Montana mining accidents: 1900 & 1905-1912

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MONTANA MINING ACCIDENTS
1900 & 1905 - 1912
By
Gerald E. Sherard
(April 2007)
During the earth’s Caboniferous Geologic Period, 250 to 400 million B.C.,
material was deposited that eventually transformed to coal. At that time most of Montana
was a flat, hot, moist plain covered with steaming swamps thick with tall trees and wide
spreading ferns. In North America, the Hopi Indians during the 1300s in what is now the
U.S. Southwest used coal for cooking, heating and to bake pottery. Commercial coal
mines started operation in the 1740s in Virginia..
In the United States, the first reported mine explosion was in 1810 in Virginia.
Prior to 1920, mining was an unhealthy and dangerous occupation. There were no rules
to ensure safety in the industry, whether in the mine, mill, or smelter. In the early 1900s,
laws to improve and monitor mine safety were enacted by both states and later by the
federal government. It took many years for the companies to implement regular
reporting of the accidents, but the number that were reported were impressive. In the
early 1900s, over an eighteen month period, a mine worker’s chance of being crushed,
asphyxiated, burned, blasted, drowned, or similarly maimed or killed was more than one
in a hundred. If you worked in the mines for twenty years, your overall risk increased to
more than one in five. Since 1900, more than 104,000 miners have died in accidents in
the U.S. with most of these fatalities occurring from 1900 to 1978. The peak year for
U.S. fatalities was 1907 with 3,242 fatalities. In addition many more miners suffered
disabling and life long injuries in nonfatal accidents.
Accidents sometimes occurred on the way to and from work. Once the miner got
to the mine, he was lowered down a poorly lit shaft in an ore bucket or cage, often several
hundred feet, to his working level. How would you like to ride up an ore bucket or wait
for a ride if you and your co-workers had to suddenly escape from a mine shaft several
hundred feet down? Once down to his working level, the miner had to contend with
moving tram cars, steam lines, electric wiring, machinery of various types, and the heavy,
hot, and massively vibrating drills. Supporting timber if poorly positioned, or if the wood
became water-soaked and rotten, or with minor shifts in the earth’s crust, tons of rock
would suddenly fall, trapping or crushing the miners. The mine’s structures and supports
were wood, and fire was a constant threat.
Coal mines were often filled with odorless and tasteless methane gas. Canaries,
birds that were easily stressed and sensitive to toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and
methane, were used up until the 1980s when they were replaced by hand held electronic
detectors. Coal mine explosions due to methane gas have continued to the present. As
many, perhaps more, men have died from gases and lack of oxygen (known as “after -
damp”) than have been killed by the blast and heat. Mine explosions often are caused by
a combination of factors, including concentration of methane in air, formation of clouds
of dust, and the presence of a flame or spark.
The worst U.S. coal mine disaster occurred December 6, 1907, at the Monongah
Nos. 6 and 8 Mine at Monongah, West Virginia, in which an explosion killed 362 miners.