259 COAL MINERS DIE: Nov. 13, 1909, 259 coal miners die in the underground Cherry Mine fire in Cherry, Illinois. The following year the state legislature established stronger mine safety regulations and, in 1911, Illinois passed a separate law, which would later develop into the Illinois Workmen’s Compensation Act. (Images are of dead miners and their grieving children). What happened? On Saturday, November 13, 1909, 500 men and boys, and 36 mules, were working in the mine. Unlike most days, an electrical outage earlier that week had forced the workers to light kerosene lanterns and torches, some portable, some set into the mine walls. Shortly after noon, a coal car filled with hay for the mules caught fire from one of the wall lanterns. Initially unnoticed, efforts to move the fire only spread the blaze to the timbers supporting the mine. A large fan, reversed in an attempt to blow out the fire, ignited the fan house and several wooden escape ladders and stairs in the secondary shaft, trapping miners. Two shafts were closed off to smother the fire, but this cut off oxygen to the miners, and allowing “black damp,” a suffocating mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, to build up in the mine. Some 200 men and boys made their way to the surface, some through escape shafts, some using the hoisting cage. Some miners who had escaped returned to the mine to aid their coworkers. Twelve of these, led by John Bundy, made six dangerous cage trips, rescuing many others. The seventh trip, however, proved fatal when the cage operator misunderstood the miners signals and brought them to the surface too late - the rescuers and those they attempted to rescue were burned to death. A group of trapped miners built a makeshift wall to protect themselves from the fire and poisonous gases. Although without food, they were able to drink from a pool of water leaking from a coal seam, moving deeper into the mine to escape the black damp. Eight days later, 21 survivors, known as the eight day men, tore down the wall and made their way through the mine in search of more water. They came across a rescue party. One of the survivors died two days later with complications from asthma.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 10:09:45 +0000
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