joined in the hunt.

Conventional mine rescue teams discover the last two victims of the Darby explosion before 9:00 a.m. on May 20. By 10:55 a.m., the rescue effort at the Darby Mine ends when teams transport the body of the last causality to the surface.

At Darby, woefully, two second shift crewmembers perished when several mistakes intermingled following a small blunder in the construction of mine seals several months earlier. Although no safety gear ever designed could have spared either second shift miner from the brutal concussion yielded by the mighty blast, there is a distinct possibility three hoot-owl miners may not have perished under slightly different circumstances. Although all three donned their SCSRs, according to testimony given by other miners working at Darby No. 1, Darby miners had not received adequate training in the use of SCSRs, nor had Darby miners practiced mine evacuation drills as required by federal code. Perhaps even more disturbing about the demise of three members of the hoot-owl crew is the fact that, so-called mining experts, had fought off attempts at mandating barricade chambers inside America's coalmines for decades.

On August 5, 2008, Paul Ledford, the sole survivor of the Darby blast, testified at a public hearing held in Lexington, Kentucky to discuss MSHA's proposed rule for refuge alternatives inside America's coalmines. One simple excerpt from the testimony of an actual survivor of a mine explosion does much to deflate decades of misconceptions about the worthwhile of ready-made chambers inside America's coalmines:

When me and my buddies at Darby would get together and eat lunch, we'd talk about Sago and how long it took the rescuers to get the men out. We decided if anything happened, we'd try to make it out instead of barricading. If we had a refuge chamber, we would have waited in the chamber until the rescuers come and helped us out. There would have only been two fatalities that day if we had a refuge chamber, and there would have only been one fatality at Sago, instead of twelve, if they had refuge chambers.25

The testimony of a real survivor of a mine blast who received first and second-degree burns on his chest due to excessive heat generated by his SCSR, carried much credence with officials overseeing the hearing held at Lexington. What better expert could one actually consult to find real answers concerning the viability of barricade chambers in America's coalmines than a miner who had actually beat the Grim Reaper, a true expert in surviving a mine explosion?

Chiefly because of the Darby and Sago mishaps, in 2008, the U.S. Congress amended the Miners Act so it now requires that coalmine operators provide barricade chambers on every underground coal-producing section. Additionally, the Act now requires operators to make extra SCSRs available to all underground miners. Ironically, those extra SCSRs are the very same oxygen-generating packs once considered too expensive to furnish coalminers.

Things change over time, and we all eventually die, but sadly, so many coalminers perished at an early age through the years because industry professionals, who viewed themselves as leading experts in underground mining, often felt that innovative safety gear would prove too costly.

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Chapter 16

Massey's Catastrophic Blast

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, Massey Energy was the sixth largest coal producer in America as it often mined as much as 40 million tons of coal per year. Frequently during that decade, Massey ranked fourth in U.S. coal revenue sales because Massey concentrated primarily on extracting metallurgical coal from the Appalachian coalfields, where the purist metallurgical coal seams in the world lie. In general, metallurgical coal fetches more than three-times the cash that steam coal brings, and sometimes, ten-times as much. Massey Energy, along with its many subsidiaries, mined coal in the Appalachian coalfields from the 1940s up until 2011, when Alpha Natural Resources purchase the mining company. Over the years, quite a few Appalachian miners fed their families and put their kids through college while laboring at Massey's highly productive mines.

In 1999, Massey miners puked-out 5.7 million tons of coal from its Upper Big Branch Mine (UBB) alone. Most underground coalminers have always been proud of setting high production records, and those Massey boys would let you know in a minute that they were proud of the high output at Upper Big Branch, and perhaps that is what made the UBB Mine Disaster such a bitter pill to swallow.

Performance Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey Energy, operate the UBB mining complex that spread out for miles in both Raleigh and Boone counties in West Virginia. The UBB complex consisted of 19 drifts openings, two shafts, and five main ventilation fans. Prior to 2010, the UBB Mine reduced to operating one longwall unit and three continuous mining units, nevertheless, the mine produced more than 10,000 tons of raw coal per workday in March 2010. Primarily because of UBB's mammoth size and huge mined-out regions, mine return airways spit out more than 2 million cubic feet of methane every 24 hours. Any underground complex liberating those quantities of methane is susceptible to experience an explosion if, God forbid, mine ventilation becomes restricted while equipment permissibility falls below federal standards.

On March 17, March 23, and March 30, 2010, a federal mine inspector issued several citations for violation of federal code for Performance Coal's failure to follow its Approved Ventilation Plan to control methane and coal dust inside the UBB complex. However, several other federal citations issued for the mine in March of 2010 amounted to nitpicking, such as a citation issued on March 17 for failure to maintain a portable toilet near the section. In general, miners despise portable toilets, as it is much easier to take a crap down a back entry in a return airway. Nevertheless, by April 2010, recent violations for coal dust accumulations, coupled with the numerous violations for noncompliance of the Approved Ventilation Plan, in a mine liberating 2 million cubic feet of methane every 24 hours are pointing toward the aggregation of a game of Russian Roulette played with more than one bullet stuffed in the pistol's cylinder.

Around 2:45 p.m. on April 5, 2010, the second shift longwall crew for the Upper Big Branch Mine relieves the dayshift longwall crew. The dayshift crew—often called the "Old Man Crew" because the gang consists primarily of seasoned miners with many years of mining experience—jumps on their battery-powered mantrip and darts down the rails toward the outside. Somewhere near No. 78-crosscuts, the "Old Man Crew" pulls on a sidetrack to wait on the second shift continuous mining machine crew for Headgate-22 to pass by. Deep underground, in Headgate-22 Section, a portion of the Headgate-22 dayshift continuous mining machine crew sit on their mantrip while waiting for their crew boss and a couple of other crewmembers to board the mantrip, so they can start outside.

Headgate-22 dayshift section boss is a 50-year-old seasoned coalminer that despises breaking mining code. In fact, few underground miners have ever mumbled crosswords concerning this tested section supervisor, as they know that he is a real coalminer just like them, and he comes by it honestly through family tradition. Some crewmembers of Headgate-22 kindly refer to their boss by a nickname, Deno.

Years ago, sometime around 1982 or 1983, after acquiring a four-year Mining Engineering Degree, Deno began working as a shot-firer (miner that detonates blasting agents) for a Maben Energy mine at East Gulf, West Virginia. Now everyone at East Gulf No. 4 Mine liked the young, brilliant kid who chose to start his mining career from the bottom of the ladder. Deno, as East Gulf miners kindly dubbed the new, smart, energetic kid, who often spoke with a lisp when excited, was a breath of fresh air when compared to so many engineering graduates that seek to begin their careers at the top, and not learn the real in-and-outs with coalmining while laboring underground. Likely, Deno worked hard to acquire his mining degree, but he seemed to lack that cold, uncaring ambition that makes so many mine bosses rise quickly through ranks. In fact, Deno seemed to hold little ambition for bossing, as he continued to work a time as a laborer after acquiring all his credentials for supervising miners underground. When ole Deno got quite exited and exclaimed "holy-molly" with his slight lisp, everyone smiled, but no one ever chuckled!

Shortly after leaving Maben Energy sometime following the 1990s when the company began closing mines, Deno went to work as a section boss for Massey Energy, where he still probably held little ambition, because he possessed plenty of smarts, enough to have climbed to the top rank quickly, if he had desired to do so. Deno somewhat exemplified the real underground coalminer, a man content with earning an honest day's s wage, for a day of hard work. At Massey, Deno's crewmembers held great respect for their crew boss, as he would never put them into dangerous situations unless he was standing guard right by their side; he was lucky as hell with scratch-off jackpot tickets too!

On April 5, 2010, sometime around 3:00 p.m., Headgate-22 second shift crew sits on their mantrip about 300 feet inside the drift as they ready to glide down the rails to Headgate-22 Section, where they will relieve-out Deno's boys. Deep underground, Deno's gang anxiously awaits their boss to board their mantrip so they can get-it outside; they are exhausted. Just seconds past 3:00, while the second shift longwall crew is hard at work producing hundreds of tons of coal that practically overload the conveyor lines, the longwall crew cuts their coal-shearer through at the tailgate end (back-end) of the longwall block. Suddenly, something terrible runs amuck as a huge roll of sparks develop around the shearer's lagging cutter drum chipping away at the hard sandstone floor. Unexpectedly, handheld gas detectors carried by specific crewmembers beep a loud audible alarm, as some of the crew dart away from the tailgate end. At No. 89 chock, a hightailing crewmember quickly smacks an emergency stop button that de-energizes all electricity to the shearer, but the crew's getaway is slow through the tight workplace, and within seconds,, a huge fireball erupts all along the wall. As shockwaves speed ahead of the burning methane, the blast kicks-up enormous clouds of dry coal dust, and the lagging fireball ignites that suspended dust to form the "real widow maker." As the horrendous blast speeds through the return airway toward the outside, shockwaves jump in the return entry for Headgate-22 Section, and the giant fireball, now fed by pure coal dust, splits, and heads in two directions. One flash zooms up the return entry toward Headgate-22 Section, while the other continues on a path towards the outside. Within seconds, a horrendous shock surge rolls across all of Deno's crew, and the "Old Man Crew," even though the two crews sit at locations nearly two miles apart. The giant force from the widow maker, which rips steel roof-straps wrong side out with the ease that one would peel a banana, zooms at speeds exceeding the velocity of a .22 LR bullet, before slowing and dying in strength. A weaker concussion force rolls over the second shift crew located just 300 feet inside the mine portal at the underground motor-barn, resulting in crewmembers hightailing toward the outside on foot. Normally, from less than 300 feet inside a mine drift, one can easily see daylight at a distance, however the dust and debris yielded by the dying UBB blast completely darkens the world for miners trying to make a close getaway!

Within moments of Headgate-22 second shift crew reaching daylight, two bold mine foremen standing in the mine office scramble for their SCSRs, jump on two personnel carriers, and dart underground toward the "Old Man Crew." Miraculously, the two supervisors quickly find one member of the "Old Man Crew" walking toward the outside with his SCSR donned. Immediately, one supervisor glides the addled old-timer to the outside, while the other courageous supervisor drives as fast as he can to the "Old Man Crew's" mantrip, ties on a chain, and snatches the trip outside.

Upon the "Old Man Crew's" mantrip reaching the drift, one old-timer clings to life by a thin thread while another appears unconscious with barely a faint heartbeat. All other old-timers are dead! Immediately, Performance Coal supervisors notify federal and state mining authorities about the explosion, and contact Massey headquarters requesting that Massey's higher-ups dispatch several Massey mine rescue teams to the UBB Mine. In all, two-hundred of some of America's boldest mine rescue crewmembers set course for the UBB mining complex, while knowing that in all likelihood, they will be called upon to lay their lives on the line in the next couple of hours.

As result of the Sago and Darby disasters in 2006, mine rescue teams that explore inside the Upper Big Branch Mine will be afforded a few advantages that mine rescue teams prior to 2008 never had available. Because of a new federal mandate in 2008, ready-made barricade chambers are already in place inside the UBB Mine, which should result in rescue teams saving valuable time by knowing exactly where to look for survivors. Also because of new federal code following Darby and Sago, two separate phone systems establish communications between the surface and underground works of the UBB Mine, and a new computer tracking system logged the last positions of miners within a 1000-foot tracking zone and recorded those zone-positions prior to the mega-blast. If there are survivors inside the UBB Mine, the mining world will soon learn whether the chambers, elaborate tracking systems, and multiply communications systems are worth all the darn money that mining companies spent in implementing the new devices. However, due to the violent shockwaves that engulfed the "Old Man Crew," who sat on the track more than a mile from the flashpoint, there is the distinct possibility that the brutal concussion wiped-out every missing man.

One 54-year-old member of the "Old Man Crew" lies critical with his brain swelling at a Trauma Center in Charleston, West Virginia while the other survivor, who supervisors found walking from the mine, lies hospitalized in Beckley, West Virginia. Woefully, all other members of the "Old Man Crew" have perished. If by cruel fate, the brutal concussion yielded by the UBB blast killed the remainder of crews, nothing can be learned about the effectiveness of those new barricade chambers, and sadly, America will have lost 29 of its top-notch underground coalminers. As daring rescue teams prepare to rush underground, much of West Virginia prays!

During the evening hours of April 5, a mine rescue team quickly plunges inside the UBB Mine, but by 2:00 a.m. on April 6, high levels of methane and carbon monoxide create fear of a secondary explosion, which forces rescue teams to evacuate the mine. Nevertheless, within several hours, apparatus teams return to exploring inside the UBB Mine in hope that some UBB miners survived the savagery of the blast, and found their way inside a refuge chamber.

By April 7, with eleven bodies recovered and the exact location of fourteen more bodies mapped-out, exploring rescue teams run into thick, blinding smoke as they try to locate all of Deno's crew. Three members of Headgate-22 dayshift crew, including the boss, and one member of the second shift longwall crew remain unaccounted-for, which leaves a sliver of hope for there being three, or possibly four, survivors. Deno is well trained, and seasoned, and if he and a couple of his men miraculously survived the horrific shock surge, Deno would have got his boys into a barricade chamber quickly!

Discouraged that dangerous underground conditions have prevented mine rescue teams from reaching the barricade chamber located on Headgate-22 Section, on April 8, Command suspends the UBB rescue mission following teams detecting increasing levels of carbon monoxide, and methane, in regions of Headgate-22 Section. The increasing levels of CO indicate the presence of residual fires, which is extremely dangerous because teams also detected methane concentrations exceeding 5%.

On April 9, marking the fifth day since the mega-blast at the UBB Mine, with little change in underground conditions, rescue teams, at great risk, reenter the mine with hope of reaching the single refuge chamber which teams have thus far been unable to explore. With thick smoke yet lingering, rescue crewmembers search meticulous near piles of scattered debris, and under stationary conveyor components, which results in the discover of the remaining four bodies—rescue teams had practically tripped over the victims during previous explorations due to dense afterdamp. Breaking against standard rescue protocol, rescue crewmembers carry 18 bodies more than two miles to the surface, without ever having restored ventilation to make the blast-riddled mine safe!

In the end, 29 of America's hardworking coalminers perished in the mega-blast at the Performance Coal's Upper Big Branch Mine. On May 24, 2010, a Congressional Hearing was held in Beckley, West Virginia in an attempt to reveal underlying contributors to UBB's mega-blast. Several relatives of blast-victims testified at the hearing, and a few Massey employees volunteered and testified.

At that hearing, 29-year mining veteran Steve Morgan testified that he had tried to talk his son Adam into quitting the Upper Big Branch Mine three weeks prior to the blast, because Adam's stories concerning shortages in underground ventilation were frightening. According to Morgan, his son promised that he would quit UBB after he acquired his Miner's Certificate in a few weeks, because the certificate would guarantee the 21-year-old could get a job at any coalmine in the state.27

Horrendous mine blasts not only destroy men, those tragedies often decimate years of dreams and aspirations of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and cousins.

At Beckley's hearing, Alice Peters testified that her son-in-law, Headgate-22 dayshift crew boss killed in the blast, often told her that he greatly feared that the UBB Mine would explode. Mrs. Peters stated that her son-in-law had complained to his supervisors more than a half-dozen times within the last year about insufficient ventilation, but his supervisor told him that he better not shutdown coal production due to inadequate ventilation. Peters further stated that her son-in-law could hardly afford to quit Massey since his son had a debilitating disease, Cystic Fibrosis, and there would be no guarantee that a new mining company could furnish health insurance that covered a dependent afflicted with a preexisting condition. Peters went on to testify that her son-in-law, Dean, was a smart guy that held a four-year degree in Mining Engineering and that he could have obtained a mining job at any mine in the state, but the health insurance issue kept him at UBB28

Mrs. Peters is probably right, her beloved son-in-law, who began his mining career on the bottom rung of the ladder while blasting down coal for scoops to load, was capable of acquiring a coalmining job anywhere in America. Yea, mine blasts not only destroy men, those tragedies wipe out the dreams and aspirations of loving in-laws, sons, and of inseparable twins!

At the Beckley hearing, perhaps the most damaging testimony to management of the UBB mining complex came from a 34-year veteran of coalmining, Stanley Stewart, an Upper Big Branch employee who was only 300 feet inside the drift when gale-force winds came roaring out the drift. On April 5, Stewart worked at UBB as a continuous mining machine operator, but having worked 15 years at the UBB complex, Stewart possessed many years of experience on the longwall mining unit, where he actually operated the longwall shear for a time. Listed are some of the excerpts from Stewart's testimony at Beckley:

Last July, because I was so scared and mad, I told my wife, Mindy, if anything happens to me, for her to get a lawyer and sue them. I told her that this place is a ticking time bomb!

Many things were wrong at the mine such as low air; the area of the mine we were working was liberating a lot of methane. Mine management never fully addressed the air problem, when it would be shutdown by inspectors. They would fix-it just enough to get us to load coal again, but then it would be back to business as usual. The longwall worried me because of the ventilation. With my experience on the longwall, I know the ventilation system they used did not work. There was so much methane being liberated, and no air moving, I felt that area was a ticking time bomb.

I was told before the April 5 explosion that they had experienced at least two fireballs on the drum of the shearer. I knew that meant methane was building in that area, and also showing ventilation problems. The questions that I have are how could methane build up to the point that a fireball could start, and how could this happen if the methane detectors had been working, or working properly?

The morale around the mine, for the most part, was bad. No one felt they could go to management and express their fears, or the lack of air on our sections. We knew that we would be marked men, and management would look for ways to fire us. Maybe not that day, or next week, but somewhere down the line, we would disappear. We had seen it happen, and I told my wife that I felt like I was working for the Gestapo at times. They took vacation from the miners last year because they wanted a certain average of coal loaded a shift by vacation time. The conditions of the mine where we were working were so bad it was nearly impossible to load that much coal safely, so, we lost our vacation.

I have worked close to 20 years in the union, and 15 years nonunion, so I have been on both sides of the fence long enough to know the difference in how miners feel in both working environments. In the union, if you had safety concerns, you had the right to refuse work in unsafe work conditions without fear of losing your job. Working nonunion, you do not have those rights; you know you have to operate with lack of air, or in unsafe conditions. They want you to load coal at all cost, and I feel that mentality is handed-down from top management............29

Because BP's gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had already begun to dominate headline news weeks prior to the Congressional Hearing held in Beckley for the UBB blast, few Americans actually bothered to listen to the testimony given at that May 24 hearing.

Coalmining regulation is a two edged sword; it always has been. Too much regulation, especially in our metallurgical coalfields, results in American mining companies losing markets to Australia—the nation down-under is presently the largest producer of metallurgical coal in the world. When coalmining jobs get scarce in America, miners often work in unsafe environments, or bend and break mining laws while mining coal, in order to keep production high to insure that their mines will remain in business. Often, when coal markets improve, mine operators are accustom to its miners going all out, breaking the rules, and producing coal in hazardous environments, thus operators expect the same work ethics from its miners during splendid market years. Then, we get something like the Upper Big Branch catastrophe!

Mine safety starts at the top, with upper-tier management. If top management possesses the mentality to produce coal safely, and competitively, management projects that mindset through the many different ranks of its supervisors, and miners eagerly adopt the conviction to produce safely.

Presently in America, we have enough safety regulations to keep America's miners, for the most part, out of harm's way. However, our present systems lacks the authority to hold high-ranking company officials responsible for encouraging, or forcing, miners and lower-tier managers to produce coal while operating outside of regulations. In America, the coalmining industry is one of the few industries that assigns a mid-level supervisor all the responsibility for keeping everyone at the complex safe. If a mine explodes and kills everyone underground, the law holds the General Mine Foreman accountable, not the superintendent, president of operations, or the CEO. If the higher-ups cannot be held accountable for awful calamities that kill workers, what prevents top executives from promoting production over safety?

During June of 2010, the Register Herald, a reputable newspaper operating out of Beckley, West Virginia, reported that Massey officials claimed that MSHA was chiefly to blame for the UBB explosion because MSHA had forced Massey to comply with a faulty ventilation system. The Herald also reported that Massey had filed a suit against MSHA as result of that forced compliance. Such claims cast aspersions on MSHA's credibility, which mimic Blue Diamond Coal's assertion following Scotia's twin blasts that "there exist the appearances of agency impropriety which arguable affect the trustworthiness of this Report."30 With claims of impropriety in reference to MSHA's quarterly inspections and MSHA's investigations of the UBB blast, jurors sitting in on civil cases, or criminal cases, linked to the UBB blast might view MSHA's findings not trustworthy. Evidently, some coal operators perhaps learned more from the litigation that followed Scotia, than they learned from the lethal, twin blasts at Scotia.

In March 2011, MSHA initiated criminal prosecution of the chief of security of UBB complex following investigations revealing the chief had ordered records shredded following the explosion, which resulted in the destruction of many records.

Four years following initial publication of this book, on December 3, 2015, a jury found Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy group, guilty of a misdemeanor in that he "willfully violated mining health and safety code" that may have been a contributing factor to the UBB blast. In federal court on April 6, 2016, a federal judge sentenced the CEO to 12 months in prison under the maximum sentencing guideline. Although the CEO adamantly claimed no responsibility for the awful explosion, the executive's appeals were rejected and in the end, he pull time for his conviction─rather serious time for a simple misdemeanor conviction.

Look, MSHA is not the enemy of coalminers; it never has been—although most of us that bossed inside the mine, including yours truly, often tried to vilify MSHA inspectors when inspectors strictly enforced federal mining code. In fact, belittling mining regulations and regulators is an old ploy used by supervisors to encourage miners to break laws, and to work in hazardous conditions.

Anyone with any sort of coalmining experience recognizes that, due to the severity of the shock surge, the UBB explosion was the result of a methane-coal-dust blast. Shockwaves yielded by a "methane explosion" alone, at the longwall face, would have been insufficient in force to have killed any of the "Old Man Crew," or Headgate-22 dayshift crew. Because longwall crewmembers received severe burns, whereas Headgate-22 crew and the Old Man Crew succumbed to a violent shock surge without receiving significant burns, substantiates that coal dust entered into the UBB blast. At the time of the UBB explosion, federal law required that intake airways in bituminous mines have a minimum of 65% incombustible content, and that return airways contain at least 80% incombustible content, specifically to prevent coal dust from providing more fuel to any underground methane explosion.

To give folks an idea about how comprehensive investigations are following mining disasters, we need to look no further than Sago's disaster and MSHA's meticulous search to discover the ignition source for that catastrophic blast. In an attempt to connect the Sago explosion with a severe lightning storm that centered over Sago on January 2, 2006, investigators turned to the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) and the United States Precision Lightning Network (USPLN) for answers. The NLDN and the USPLN both recorded positive charged lightning strikes near the Sago Mine at 6:26:35 a.m. on January 2. Virginia Polytechnic Institute recorded a seismic event near Sago within a three-second interval, centered at 6:26:38 a.m., which hinted that a lightning strike indeed caused the Sago explosion, even though investigators could not locate a conductor capable of carrying lightning to the abandoned, inaccessible, old works. Although MSHA investigators had determined lightning as a possible ignition source for 12 explosions occurring inside inaccessible, old mining works in coalmines since 1986, and felt lightning the likely culprit at Sago, investigators would not definitively declare lightning as Sago's villain to avoid injecting conjecture in the official Accident Report.

Following all U.S. coalmine explosions, MSHA's laboratory performs Alcohol Coke Tests on samples taken from explosion-riddled mines to determine flame paths. Unless underground explosions travel at speeds exceeding 1000 fps, excessive heat rendered by blasts significantly cokes coal, which leaves notable evidence for technicians to determine incineration paths.

Following Sago, technicians at the Lake Lynn experimental mine in Pennsylvania built seals similar to those inside the Sago Mine and exploded methane while taking pressure readings at various locations away from the flash point in an attempt to determine why Sago's seals failed. Additionally, technicians placed a 300-pound battery charger, that was recovered from the Sago Mine, inside the experimental mine and attempted to duplicate the movement of the charger produced by the Sago blast. With several controlled blasts, fueled by different concentrations of methane, specific distances that experimental blasts moved the charger allowed investigators to determine the probable concentration of methane involved in Sago's explosion. Look, the forensic investigations that follow all major U.S. mine disasters closely resemble rocket-science research! As matter of fact, MSHA investigators often turn to NSA for scientific expertise, General Electric or Westinghouse for electrical expertise, and American universities for geological expertise.

More than four decades ago, Buffalo Mining blamed the Buffalo Creek Flood on torrential rains, an Act of God. In 2007, the owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine blamed the Crandall Canyon tragedy on an earthquake, an Act of God. Presently, MSHA's experts lean toward the theory that a lightning strike ignited methane inside the Sago Mine, and MSHA experts now think that a sudden inrush of methane from a mined-out section, which some might view as an Act of God, provided the fuel for the initial flash inside the UBB Mine. Perhaps, following the Buffalo Creek Disaster, the Reverend Charles Crumm summed up the reality concerning God's role in mining disasters best, when he said, "I never saw God drive the first slate truck in the hollow."

Summary

Many good mining companies have operated through the years in Southern West Virginia. Peabody, Eastern Associated, U.S. Steel, and Consol, just to name a few, have made valid efforts to take care of the environment, promote community services, provide scholarships to miners' children, and promote the general welfare of their workforce. Hey, U.S. Steel Company once operated a coal preparation plant for more than 35 years directly over Pinnacle Creek, where trout stocked by the West Virginia DNR flourished. In Eastern Kentucky, a surface mine created a habitat where elk now flourishes, and the West Virginia DNR recently stocked elk on a reclamation site where Eastern Associated and Peabody once mined coal. Regardless of all those good, honest operators, there have always been a few mine operators that put profits above all else. Honest American companies need little regulation; only dishonest ones do!

When not divided, America solves the world's problems by utilizing its universities, and its industries, to achieve solutions to complex problems, solutions that very few nations are capable of achieving. A drilling rig and crew supplied by a Pennsylvania based company, with pinpoint accuracy, sunk the borehole that saved the lives of 33 Chilean miners in 2010.

In reality, America's scientists should have solved the problem associated with sequestering carbon dioxide emissions during the coal gasification process, decades ago, and would have done so if not for self-serving politicians tied to oil and gas companies using the topic to divide us, as gasified-coal would have bitten huge chunks from oil company profits.

Through the years, in Southern West Virginia, citizens have consistently caught hell from many sides. Selfish politicians have often reallocated coal-tax revenues that should have been spent in regions where the revenues were generated, and numerous miners deserving of Black Lung Benefits have often been denied claims.

In West Virginia, for decades mine operators paid taxes on tonnages they produced, yet three counties that generated some of the most coal-tax revenues during past decades, Wyoming, McDowell, and Mingo counties, remain among the poorest counties in the state. Today, now that most coal beds have been excavated from these three counties, citizens of McDowell and Wyoming counties do not have access to a four-lane highway. As matter of fact, the construction of the Coalfield Expressway, meant to provide a four-lane into Wyoming and McDowell counties, has been under construction for almost 18 years and yet, the highway has not reached the Wyoming, or McDowell, border; it is almost there!

Today, the awarding of Black Lung Benefits remains a farce, as it depends on whom you know, or what influential doctors or lawyers you have close social ties with, whether you have a chance at acquiring benefits.

Even though history illustrates that the Appalachian coalminer has seldom received a "square deal," I am very proud of my family's coalmining heritage. Granddad, Dad's dad, worked for a while in the mine while trying to raise 11 kids but Granddad eventually turned to other occupations when mining slowed; Granddad also fought in World War I. Dad signed-up for the U.S. Navy on April 10, 1945, one day prior to his 18th birthday. Dad came out of the Navy in 1953, following the end to the Korean War, and he became a coalminer. Dad worked 17 years as a UMWA coalminer, and he worked 10 years as a mine supervisor before finally becoming disabled. Although Dad clashed quite often with UMWA members during the decade he bossed, Dad insisted that everyone who worked underground greatly benefited from increased wages and safety improvements forced on by the UMWA. Now Dad believed in a right-to-work law, but he also felt the union had forced change resulting in a higher standard of living for folks in the Appalachian coalfields. My father died at age 58, and he had coughed, hacked, and spit-up green sputum, which indicates Black Lung, for years before his death.

Dad's oldest brother, Ransom, served in Europe during World War II only to perish as result of a mining accident at age 27. One of Dad's brothers served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and another brother died in that godforsaken jungle that some call Nam, but neither ventured into the mines. Dad's brother who was one year older than Dad worked 25 years in the mine before becoming disabled and Dad's baby-brother retired from the mine after working about 25 years as a UMWA miner.

Dad's family was liberal Roosevelt-Democrats, but so was two-thirds of America during the 1930s and 1940s—elections results do not lie! Now Mother's entire family was staunch conservative Republicans, which is an interesting story in itself—perhaps enough to write another book! Dad and Mom seldom argued except for the first week of November, every four years.

I never heard Dad grumble once about paying taxes, or complain about being denied Black Lung Benefits. In fact, I never heard Dad criticize Uncle Sam, period! Because Dad was well aware that Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi made army transport vehicles and airplanes for the Japanese military during World War II, while UAW members constructed trucks, jeeps, watercraft engines, and airplane engines for the U.S. military, Dad insisted that he would never buy an automobile that did not roll off one of Detroit's assembly lines. Dad said, "The metallurgical coal market lives, and dies, at the hands of Detroit." Hey, Dad kept true with his devotion to Detroit until the day he died, and out of respect of what Dad stood for, I have tried to do the same. Of course, Dad was a Ford-man while I always tried to stick with Chevy. My father was quite an extraordinary American, and one hell of a coalminer!

Once during Dad's navy-days, as an admiral was inspecting sailors onboard the flight deck of the U.S. Wasp CV-18, the admiral ask Dad, "Where are you from sailor?"

Dad replied, "West-by-God-Virginia."

So am I Dad, so am I!

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Footnote Page

1 "Citation," Darr Mine Disaster historical marker: http://www.americanhungarianfederation.org/news_darrmine.htm

2 "Citation," Washington Observer, November 30, 1908, Marianna Mine Explosion: http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry.com/wasmarianna.html

3 "Citation," Washington Observer, Inquisition hearing held for the Marianna Mine Explosion: (Recently taken off the Web).

4 "Citation," MSHA Digital Fatalities Archives, Layland No. 3 Mine Explosion, Page 67: http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=1&awdid=1

5 "Citation," West Virginia History Archives, Report on Benwood explosion, AR1533: http://www.wvculture.org/history/disasters/benwood01.html

6 "Citation," American Heritage.Com, The West Virginia Mine War: http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1974/5/1974_5_58_print.shtml 5

7 "Citation," West Virginia Archives and History, Huntington Herald-Dispatch 8/10/1954—Funeral Rites Thursday For Colorful Don Chafin: http://www.wvculture.org/History/government/chafindon01.html

8 "Citation," ehistory OSU, Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, Geo F. Baer letter to press:

https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/gildedage/1902AnthraciteStrike/content/Baer

9 "Citation," University of Scranton Digital Archives, Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902, George F. Baer

https://scrantondigitalhistory.wordpress.com/

10 Youtube.com, "John L. Lewis Speaks II" following Centralia Mine Explosion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J741fLCJkAQ

11 "Citation," Franklin D. Roosevelt Statement on the End of the Coal Strike, John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ubdex,php?pid=16416.

12 "Citation," Brief History of UMWA Health and Retirement Fund:

http://www.umwa.org/index.php?q=content/brief-history-umwa-health-and-retirement-funds-0#kruglewis

13 "Source," "Historical Mining Disasters," by Jane DeMarchi National Mine Health and Safety Academy.

14 "Citation," Marshall University Digital Library, 1972 Buffalo Creek Flood, Politicians Respond; video:  http://www.marshall.edu/library/speccoll/virtual_museum/buffalo_creek/html/video-files.asp

15 "Citation," WV Division of Culture and History, Buffalo Creek Flood, Citizens Commission to Investigate the Buffalo Creek Disaster:  http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/buffcreek/buff3.html

16 "Source," MSHA Fatality Archives, Scotia Fatality Report: http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=2

17 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Moss No. 3 Mine Fatality Report, Underground Coal Mine Inundation (Blackdamp), Page 6:  http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=1

18 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Investigation Report of Underground Coal Mine Explosion Sago Mine; page 53, Paragraph 3:  http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=1

19 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Investigation Report of Underground Coal Mine Explosion Sago Mine; Page 53, Paragraph 4:  http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=1

20 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Investigation Report of Underground Coal Mine Explosion Sago Mine; Page 54, Paragraph 1:  http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=1

21 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Investigation Report of Underground Coal Mine Explosion Sago Mine; Page 54, Paragraph 3:  http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=1

22 "Source," Charleston Gazette, February 7, 2006, The Sago Mine Disaster: http://www.sundaygazettemail.com/News/TheSagoMineDisaster/200602070010

23 "Citation," Charleston Gazette, February 7, 2006, Sago Mine Disaster: http://www.sundaygazettemail.com/News/TheSagoMineDisaster/200602070010

24 "Source," Development of Guidelines for Rescue Chambers, Volume 2, Appendices, Foster-Miller, Contract No. J0387210, October 1983: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/pdfs/NIOSH-125/125-Development%20of%20Guidelines%20For%20Rescue%20Chambers%20Vol%202.pdf

25 "Citation," Public Hearing on MSHA's Proposed Rule for Refuge Alternatives, Paul Ledford's testimony: http://www.msha.gov/regs/ comments/e8-13565/transcripts/20080805lexingtonky.txt

27 "Source," Congressional Hearing on UBB explosion, testimony of Steve Morgan: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=14943

28 "Source," Congressional Hearing on UBB explosion, testimony of Alice Peters—Jones' mother-in-law: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=14943

29 "Citation," Congressional Hearing on UBB explosion, testimony of Stanley Stewart: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=14943

30 "Citation," MSHA Fatality Archives, Scotia Accident Report, Caveat.

Scotia Fatality Report: http://arllib2.msha.gov/awweb/main.jsp?flag=browse&smd=2&awdid=2

