Dawson, New Mexico
Mine Explosion
February 8, 1923
MINERS BURIED ALIVE
RESCUE PARTIES RUSH WORK CLEARING DEBRIS.
FORMER MINE EXPLOSION AT DAWSON, N. M., CAUSED
THE DEATH OF 263 MEN.
Dawson, N. M. – A terrific explosion that
rocked the workings of coal mine No. 1 of the
Phelps-Dodge Corporation here entombed 122
miners working inside.
The explosion occurred at 2:30 o’clock in the
afternoon and tore away all of the heavy
concrete work at the mouth of the mine entry.
Within a short time after the blast rescue
workers had cleared the debris from the mouth of
the mine and a rescue crew, led by W. D.
Brennan, general manager of the mine, entered.
The imprisoned miners were about 5,000 feet from
the portal of the mine.
The cause of the explosion is a mystery. A
statement by the company declared the mine was
well sprinkled and was not gaseous.
The explosion did not wreck the mine fan and
ventilation soon was established.
The explosion was the second in Phelps-Dodge
property here, a similar accident in mine No. 2
wiping out 263 lives in 1913.
While company workers who volunteered for
rescue duty were continuing their efforts the
United States bureau of miners started a rescue
car here from Hanna, Wyo., and a second car sent
by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was sent
from Trinidad.
Almost before the reverberation from the
explosion ended, scored of women and children,
members of the families of the miners, run to
the mouth of the property. Weeping for their
loved ones inside they pressed forward about the
cordon of guards formed in front of the mouth of
the mine. The guards kept them back so that the
work of rescue parties would not be hampered.
The loss of life may be large, although the
usual precautionary measures taking in the
mining operations will undoubtedly result in
saving those in the inner workings of the soft
coal mine beyond the immediate field of the
explosion.
The mine is one of the largest operated by
the company at Dawson and was previously the
scene of a subterranean tomb as the aftermath of
the blast.
For more that a week recue [sic] crews braved
the dangers of falling debris, fire, and gas,
before the last bodies of the miners killed in
the blast and fire were recovered.
Officials at the time were unable to account for
the disastrous explosion in the Stag canon mine
No. 2, but officials , following the accident,
declared it was their beliefs that a miner, with
an open lamp had encountered an unknown pocket
filled with gas, which was exploded, wrecking
the mine.
Dawson is one of the largest coal mining
camps in the United States. Four mines are
operated at that place, the total population of
the comp numbering about 5,000.
Akron Weekly Pioneer Press, Akron, CO 16
Feb 1923
CAUSE OF MINE BLAST UNKNOWN
SEVENTY OF DAWSON DEAD ARE BURIED WITH SIMPLE
CEREMONY.
MINERS ARE BURIED
DEATH LIST IN MINE DISASTER EXPECTED TO TOTAL
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY.
Dawson, N. M. – The shattered depths of
Dawson mine No. 1 had given up seventy dead and
two living. Within the subterranean tomb fifty
miners still remain. It is more than a
reasonable certainty that all have perished,
according to officials.
Bathed in the warm rays of the dazzling sun,
Dawson set about the task of burying her dead.
The rough pine boxes, carrying all that was
mortal of those whose lives were snuffed out in
the disaster, were borne through the main street
of the town, out along the winding rustic trail
to the peaceful, cross-bedecked hillside, which
is to be their last resting place.
A small knot of men idled around the entrance
to the mine waiting for more bodies to be
brought out. A huge crowd surged against the
ropes which barred them from the mine mouth. In
the crowd were many women and children. As in
the other days since the blast, they are
dry-eyed, unemotional and quiet.
Touching scenes were enacted in the little
Catholic church of Dawson and at the graveside.
It was there, apparently that the full
realization of the enormity of their loss smote
for the first time many of those who have been
too stunned by the explosion to betray their
sorrow.
In a few brief words of comfort, Father
Joseph Couterier and a visiting priest sought to
assuage the pain of the people left behind, as
the last rites of the church were administered
to their loved ones.
In Protestant homes the last rites were
simple.
Dawson’s soldier dead were buried with such
military services as possible in the emergency.
The coffins of the men who had served in the
World War were wrapped in the Stars and Stripes.
Each grave will be marked with a simple cross
bearing the name of the occupant. Adjoining the
burial plot of Thursday’s disaster are more than
20 graves of Dawson men who died when Stag Canon
Mine No. 2 was wrecked by an explosion in 1913.
Regular shifts of more than fifty men worked
inside the mine. In several instances bodies
have been found to be deeply buried in debris.
Others are more visible beyond piles of rocks
and coal and will be brought out as soon as
passageways have been cleared for the
stretcher-bearers.
Daniel Harrington, supervising engineer of
the United States bureau of mines, after a
journey through the damaged mine, declared his
search had revealed nothing to indicate what was
responsible for the blast.
“The mine shows the usual wrecked condition
of a mine after an explosion,” he declared.
Akron Weekly Pioneer Press, Akron, CO 16
Feb 1923
Transcribed by
Jenni Lanham. Thank you,
Jenni!
On February 8, 1923, Stag Canyon Mine No. 1
suffered an explosion. A mine car derailed,
igniting coal dust in the mine. 123 men were
killed in this explosion, many of them children
of the men who died [in the Dawson Mine]
in 1913.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photos of Dawson Cemetery, where the miners are
buried from Silogic.com
Photos of Dawson Cemetery from
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