Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, November 17, 1915
Five bodies removed from workings at Ravensdale, three escape, and others are still underground
Foreman and head of union killed
Exact cause of accident has not been determined, but is supposed to have been from gas or coal dust
By J.J. Underwood
RAVENSDALE, Wednesday, Nov. 17.—Of the thirty-seven men who descended into the lower workings of the Northwest Improvement Company’s coal mine No. 1 at Ravensdale yesterday morning, five are known to be dead, three have been taken out alive, and the twenty-nine others are missing and believed to be dead as a result of two explosions.
The accident occurred at 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon, and rescue work was abandoned at midnight when it was found that workers from the outside could not penetrate beyond the bottom of the main slope.
The rescuers resumed their efforts at daybreak today.
Just what caused the accident has not been definitely determined, but it is generally attributed either to be a pocket gas or coal dust or both.
The known dead:
T.J. Kane, mine foreman.
Dominick Novara, president of local miners’ union.
J.S. Davis, pumpsman.
Charles Martini, cager.
John Errington, timberman.
The rescued:
Martin Mitzner, miner, dangerously Wounded, death is likely.
Mike Donoshak, miner, severely burned, may recover.
Mike Firlich, suffering from shock.
The men still in the mine and believed to be dead:
George Butalo.
P.J. Dowd.
Edus Morgan.
John Testa.
Joe Krajue.
Jack Muncie.
Howard Sniter.
M. Pennachi.
Thomas Mashiakaski.
Louis Minnaglin.
Noah Goodman.
C.H. Davis.
J.B. Castagnin.
Lorenzo Sesanantini.
Thomas Speck.
Romeo Mendani.
Joe Baldocci.
Jack Storey.
Louis Fazzioli.
Angelo Morris.
L. Thihaut.
John Aklo.
Frank Weyher.
Martin Mezzner.
Emil Pawallak.
John Miller.
Joe Zgone.
Mike Comiski.
Joe Galot.
Of the crew, all, with the exception of eight, were married, and most of them had families dependent upon them. Fourteen of them were American born.
Those who were in the second level have all been accounted for. Of these Mike Firlich is the only one not killed or seriously injured. He fought his way from the chamber in which he was working to the mouth of the mouth of the auxiliary slope.
“I don’t can tell what happened,” he said, “but she was awful. I don’t know hit what me.”
John Errington, who started out with Firlich for the shaft, died from his injuries soon after he was taken to the temporary hospital fitted up in the washroom of Ravendale’s only hotel.
As soon as the smoke cleared away a crew of volunteer workers, scores of men, and anxious women and children rushed to the mouth of the mine, and some of them maintained their weary vigil all night in the hope that some of their kinsfolk would be brought forth alive. But as the night wore on, they gradually abandoned the vigil and dwindled away to grieve in solitude.
Silent grief of watchers
Although the faces of the women and children were marked with the keenest anxiety, they made no outward demonstration of their feelings. As each of the few bodies was brought to the surface, the watchers asked excited and eager questions as to the identity of the victim, and then again took up their apathetic watching.
Among the mourners at the mouth of the pit was a small mongrel dog, that refused steadily and savagely to be chased away.
“His boss is down there,” a miner explained, “and I guess he knows something has happened to him.”
News of the tragedy was telephoned to adjacent mines and within a few hours several rescue crews were in attendance. The first crew of life savers to descend the black hole was from Black Diamond. It was composed of M.A. Morgan, Joe McDonald, Roy Rank, A.L. McLean, James Murphy, and Charles McKinnon.
The Burnett rescue crew, composed of A. Jones, Bert Brady, John Nicholas, William Peddlar, and Leon Shimkoski, made a hurried descent into the mine as soon as they arrived. They were followed by the Roslyn rescue team composed of Peter Bagley, George Morris, John E. Morgan, James Pascoe, Tony Stonsel, Matt Moharar, and Frank Koerar.
Matt Starwich, former deputy sheriff, also was early on the scene, looking for an opportunity to go below.
Supt. R.D. Scott allowed Starwich, who is an expert timber man, to descend the slope.
Women return to slope
All night long the rescuers worked and at the first streak of dawn the women began to trudge the slippery hill to the mouth of the slope, there to take up again their dismal task of waiting developments. Rain poured down incessantly, adding more gloom to the already gloomy scene. The hope that some may yet be found alive still survives among the watchers, but in the opinion of the rescuers there is little chance that will be fulfilled.
Early this morning another rescue team arrived from Colfax to relieve the tired workers, who have been toiling in shifts of one hour’s duration and spending their time above earth in fixing and arranging their apparatus.
The number of officials and the rescue crews have completely filled the one hotel in the town. The hotel was kept open all night to serve coffee to the crews as they came up from below.
George S. Shelton, Seattle superintendent of the accident department of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, together with an interpreter was standing at the mouth of the main shaft when the explosion took place. The force of the explosion knocked them off their feet and carried away their hats.
The three who escaped were working on the second level when the catastrophe happened. Two bodies found by the rescuing party also were on this level. Jack Errington, timberman, who breathed his last on the surface, and Dominick Novara, president of the Ravensdale local, United Mine Workers of America.
The bodies of Mine Foreman P.J. Kane, J.S. Davis, a pumpsman, and Charles Florence Martini, a cager, were found at the bottom of the third lift and removed from the mine at 11:30 this morning. Kane’s body had been observed before the preliminary search was concluded last night, but his removal was not possible at the time.
Kane and Davis were burned to death, while Martini was badly mutilated under a fall of timber and rock. With the recovery of these bodies this morning, five dead had been taken out; three were rescued alive, and twenty-nine remained in the mine, all on the third level.
Opinions as to when the last recoveries would be made ranged today, among the officials, from a day to a week.
Inspectors on scene
At daybreak today, State Mine Inspector James Bagley, Former State Inspector Dave Bottlng, commissioner for the company operating the mine, J.J. Corey, head of the United States Mine Rescue Station at the University of Washington, descended the auxiliary slope to third level and now are trying to determine what the next step will be towards recovering the bodies, which are evidently scattered along the entire length of both the east and the west gangways.
All progress toward recovery has been stopped at the base of the main slope on the third level. Timber and the top and sides of the gangways are down, in an inextricable mass. Inasmuch as the air has been pronounced “good,” the work of recovering the bodies will be prosecuted over the fallen debris, only necessary timbering of a temporary character being resorted to.
The cause of the explosion probably never will be known. Working at the time in the mine were five men on the second level and thirty-two men on the bottom level. That the loss of life was not greater is explained by the fact that a breakdown in the electric haulage system in the forenoon cut the usual shift of eighty men down to less than half that number.
Precautions observed
The mine officials say that all the work is done by men equipped with safety lamps.
This is not due, it is explained, to the fact that there is any gas in the mine, but to the ordinary precautions taken against explosions of dust, the mining being of an exceedingly dry character. Several such dust explosions have occurred at the Ravensdale mine during the past few years.
The only apparent explanation of the explosion, according to General Manager C.C. Anderson, of the Northwestern Improvement Company, is that a small pocket of gas was tapped in one “shot,” or blasting of the coal, and ignited by another shot following shortly afterwards. A release of a great quantity of dust by a shot might also have been followed by its ignition and a similar explosion.
Some of the miners, and those about the surface when the explosion occurred, declare there were two distinct explosions. This might mean that gas was first fired and the dust explosion, of greater consequence, resulted from the first flash of flame.
Out of the mouth of the slope flew broken timbers and great clouds of smoke and dust when the explosion occurred. Down the main slope, the principal artery tapping the coal measures and the main travelling way for workmen and the mine cars connecting the three levels and the surface, the terrific force of the explosion is apparent.
Timbers, top rock, and sides were brought down and completely blocked the slope. This fact was recognized at once by the officials when the work of rescue began, and no effort was made to reach the entombed bodies through the main slope. One hundred and fifty feet away is the auxiliary slope, used for hauling timber into the mine and also as an airway.
The three levels of the Ravensdale No. 1 mine are respectively 400, 1,200, and 1,500 feet from the surface. The slopes are sunk at a pitch of 45 degrees. The first level has long since been worked out and the second has, largely, been cleared of its coal values. On the third, and bottom, level development work is in full progress and the measures are being worked by the majority of the men employed in cutting the coal.
This explains the presence of the major portion of the shift of workmen on the bottom level when yesterday’s explosion occurred.
The mine officials, at whose head is Superintendent Scott, are not buoyed up by such hopes as those that lodge in the breasts of the wives, the mothers, the children, or the parents of the entombed.
To the forces of rescue were added the presence of Dave Bottlng, former state mine inspector but now commissioner for the Northwestern Improvement Company, and J.J. Corey, head of the United States Bureau of Mines rescue station, situated at the University of Washington campus. Mine Inspector James Bagley was early on the scene, along with the officials of the operating company.
It was the work of these men, temporarily stopped at midnight when the bottom of the third level was reached on the main slope, that satisfied the mine officials that all hope of finding any of the men alive had to be abandoned. Furthermore, immediate prosecution of the work had to be dropped until further progress into the gangways had been made possible at a greatly reduced hazard to the willing rescue parties.
The Ravensdale mine is owned by the Northwestern Improvement Company, a subsidiary corporation of the Northern Pacific. C.C. Anderson, recognized as one of the most successful mine managers in the country, is in sole charge of the corporation’s mines in this state. Among his mines are also the celebrated Roslyn workings.
It has been Anderson’s policy to first of all throw safeguards around his employees and to reduce the dangers of mining to a minimum. This was the opinion persons at the scene have voiced since the catastrophe.
Electric haulage has largely been installed and electric-lighting of the mine is under way. The prompt return to use of the fan and the ready clearing of the auxiliary slope, making a speedy recovery of the bodies possible, speak for the general precautions taken against such catastrophes.
United Mine Workers’ officials of the Tenth District assembled at Ravensdale this afternoon to investigate the causes of the accident and to determine what responsibility for the catastrophe attaches to the operating company, if any. In the party are Martin Flyzik, president; Ernest Newsham, vice-president, and William Short, secretary.
Clarence Parker, state industrial insurance commissioner, wired this morning, asking if he could be of any assistance and saying that he would probably reach the scene late this afternoon.
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