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Mining Disasters - An Exhibition
1900 Winter Quarters No. 4 Mine Disaster
Near Scofield, Utah - May 1, 1900
The Day 200 Miners Died 100 Years Ago
Miners stand among splintered timbers and other debris at the entrance to No. 4 mine shaft, background left, where the explosion is believed to have originated. By the time this photo was taken, much of the debris had been cleared from the portal and engine house by rescue and recovery teams.
(George Edward Anderson photo courtesy of Robert W. Edwards Collection). |
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When Winter Quarters No. 1 first opened about 1878, the coal was carried out the only possible way- by mule. Before long the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway laid tracks down Pleasant Valley, about 16 miles southwest of the main line junction in Colton, providing rail transportation for the region's high quality coal to Salt Lake City and other points in the West. By 1896, the Pleasant Valley Coal Co., which operated Winter Quarters IN os. 1 and 2, as well as the Castle Gate Mine at nearby Helper, Utah, produced 60 percent of Utah's coal. The
company's mines continued to flourish to such a point that in April 1897, Butch Cassidy's band rode in from Robber's Roost to steal $7,000 in gold from Castle Gate's payroll office. The Pleasant Valley Coal Co. opened new m fines in 1899 at Clear Creek, Sunnyside and Winter Quarters No. 4, the next year, despite the work lost following the explosion, the company's mines produced nearly 1.1 million tons of coal, or 88 percent of Utah's production.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, these mines had earned a reputation as being among the safest in the West. Many miners followed that reputation to Carbon County from mines in Wyoming after explosions there in 1881, 1886 and 1895 took more than 100 lives. Despite that reputation, Pleasant Valley Coal Co. mines suffered several fatal accidents.
In 1890, an explosion killed three miners at Castle Gate. As a result, the company adopted a new blasting system that required all shots to be fired electrically from the surface and only after all miners had left the mine at the end of the shift. Ten years later, another explosion ripped through the Castle Gate Mine, wrecking 200 mine cars, blowing out all the stoppings and knocking down doors, timbers and props all along the main entries. More than 200 miners had been working at Castle Gate that day, but when fired shots touched off an explosion of coal dust, most miners were safely at home enjoying their supper, and no one was injured. In the company's other mines, coal dust was not considered as hazardous as it was at Castle Gate, and miners blasted coal loose at any time. Less than six weeks after the destructive explosion at Castle Gate, coal dust would earn new-found respect for its explosive qualities, but at an unexpected cost to eastern Utah.
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