Tank's Poetry
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united states mine rescue association
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Tank's Poetry |
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 The Knoxville News-Sentinel, May 13, 1935 
A fire occurred in the main hoisting shaft of this mine, severely burning 11 men, five of whom died in the hospital a few hours afterward, and the sixth victim died four days later. The 13 men involved, together with the cager at the bottom of the manway shaft, were the only men in the mine at the time of the disaster.
The men were burned by a burst of hot gases which suddenly issued from the bottom of the main hoisting shaft when they were preparing to prevent the spread of the fire by means of hose and water from the shaft to the coal bed. The six miners killed were:
Mine Shaft Fire Kills Five Men Salt Lake Tribune, Utah May 13, 1935 The mine was idle today, but one pumper was operating in the 300-foot shaft to free it of water. The fire broke out about midnight, and a group of men were sent into the pit to battle the flames. An electric fan was shut off, and the air current in the shaft forced the flames almost 500 feet into the air, investigators said. The group of men, working with hose to extinguish the flames, were burned by hot steam from the streams of water forced back upon them as the walls of the shaft collapsed. L. A. Howell, 50, a mine inspector for the Bethlehem corporation and widely known in West Virginia for his mine safety work, was among those fatally burned. Howell came to this state from Wales, where the was decorated by the British government for his mine safety activities. The other dead are:
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