1909 — Nov 13, Fire, Cherry Mine (St. Paul Coal Co. No. 2), Cherry Hill, IL — 259
Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard, Oct 2008; revised May 2010 and Jan 2020 for website: Deadliest American Disasters and Large-Loss-Of-Life Events. https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
— 259 Blanchard.*
— ~300 Barrett. “Retrospect: We’ve Come a Long Way.” MESA. 1976, p. 17.[1]
— ~300 Rice, George, USGS; in Keenan. Historical Documentation…Coal-Mine… 1963, p. 19.
— 300 Waukesha Freeman, WI. “Events in 1909 Chronology,” Jan 10, 1910, p. 12.
— ~300 (“Nearly”). White/Murphy. “Eight Days in a Burning Mine.” World Magazine, 1911.
— 289 Chicago Daily News Almanac & Yearbook 1910, “Mine Disaster at Cherry, Ill,” p. 405.
— ~260 (“Nearly”). Amer. Red Cross. “The Cherry Mine Disaster…Workers’ Compensation…”
— 259 Cherry Coal Mine Disaster (website). Accessed 1-20-2020.
— 259 dsteffen. “How Regulation came to be…Cherry Mine Disaster–Part II.” Daily Kos, 5-10-2009.⁑
— 259 Groves. “Cherry, Illinois, Mine Disaster: November 13, 1909.” Ideals, 2006.
— 259 I Illinois Library. “Significant Illinois Fires: Cherry Mine Disaster.” Urbana: Univ. of IL
— 259 Illinois Labor History Society. “Story of the Great Cherry Coal Mine Disaster.”
— 259 Keenan. Historical Documentation of Major Coal-Mine Disasters…[U.S.]…, 1963, p19.
— 259 Mine Safety and Health Admin., DOL. Historical Data on Mine Disasters. 2008.
— 259 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 259 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, CDC. Mining Disasters.
— 259 O’Leary. “History Corner: Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909.” Securitas Magazine, 2003.
— 259 Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh & NY: Chambers, 1992, p. 126.[2]
— 259 State of IL Bur. Labor Statistics. Report on The Cherry Mine Disaster. 1910, p. 7.
— 259 Stratton. The Cherry Mine (St. Paul Coal Company No. 2), Cherry Illinois. Aug 2002, p. 3.
— 259 Tintori. Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster, 2002, pp. 260-269.#
— 259 Wikipedia. “1909 Cherry Mine Disaster.”
* We choose to use the tally of 259 deaths noted by most sources, including that of the State of Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics report, which provides a list by name of all the fatalities. We cannot account for the higher numbers since none indicate how the higher number was derived. The Daily Kos writer, noted herein states: “When the decision was made to seal the mine, over two hundred fifty, in fact, still remained below, although rumor and erroneous information put the number far higher, 385 to 400 being reported in many media sources.”
⁑ Notes that “One of the rescued minters, Daniel Holafick, the oldest of the rescued survivors, was treated at the scent and went home. He was found dead in his home two days later. He is considered the 259th, and last victim of the Cherry mine disaster.”
# Blanchard: Our count of names listed in section titled: “Victims of the Cherry Mine disaster, including details regarding their survivors, ages, nationalities, positions and wages.” Most of the entries begin with a notation of “Check No.” This is a reproduction of the “Victims” table found in State of IL rpt.
Narrative Information
Chicago Daily News Almanac: “Through a fire started by hay coming in contact with a torch 289 men lost their lives in the shafts of the St. Paul company’s coal mine at Cherry, Ill., on the afternoon of Saturday, Nov. 13, 1909. Eleven of the victims died in making a heroic effort to rescue the men cut off by the flames. They had saved 185 of the miners and were making their seventh trip in the cage when they were overcome, only one returning to the surface and he dying almost immediately. The names of these eleven men are as follows: John Bundy, Robert Clark, Tom Flood, Dominick Fermento, James Jamison, Alexander Nourberg, James Shears, Harry Stewart, John Azarbinski, Joseph Yearley, Ike Lewis. Other efforts were made to reach the entombed miners, but the fire could not be extinguished without sealing up the shafts and the men could not be reached until all except twenty-one were dead. These twenty-one were rescued after being entombed a whole week. Steps for the relief of the widows, orphans and others left helpless by the disaster were at once taken in various parts of the state and the response to the appeals for help was immediate and generous.” (Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1910. “Events of the Year 1909…Mine Disaster at Cherry, Ill.” Chicago Daily News Company, 1909, p. 405.)
Groves: “In 1905, the St. Paul Mine Company began mining coal in Cherry, Illinois. Believed to be the largest coal shaft in the United States, the Cherry Mine produced over 1,500 tons of coal a day for its first few years.” (Groves 2006, Cherry, Illinois, Mine Disaster: November 13, 1909))
IL Labor History Society: “One of the worst [disasters] took place on November 13, 1909 in a mine near the little town of Cherry, just a few miles northwest of La Salle, IL…By 7:00 a.m. that morning 481 men and boys had descended the shaft to reach the coal, in some cases more than 500 feet below the surface. It began as a day like any other, except that the electrical system had broken down and the mines were lit the old-fashioned way. Kerosene torches were placed along the walls…
“Around lunch time several bales of hay were dropped down the hoist to feed the mules. Forty mules, were stabled underground. Their job was to pull the little cars, which had been loaded with coal by the miners through the tunnels to the elevator hoist….15-year old Matt Francesco and another man pushed one of the cars piled with the hay over to the stable area. They gave it a final shove down the track, and then went on their way. Unfortunately, the car came to rest under one of the open torches. Soon the hay caught fire.[3] Efforts to move the car out of danger only spread the fire. The heat and smoke became overpowering, as the fire began to spread. At last the signal to clear out the mine was given,[4] but it was too late for many…. there were 259 men and boys who were never saved despite great deeds of heroism by volunteer rescue teams. Sadly, that heroism was rewarded with death for no less than twelve of the rescuers. They were a hastily assembled team of people from the town who went down in the cage six times, each time dragging more miners to safety. From the seventh trip into the hell below, however, none returned alive….”[5] (IL Labor History Society.)
IL Labor History Society: “Work in the underground tunnels of the early coal mines in Illinois was dark, dirty, and always dangerous….In the early years of mining, there were few safety regulations or procedures required by the State. The mining companies showed minimum concern for the safety of the workers. Replacements could always be found from among the immigrant workers pouring into America from Europe….Since they were paid by how much coal they had dug by the end of the day, miners went about their work in a hurry with little time and attention to safe practices….” (Illinois Labor History Society. “Story of…Great Cherry Coal Mine Disaster.”)
IL Labor History Society: “There were tales of unbelievable suffering and endurance. One group of miners, 500 feet underground, had built a wall of mud, rocks, and timbers to block off the poisonous gasses. They were in total darkness with only a pool of water leaking from a coal seam to drink. After eight days of confinement, they could bear it no longer. They tore down the barricade and began crawling through the tunnels. Finally, they heard the sounds of a search party. Twenty-one men still alive from this group were rescued. After 25 days the Cherry mine was sealed….
“Impelled by the public outcry over the tragedy, in 1910 the Illinois legislature established stronger fire and safety regulations governing mines. A year later, the State adopted a liability act, which later developed into the Illinois Workmen’s Compensation Act.” (IL Labor Hist Society; adapted from article by Steve Stout appearing in the JOURNAL of the Illinois State Historical Society, February, 1979. Vol. LXII, Number 1)
Rice: “The Cherry disaster occurred on Saturday afternoon, November 13, 1909. Of all the mine disasters in this country, it was second only to that of Monongah in the size of its death roll. About 300 lives were lost. The exact number had not been determined.
“The Cherry mine is located in Bureau County, Illinois, near the northern edge of the Illinois coal basin, where the coal measures are deeply overlain with glacial drift. Three seams are penetrated by the two shafts, called locally the First Vein, the Second or Middle Vein, and the Third or Lower Vein, numbering from the top downward.
“At the point where the two shafts are sunk the glacial drift is about 80 feet in thickness, although in the vicinity it is often from 200 to over 300 feet thick. The First Vein is at a depth of about 320 feet. It is a thin, irregular seam in Bureau County, and not mineable in the vicinity of Cherry.
“The Second Vein is about 40 feet below the First Vein and is from four to six feet thick. The mine in this seam was developed some four or five years ago, and the workings are quite extensive, covering an irregular area of about 240 acres. The farthest workings are about three-fourths of a mile from the shaft. The plan of development was by the room and pillar system. About 300 men were employed on the day shift in this seam.
“The Third Vein is about 160 feet below the Second Vein, or about 480 feet from the surface. Mining had been started in it only about a year previous.
“Entries had been driven around a large block surrounding the shafts and longwall workings had been started. There were about 90 working places, but as the work was being pushed, nearly 200 men all told, were employed in this vein on the day shift.
“The mine had two entrances, a large hoisting shaft, and a combined air and escape shaft. Both these shafts went to the Second and the Third Vein.
“Coal was brought up from the Third Vein to the Second Vein on a single cage in one compartment of the air shaft. The loaded cars were hauled around to the hoisting shaft. The coal was caged with the Second Vein coal and hoisted on large cages, on which the two-ton cars were placed tandem.
“A stairway runs from the Third Vein up through the Second Vein to the surface, in one compartment of the air shaft. In addition to this method of escape from the Third to the Second Vein, there was a single cage in the southeast compartment of the hoisting shaft, that could be fastened to the floor of the main cage by a rope, which ordinarily hung from the cage seat at the Second Vein.
“The mine was ventilated by a strongly built steel fan with steel plate casing. It was reversible, but as ordinarily used, forced air down the air shaft. The air returned, or up-casted, through the hoisting shaft. At the Second Vein the intake air split, the larger part of it going through the workings in this seam, the other part continuing down the air shaft to the Third Vein workings.
“All haulage underground was by mules. There were stables underground in each vein. The Second Vein stable was located about 60 feet away from and parallel with the main bottom.
“The main bottoms, the stable and the landing at the air shaft had been lighted with incandescent electric lights up to about a month prior to the fire. Then a breakdown in the lead covered cable caused the use of torches until a new cable was installed. These torches were of a kind often used around naked light mines and consisted of a piece of two inch pipe, about 16 inches long, plugged at one end and reduced down at the other to hold a cotton wick. Kerosene oil is used in them. Such torches are usually hung to the timbering. When the supply of oil gets low, the torches are tipped down more or less and are apt to drip oil.
“In the case of the torches at the air shaft, the evidence shows that there were two hung by wires from timbers, one placed on the north side, the other on the south side of the shaft, immediately adjacent to the man-way along the west side of the hoisting compartment.
“At 1:15 p.m., a car, containing six bales of hay standing on end, was sent down from the surface, destined for the Third Vein. When it reached the bottom, it was taken off on the east side and was hauled through the east run-around by a three-mule team. The driver left the car of hay with some empty cars on the siding immediately south of the air shaft and went back to the hoisting shaft, taking six loads of coal and returned again to the air shaft with six empty cars. He testified that when the team stopped, he walked past it and saw that the car of hay, which he had left on the previous trip, was burning.
“The coupler boy testified that after the driver had brought the car of hay and empties to the siding south of the air shaft, that the eager and he pushed the car of hay through the man-way up to a point where the torch on the north side of the shaft was hanging. He didn’t notice whether the hay struck the torch, or not. The hay was standing high in the car, and from the evidence, it is probable that the top was higher than the torch. At all events, they had paid no attention to it and had turned and pushed a loaded car, which had just come up on the cage, off same to the south and coupled it to the cars already standing there. When they turned around after coupling up the loaded car, they saw that the car of hay was on fire.
“As a result of a careful study of the evidence, the author presents the following probable sequence of evidence.
“At 1:15 p.m., the car of hay went down the hoisting shaft and was hauled to the air shaft.
“At 1:20 p.m., the car of hay was shoved into a torch on the north side of the air shaft by the eager and the coupler, who, however, did not observe the result. It would appear from the evidence that the torch was low hanging, and while it would clear the empty cars, the bales of hay would project higher. It seems quite probable that the hay struck it and tipped it backward so that the burning oil would tend to run out, and this might explain the suddenness with which the hay blazed up.
“It seems probable that the eager, seeing the hay against the torch, pushed the car away from it, to the south side of the shaft, throwing off one burning bale; then finding others ablaze, undertook to push the car to the sump. It also seems probable that the torch which had set the car on fire was removed before the car was pushed past the point where it had hung. When he got the car to the switch, the narrowness in the road increased the draft. Seeing the blaze was going to set the overhead timbers on fire, he decided to send it down to the third vein, where he knew they had a hose and water tap.
“About 1:43 p.m., the car of burning hay was dumped down the hoisting shaft.
“About 2:05 p.m., the fan stopped and then reversed, making the hoisting shaft the downcast. Conditions at the bottom of the hoisting shaft temporarily very much improved, so that men straggling into the bottom had no difficulty in getting to the cages.
“About 3:00 p.m., the fan doors burned out; following which, the fan was stopped.
“About 3:00 p.m., the foreman went below to try to reach the Third Vein with the emergency cage. Owing to the fan having stopped, the smoke probably backed up, and the fire getting closer to the shaft through the stable and pump room, he and party were obliged to abandon further attempts, after having brought the emergency cage up once to the Second Vein, so they lowered and disconnected it and then got on the main cage to ascend.
“About 3:15 p.m., a loader belled. It seems probable that the cage carrying the others was then ascending. The signals caused it to be stopped and then lowered just after he was driven back by the smoke and heat.
“About 3:30 p.m., cage containing the dead bodies reached the top.
“About 4:00 p.m., hoisting shaft sealed.
“When the wooden doors of the fan conduit burned out, water was played on the superstructures and down the shaft, but the water supply was limited as the mine was more or less dependent on the mine water and mine pumps which were now stopped.
“The flames coming up the air shaft heated the steel plate fan and casing red hot, damaging the plates and melting the babbitt[6] from the boxings. The fan engine was fully protected by a concrete house; the fan conduit, also of concrete, was not materially damaged. The head frame carrying the sheaves for the Third Vein hoist, while not directly exposed to the blast, was burned so badly that it was removed.
“Water was played around the top of the air shaft and down same that evening and night (November 13th) until the active flames were put out.
“A pulley was rigged over the air shaft and a rope attached to the air shaft hoisting engine, and a hole broken in the reinforced concrete roof of the fan conduit so that a descent could be made in a small bucket. The Third Vein cage had dropped to the bottom through the burning of the hoisting rope.
“At 1:20 p.m., two men, using helmet oxygen rescue apparatus and electric lamps, made the first descent into the air shaft. Signals were given with an automobile horn. They went down only 60 feet; the sheave proved not to be centered so they were hoisted up again. On this being remedied, a second trip was made about 2:00 p.m. This time they got down about 250 feet where it was thought that the shaft lining had broken, as the bucket landed on an obstruction.
“A third trip was undertaken about 5:00 p.m., and this time their bucket did not strike the offset and they went to the Second Vein. They found smoke coming out along the roof with considerable velocity. Below the heavy smoke cloud they could see in about ten feet either way, and at the north side could see a fall extending nearly to the shaft. The bucket was so small, and owing to the weight of the apparatus, which is about 40 pounds, in addition to an electric lamp weighing 15 pounds, it was necessary to tie the men to prevent their overbalancing. This prevented any examination of the Second Vein, more particularly too, because there was no landing; that is, the bucket swung in a large shaft which went down 160 feet deeper. The automobile horn signals brought no response from within the mine.
“About 11:00 p.m., the air shaft was sealed. Next morning, November 15th, the cover was taken off the hoisting shaft. Using helmets and electric lights, two men went down on a cage in the hoisting shaft about 9:00 a.m. They reached the Second Vein. It was so smoky they could not see, but they got about 25 feet from the shaft, in the Second Vein, on the west bottom before coming up. The timbering in the east bottom was then standing. It was too smoky to see into the pump room.
“The air shaft at this time was covered. It was decided to have the cover removed. The fan was then repaired and slowly started up-casting.
“That evening, November 16th, a company of firemen from Chicago arrived, bringing a fire engine with them. It was decided to throw a stream of water with this engine, down the shaft through a hole in the covering. This fire engine discharged about 600 gallons per minute.
“The following day, November 17th, after a prolonged conference of State Inspectors and others, it was decided to investigate the air shaft, as the thermometer showed that the air in it was of practically normal temperature, although the gases it contained put out the light of a safety lamp. These attempts failed.
“That evening, November 18th, the fan was started up-casting, the cover over the hoisting shaft removed, and a stream of water played down from the top by the Chicago firemen. Subsequently, as the shaft became cool from the water and from the incoming cold air, the hose was gradually carried down on the cage to the bottom, where an entrance was effected on the west side. Heavy falls of roof had occurred close to the shaft on the east side and in the pump room, entirely closing the openings in these directions, and also temporarily blanketing the fires under them. Active flames around the immediate bottom were quickly put out by the powerful stream from the hose most skillfully handled and directed by the Chicago firemen, who rendered splendid service at this critical time. In fact, it is a question if, without their skill and the use of their powerful fire-pump, whether a footing would have been secured at the bottom of the hoisting shaft at this time.
“The day following the entrance forced down the hoisting shaft, viz ;—Friday November 19th, a considerable number of bodies were recovered from the shaft bottom and vicinity. The mine inside was found to be cool but full of blackdamp, which had to be slowly forced out by the air current. The plan adopted was to clear out one pair of entries at a time. Movements were hampered by the dead bodies of mules and loaded cars. The latter in turn blocked by the dead mules and by falls of roof could not be hauled out without cleaning up the roads, and the situation would not allow this delay.
“Owing to the bad air encountered in the mine and the length of time that had elapsed, it was not considered possible that any one who had been trapped in the mine could be alive. Nevertheless, early in the afternoon of the following day, November 20th, —, who had been appointed to take charge of the underground work, happening to enter the second west entry on the south side, heard a noise, and going inward with a shaded light, he was greeted by one of a party of eight men who had been entombed since the start of the fire, and had saved themselves by erecting barricades near the heads of the first and second west entries. They had just made a hole through the barricade in the first west and had come out through the blackdamp to the point where discovered. This was a distance of over half a mile that they had to walk past cars and dead mules in the darkness, and in an atmosphere which would not support a light, except near the entrance. These eight were in comparatively good condition and were promptly taken up and given medical attention and nursing in the hospital car. They reported that there were twelve men behind the barricade not strong enough to come out by themselves.
“The first men in helmets to reach the barricade in the second west could not get through the small hole, and after working a little to enlarge it, returned to the base. It was very hot, and this added to the difficulties of the inexperienced helmet wearers, only two of whom had taken a half hour training. It was necessary for the writer to remain at the base to put on, adjust, and take helmets off the volunteers, being the only one with knowledge of the apparatus. In a number of cases, the men were overcome through mishandling the helmets so that they had to be revived with the resuscitation apparatus. The hole in the barricade was enlarged by the men in helmets so that they could go through it, and one after another, eleven miners were brought out. Some were supported between two helmet men, and a few were able to come alone on being led.” (Rice, George S, USGS; in Keenan 1963, pp. 19-21.)
State if IL Bureau of Labor Statistics: “The nationality of those killed ranges as follows: [259]
Italians, 73; [In the original this is in paragraph form.]
Slavish, 36;
Austrian, 28,
Lithuanian, 21;
Scotch, 21;
German, 15;
American, 11;
French, 12;
Polish, 8;
Swede, 9;
English, 8;
Belgian, 7;
Irish, 3;
Greek, 2;
Welch, 2;
Russian, 3.
“There are sixteen nationalities represented; 161 were married and 97 were single [258]. There were 607 persons dependent upon them. This large number of people left either destitute or without any means of support attracted the attention and sympathy of the nation. Three of those killed were not employes of the mine but had volunteered their services in rescuing those below and were burned to death on the cage in the attempt. They were: Isaac Lewis, a liveryman; John Flood, a merchant, and Dominic Formento, a groceryman, all of Cherry. They each were married and left a widow and children.” (State of Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report on The Cherry Mine Disaster. 1910, p. 46.)
White and Murphy: “The Cherry Mine, located at Cherry, in Bureau County, Illinois, was owned and operated by the St. Paul Coal Company, Illinois, been in operation for about four years, and was considered one of the best mines in the Central Illinois Coalfield. There were two veins, or levels, being worked, and two shafts descended to the upper one of these, which was known as the “Second Vein.” Only one shaft communicated with the lower or third vein, and this fact was in large part responsible for the loss of life in the fire. The latter shaft was called the escapement shaft, and the one which terminated in the second vein was called the main shaft. The men, coal, and waste matter were raised out of the mine on a cage operated by a hoisting-engine in the main shaft, and from the third vein to the second vein on another cage in the escapement shaft, similarly manipulated.” (White/Murphy. “Eight Days in a Burning Mine.” Wide World Magazine, 1911.)
White and Murphy: “The mine was then sealed up, so that the fire would die out from lack of oxygen, and all efforts to enter it failed until the following Saturday–one week after the fire had broken out, when a rescue party went below and found twenty men in the second vein who had managed to remain alive, and these were saved. The rest of the miners in both veins, about three hundred in number, were found dead.” (White, “Eight Days…” 1911.)
Coal Age: “Miners of Cherry, where more than 200 miners were killed in a mine disaster in 1909, have given a striking evidence of gratitude for the relief work of the American Red Cross following the mine disaster. Now, after nearly seven years, they have sent to American Red Cross headquarters $3,000 to aid the organization in relief work in Poland.” (Coal Age. “Coal and Coke News.” Vol. 9, No. 5, 1-29-1916, p. 225.)
Sources
American Red Cross. “The Cherry Mine Disaster Leads to Workers’ Compensation Laws.” Museum.
Barrett, Robert. “Retrospect: We’ve Come a Long Way.” MESA (Magazine of Mining Health and Safety). 1976, pp. 12-22. Accessed 5-12-2010 at:
https://arlweb.msha.gov/FocusOn/40thAnniversary/MESAArticle.pdf Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=MHts-Nm1T5oC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Cherry Coal Mine Disaster (website). Accessed 1-20-2020 at: http://guitarjourney.tripod.com/cherrycoalminedisaster/index.html
Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1910. Chicago Daily News Company, 1909. At: http://books.google.com/books?id=IHgaAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true
Coal Age. “Coal and Coke News.” Vol. IX, No. 5, 1-29-1916. NY: Hill Publishing CO., 1916. Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=S4hNAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true
dsteffen. “How Regulation came to be: The Cherry Mine Disaster – Part II.” Daily Kos, 5-10-2009. Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/5/10/729963/-
Groves, Adam. “Cherry, Illinois, Mine Disaster: November 13, 1909.” Ideals, Illinois Fire Service Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2006. Accessed at: https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/86
I Illinois Library. “Significant Illinois Fires: Cherry Mine Disaster.” Urbana: University of Illinois, 11-29-2018 update. Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/c.php?g=416856&p=2840930
Illinois Labor History Society. “Story of the Great Cherry Coal Mine Disaster.” Adapted from Steve Stout article appearing in the JOURNAL of the Illinois State Historical Society, February, 1979. Vol. LXII, Number 1. Accessed at: http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/cherrymi.htm
Keenan, Charles M. Historical Documentation of Major Coal-Mine Disasters in the United States Not Classified as Explosions of Gas or Dust: 1846-1962 (Bulletin 616). Washington, DC: Bureau of Mines, Department of the Interior, 1963. Accessed at: http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12768/m1/2/
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States. Arlington, VA: MSHA, U.S. Department of Labor. Accessed 10-5-2008 at: http://www.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT8.HTM
National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Mining Safety and Health Research.. Mining Disasters (Incidents with 5 or more Fatalities). NIOSH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2-26-2013 update. Accessed at: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/statistics/disall.htm
and http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/statistics/content/allminingdisasters.html
O’Leary, Margaret (Ed.). “History Corner: Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909.” Securitas Magazine, Nov/Dec 2003, Vol. 2, Issue 6 (Suburban Emergency Management Project). Accessed at: http://www.semp.us/publications/securitas_reader.php?SecuritasID=
Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh and New York: W & R Chambers, 1992.
State of Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics. Report on The Cherry Mine Disaster. Springfield IL: State Board of Commissioners of Labor and published by Illinois State Journal Co., State Printers, 1910. Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=dR-O2791H8MC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true
Stratton, Christopher. The Cherry Mine (St. Paul Coal Company No. 2), Cherry Illinois. Springfield, IL: Illinois Department of Natural Resources, August 2002. Accessed 1-20-2020 at: http://www.illinoisarchaeology.com/IDNR/Coal%20Mines/Cherry%20Mine%20ASSR.pdf
Tintori, Karen. Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster. NY: Atria Books, 2002.
Waukesha Freeman, WI. “Events in 1909 Chronology,” Jan 10, 1910, p. 12. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=53091993
White, Thomas and Louis Murphy. “Eight Days In A Burning Mine.” The World Magazine, October 1911. U.S. Department of Labor, Mine Safety and Health Administration. Accessed at: http://www.msha.gov/CENTURY/MAG/MAGCVR.asp
Wikipedia. “1909 Cherry Mine Disaster.” 4-5-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Mine_Disaster
Additional Reading and Resources
Stout, Steve. Black Damp: The Story of The Cherry Mining Disaster (a novel). Utica House Pub. Co., 1979.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois History and Lincoln Collections. Edward Caldwell Cherry Mine Disaster Research Collection, 1903-2007 (IHLC MS 515). “Manuscript Collection Inventory.” Accessed 1-20-2020 at: https://www.library.illinois.edu/ihx/inventories/caldwell_cherry-mine-disaster.pdf
[1] “The next year, 1909, the Cherry mine fire occurred in Illinois taking about 300 lives.”
[2] Smith incorrectly writes that: “The accident here did not even start in the mine: it began with haybales catching fire near the mine entrance. The flames spread to the shaft timbers and were out of control.” See sources below for description of how hay lowered into the mine to feed mules working in the shafts, caught fire.
[3] A differing account is given by Thomas White, a survivor of the Cherry Mine disaster: “On the day of the calamity there were about four hundred men working in the mine — two hundred and fifty in the second vein, and the remainder in the lower level. About half-past one o’clock in the afternoon a car of hay that was being pushed along a track between the shafts in the second vein took fire from a blazing oil torch stuck in the wall there. The men at work near by, with the carelessness born of long experience with small fires, at first regarded the conflagration without alarm. The car was run to the escapement shaft, and dumped down it to the third vein, where it was thought it would burn itself out on the bottom without igniting the timbers of the shaft. Left thus unheeded, the fire gained a foothold in the shaft before any effort was made to extinguish it. Then the officials and employees lost their heads, and wasted much valuable time in a futile effort to put out the fire, instead of warning the men and getting them out of the mine. Thus it happened that many of the men did not learn of the outbreak until they finished work after three o’clock and came to the shaft to be hoisted to the surface.” (White. “Eight Days in a Burning Mine,” World, 1911.)
[4] Forty-five minutes after the fire started according to Grove 2006, Cherry, Illinois, Mine Disaster: Nov 13, 1909.
[5] “The cage, with a rescue party of twelve men, made several trips to the second vein, bringing back numbers of miners. At about half-past three, however, it made its last trip. After it had been down for some time, confused signals came to the hoisting-engineer, leaving him in doubt whether or not to hoist the cage. He temporized, and when he finally raised the cage the rescue-party lay burned to death on its floor.” (White, “Eight Days…” 1911.)
[6] “Babbitt metal is most commonly used as a thin surface layer in a complex, multi-metal structure, but its original use was as a cast-in-place bulk bearing material.” (Wikipedia. “Babbitt (metal),” Aug 27, 2011.)