Tank's Poetry
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united states mine rescue association
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Tank's Poetry |
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Nine Men Perish in Fire in Montana Mine Salt Lake Tribune, Utah November 7, 1903 The dead:
About 5 o'clock this morning fire was discovered issuing from the tunnel-house on tunnel No. 1. At the time the flames were discovered the timbers in the tunnel were ablaze. How the fire originated is not known, but at the first alarm all the miners, carpenters and laborers, some 170 in all, hastened to the gulch to aid in subduing the flames. Supt. R. B. Turner, whose temporary quarters are high on the hill across the right fork of Alder Gulch, and but a short distance from the burning tunnel-house, at once went to the scene and assumed the directing of affairs and of giving orders in regard to the work of extinguishing the flames with the others, entered the tunnel through the fire and smoke to give warning to the entombed miners and to aid in their escape. Near the mouth of the tunnel they stumbled over the dead body of John Tobin, who evidently had made an effort to escape, but was driven back by the flames and smoke. They carried the body to the surface and once more re-entered the workings to rescue their comrades if possible. According to the story of a miner, Harley by name, he with Turner and another man entered the mine behind him by descending through the air shaft. Hurley was the last of the three to descend. After going down some distance through the air shaft, thick with smoke, Hurley heard a cry and then thuds, as of bodies striking timbers, which were followed by a smothered splash in water. Hurley tried to go farther down the shaft, but was compelled to retract his steps. Up to a late hour this afternoon the bodies of Tobin, Powers, Fleming and Donnelly were all that had been recovered. Mr. Turner had been connected with the company for several years as superintendent of the Kennell Mine, and then of the Kearsarge, and it was due to his management that the latter mine has become one of the best known mines in southern Montana. He is the junior member of the firm of Mitchell & Turner of Butte. Mr. Turner recently perfected a new process to treat cyanide ores and the papers making application patent thereof left Virginia City only this morning. Despite the fact that Superintendent Turner has been reported killed from the mine and the miners have given up all hope of ever seeing him alive again, W. B. Millard, the general manager, seems confident that he will be found in some slope or winze where the smoke and gas cannot penetrate, and bases his confidence upon the thorough knowledge the former superintendent and of the underground workings of the mine. The Alder Mining Company is now constructing the most extensive mining plant in southern Montana and with all the new buildings, the piles of loose timber and the dry wood and shavings everywhere, it is a wonder that the whole plant was not consumed by the flames. |
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