A Tragic Month, December 1907 Remembered
by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator
The month of December, exactly 100 years ago would become the deadliest month in US coal mining history. News accounts of the day would eventually label it, “The Dreadful Month”.
As November waned, mining communities across Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the bituminous region began to look forward to Christmas and, for Orthodox Christian miners, the feast of St. Nicholas on December 19th. But the joy of the impending season was to be interrupted by horror.
The month began with an explosion that killed 34 miners inside the Naomi Mine in Fayette County, Pennsylvania on Dec. 1. Most were buried in a mass grave.
Five days later, on December 6th, the single greatest mine disaster in American history occurred in Monongah, West Virginia where massive explosions and roof collapses killed 362 men, many of whom were Italian immigrants from the regions of Calabria and Molise.
Ten days later, on Dec.16, an explosion in Yolanda, Ala. killed 57 miners, many by asphyxiation.
The Darr Mine Disaster is known as the worst in Pennsylvania history and one of the worst in US history. On December 19, 1907 a gas and dust explosion killed 239 men and teenage boys in the dark tunnels of the Darr Mine in western Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Most of those killed were Hungarian immigrant laborers. Some had come from the Naomi mine which had closed after the explosion there several weeks before.
In the time leading up to that fateful day at the Darr Mine, the mine foreman, Mr. W.S. Campbell had an uneasy feeling. For several months preceeding the deadly blast, Mr. Campbell was preoccupied with the amount of coal dust, gassy conditions and poor ventilation in the mine. He repeatedly voiced his concerns to the company about the unsafe conditions and the potential for an explosion. Similar concerns were voiced by others at many mines throughout the bituminous region. However, due to company greed and the ever-increasing demand for coal, the calls for safer working conditions in American mines went largely unheeded. Mining experts in Europe were aware that American mines were a tragedy waiting to happen. Newspaper articles across Europe repeatedly voiced horror at what they called “the general disregard for life” by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and coal companies for not creating a safer work place for the miners. “In Europe, we regard human welfare as more important than profit”, stated one German newspaper.
Eventually, the company reluctantly agreed to Mr. Campbell’s concerns and began digging a new ventilation shaft at Darr mine. Mr. Campbell told his wife he couldn’t even think about Christmas until the shaft was completed.
Little more than a day’s work was left for workers to finish digging the final 40 feet of the shaft. It was 24 hours too late. The Morning Review of Greensburg, PA reported, “The earth was shaken for miles around as by an earthquake”. Almost immediately, families rushed toward the mine from Jacob’s Creek across the Youghiogheny River, where most of the miners’ homes were located. The only way to quickly reach the mouth of the mine from Jacob’s Creek was by means of a “sky ferry”, a basket-like car suspended from a cable in which the men pull themselves back and forth. The sky ferry could only accomodate six persons at a time.
After viewing the gruesome scene, the rescue workers recognized the hopelessness of the situation and their job quickly turned to one of recovery. Crews worked in two-hour shifts to avoid being overcome by the gas as they searched for bodies. It would take days to recover the bodies from the rubble. Mr. Campbell’s body was among the first to be found, huddled along with four others in the little wooden structure where Mr. Campbell had his office while in the mine.
The total dead at Darr could have been much higher, surpassing even the Monongah disaster, if not for the fact that many of the miners were recent immigrants of the Orthodox faith celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 19 according to the Julian calendar. As a result, nearly 200 miners chose not to go to work on December 19th.
The month of December 1907 would end as it began, on a tragic note. On December 31st, a mine explosion in Carthage, New Mexico would claim the lives of 11 miners.
By the time this deadly month ended, over 700 miners across the country lay dead. The final death toll in Pennsylvania Anthracite and Bituminous mines that year was 1,400. From 1870, the time when mine accident records began to be kept in Pennsylvania, to the present, over 51,000 men have died in Pennsylvania mines.
The Darr and Monongah disasters marked the first use of a self-contained breathing apparatus in a deep-mine rescue in the United States. Several years later, on July 1, 1910 an Act of Congress established the U.S. Bureau of Mines. However, that bureau was charged with only the investigation of mining disasters and with education, not regulation.
How Could These Disasters Have Happened?
An article in the The United Mine Workers Journal in Dec. 1, 1957, fifty years after the dreadful month, provided some opinions as to how such horror could occur. “All of the mining disasters of December, 1907 had several things in common. The main thing was management neglect and in some cases brutal criminal negligence. Black powder was used for blasting in all of these stricken mines. Coal dust was allowed to accumulate in spite of warnings from England that it was highly explosive. All of the mines were gassy and seem to have been poorly ventilated. It is quite possible that the Jacobs Creek (Darr Mine) disaster would not have taken place if the men had been allowed by Providence one more day to dig out 40 feet of coal to reach a new shaft the company had sunk in an effort to improve ventilation in the mine”.
Deadly gas is found naturally in all coal seams. It is the flammable gas (mostly methane), along with coal dust ignited by stray sparks or the miners’ lamps, that caused such tremendous explosions. At the end of the 19th century, “electrical contrivances” were becoming widely used in mines. However, this new technology was centered on increasing output, rather than improving mining safety. The electric coal cutters created even more coal dust, further compounding an already hazardous situation.
Coal dust in mines was commonly known as “bug dust”. Build-ups of a hazardous gas in a mine were known as “damps”, possibly from the German word “Dampf” which means steam or vapor:
Black damp: a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a mine can cause suffocation.
After damp: similar to black damp, an after damp consists of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms after a mine explosion.
Fire damp: consists of mostly methane, a flammable gas.
Stink damp: so named for the rotten egg smell of the sulfur, a stink damp can explode.
White damp: mainly carbon monoxide, suffocates like black damp
Disaster scene at Monongah, WV., December 1907.
For more information:
WQED Television, “ON-Q” Special Edition: The Darr Mine Disaster, Dec. 19 at 7:30pm.
Times WV Article on the Monongah Disaster .
Heinz History Center “Darkest Month” Exhibit.