20th Century

–11 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 217.
–11 Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships…shipwrecks, California to Alaska. 1971, p. 55..
–11 Morning Astorian, OR. “Eleven Men Drowned…Kelton Caught in a Gale.” 5-5-1908, 1.
–11 Morning Astorian, OR. “Steamer Minnie Kelton Towed Into Harbor.” 5-6-1908, p. 1.
–11 U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the United States…1909, p. 392.

Narrative Information

Berman: “Minnie E. Kelton…St.s [steam screw] …632 [tins]…1894 [built] May 2 1908… Stranded …Yaquina, Ore. 11 lives lost.”

Gibbs: “On May 2, 1908, the steam schooner Minnie E. Kelton, skippered by Captain James McKenna, was hit by a gale en route to San Francisco from Aberdeen [WA] with lumber. Off Yaquina Head the deckload shifted and smashed the fireroom bulkhead. The vessel shipped water in great quantities until the fires in the boilers went out and the vessel became waterlogged. Abandoning ship north of Yaquina Head, a huge wave carried the deckload of lumber overboard, part of the after housing and both boats. Eleven members of the crew perished. The others floundered in the seas and regained the vessel, taking refuge in the foc’scle. All through the night they held out until removal next day by the Yaquina Bay Lifesaving boat. The wreck was towed to Astoria…where she was reduced to a rock barge, and later rebuilt as the steamer Rochelle. The vessel was originally a Great Lakes ‘lumber hooker.’”

U.S. Bureau of Navigation: “St.s…Minnie E. Kelton…632 [gross tonnage]…1894 [built]…21 onboard…11 [lives lost]…stranded…May 2, 1908…Yaquina Head. Oreg.” Ten survived. (U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the U. S…1909, p. 391.)

Newspaper

May 4: “Newport, Oregon, May 4. – Eleven of the officers and crew of the schooner Minnie E. Kelton, lumber laden from Aberdeen, Wash., to San Francisco, were killed or drowned as the result of a fearful gale Friday night [May 1]. The schooner is lying at anchor, half wrecked, about a mile off shore between Yaquina Heads and Cape Foulweather. Captain James McKenna and 11 of his crew were saved. The dead and missing (undoubtedly dead) are: Oiler Walter Peterson, Fireman Barney McVey, Steward Svend Peterson, Cabin boys: R. W. Little and George Johnson; crew; A Elososson, A. Hoske, G. H. Jensen, O. Roskurst, and F. Johnson, Chief Engineer C. R. Lund….

“On Friday the Kelton ran into a strong headwind which increased as day proceeded until by midnight it was blowing a hard gale. The vessel continually shipped large volumes of water and labored heavily in the sea. The rough weather continued until the vessel reached a point eight miles southwest of Yaquina, when the deckload shifted and started the bulkheads of the fireroom and the vessel began filling from the bunkers and the engine room to the hold. The pumps proved unavailing against the inrush of water. Captain Kenna realizing the seriousness of his position headed for the Columbia River, but his fires were soon extinguished. The Kelton filled rapidly and was soon wallowing around at the mercy of the wind and waves. When north of Yaquina Head, the captain, seeing the hopelessness of his condition ordered the craft abandoned and directed that the lifeboat which was large enough to hold the entire crew, be lowered.

“While engaged in clearing the lifeboat, the vessel suddenly shipped a tremendous sea, which swept overboard, the deckload of lumber and with it the after deckhouse, both boats and 11 of the men. Shortly afterward a squall shut out from view the lifeboat and the men on the wreckage. They were not seen again until three of their bodies had been picked up on the beach on Sunday. Meantime the men remaining on the Kelton took refuge in the rigging, but fearing they would be swept overboard they crawled along the cargo booms and in this precarious manner succeeded in gaining the forecastle, where they remained until rescued Sunday afternoon.

“They had neither water nor provisions and suffered greatly from hunger, thirst and exposure. During all this time signals of distress had been flying but failed to attract the attention of either of the life-saving station or passing vessels. The first intelligence of the wreck was brought to Yaquina Bay Life Saving Station about noon Sunday by Paul Chatterton, a farmer living near the scene of the wreck. The lifeboat was immediately sent up the coast to the Kelton and the surfman with signaling apparatus went along the shore to the craft. The life boat took the remaining members of the crew and landed them safely about to miles above the wreck.

“Search was then made for those sailors who might have been washed ashore. The boat was found a short distance further north with one man lying dead in the bottom of it. Half a mile further up the beach another body was found on the beach and a third body was found in a mass of wreckage near the second one…” (Morning Astorian, OR. “Eleven Men Drowned. Steamer Kelton Caught in a Gale.” 5-5-1908, 1.)
Sources

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships: A Pictorial account of shipwrecks, California to Alaska. NY: Bonanza Books, 1971.

Morning Astorian, OR. “Eleven Men Drowned. Steamer Kelton Caught in a Gale.” 5-5-1908, 1. Accessed 2-19-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/astoria-morning-astorian-may-05-1908-p-1/

Morning Astorian, OR. “Steamer Minnie Kelton Towed Into Harbor.” 5-6-1908, p. 1. Accessed 2-19-2022 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/astoria-morning-astorian-may-06-1908-p-1/

United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Forty-First Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1909. Wash.: GPO, 1909. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=vF0uAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129#v=onepage&q=&f=false

— 178 Smith. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America… 1978, p. 118.
— 176 Ohio History Central, OH Hist. Connection. Collinwood School Fire. Accessed 6-1-2020.
–173 Children.
— 2 Teachers.
— 1 Rescuer.
— 175 Collinwoodfire.org. Introduction: Telling Stories About The Fire. Accessed 6-1-2020.
–172 Children.
— 2 Teachers.
— 1 Rescuer.
— 175 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 325.
–173 Children.
— 2 Teachers.
— 175 Country Beautiful Editors. Great Fires of America. 1973, p. 124.
— 175 Jablonski. “The Neighborhood Never Forgets: 90 Years After….” Sun News, 10-8-1998
— 175 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 175 NFPA. “Major School Disasters.” Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, Oct 1939, pp. 163-164.
— 175 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
— 174 Case Western RU. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “The Collinwood School Fire.”
–172 Students.
— 2 Teachers
— 174 Everett. Complete Story of the Collingwood School Disaster. Cleveland, OH: 1908.
— 174 Lima News, OH. “Fire is Fourth Major Disaster.” 2-3-1946, p. 1.
— 173 Industrial Com. of WI. “Why the State Regulates Buildings,” Safety Engineering, 1914, 283.
— 172 Pepper. “Phases of Fire Prevention Teachers Should Know,” Safety Engineering, 31/4, 1916, 200.
— 165 New York Times. “165 Children Perish in Fire,” March 5, 1908.
–>162 Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, January-June 1908, p. 255.
— 161 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database.

Narrative Information

Ohio History Central: “The Collinwood School Fire took place on March 4, 1908. Lakeview School was located in the Cleveland suburb of Collinwood. A fire began in the school’s basement. Because Lakeview School was built of wood, the entire building was quickly engulfed in flames. All of the exits were blocked by fire and smoke. The result was one of the worst tragedies in Ohio history. In all, 173 children, two teachers, and one rescuer died in the fire.

“The Collinwood School Fire inspired local, state, and national governments to pass new building codes to prevent future disasters of this magnitude. The community of Collinwood raised funds to rebuild the school, making the new building a model for safety standards in that era.” (Ohio History Central, Ohio History Connection. “Collinwood School Fire.” Accessed 6-1-2020.)

Elliott: “Within three months after that fire [Collinwood] a plan for an exact duplicate of the building was submitted to the State department [of Ohio] for approval. Does it look as if the author of the plan had profited by the sad experience of Collinwood?

“In the burning of the Collinwood school the principal cause for the sacrifice of 160 helpless children was due to the enlarged hall space between the foot of the main stairway and the door opening to the school yard. The stairway was but 6 feet wide, the hallway 12 feet, and the doorway 6 feet wide. The crowd of children was under pressure on the stairway. This pressure was reduced when it reached the en¬larged hallway and the crowd expanded. The expansion formed a human arch in front of the doorway, closing them as a means of egress.” (Elliott, “The Need of State Building Codes.” Safety Engineering, V26, N3, Sep, 1913, 142-143.)

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: “Nineteen bodies could not be identified and were buried in a common grave in Lake View Cemetery, along with 150 students whose identity was known….The fleeing children became wedged tightly on the stairs behind a set of inner vestibule doors which were narrower than the outer doors. The horror of the Collinwood fire caused numerous school inspections across the country, which resulted in stricter laws.” (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “The Collinwood School Fire.” )

Insurance Engineering 1908: “More Than 160 Lives Lost in a Primary Public School Building – The Fire Started From a Trivial Cause in the Basement-Exits Inadequate and Unsafe Safety of Life in School Buildings – The Fire Record.

“The lives of two teachers and more than 160 young children were sacrificed in a fire that wiped out a public school building in Collinwood, a suburb of Cleveland, on March 4. This terrible loss of life happened in a few minutes. The cause of the fire was trivial—a steam-pipe was too near to woodwork. And yet, after the usual coroner’s inquest, no one could be held responsible for the disaster.

“About 340 pupils and ten teachers were accommodated in a three-story brick building of very ordinary construction, with only two exits, one at the front of the structure and the other at the rear, the hallway running through the center.

“The fire started in the basement, and was first noticed by some one living near the school. An alarm was given by tele¬phone. Cleveland sent an engine company and a hook and ladder truck, on request for assistance, the Cleveland firemen having to cover a distance of about three miles to reach the burning school.

“Collinwood has a population of about 10,000, and it is soon to be annexed to Cleveland. It is said that the annexation, which will mean better public fire protection, would have taken place some time ago but for the want of interest in the project on the part of some of the village officials. The public fire protection was typical of many small towns. There was a gasoline engine, a chemical engine, a hose wagon with 1,200 feet of hose, and a village ladder truck. None of the members was paid and no one was permanently stationed at fire headquarters. The horses worked on the streets when not needed for hauling the apparatus to fires.

“For alarms of fire the whistle on the electric lighting sta¬tion was depended upon. One report said that when the alarm for the recent fire was given, the horses were more than a mile away from the station and that twenty-five minutes passed before the first stream of water was thrown on the fire. The fire engine was useless at first for the want of some one who understood how to run it, and hydrant pressure had to be resorted to for the time being. The fire apparatus generally was said to be in poor condition, and there was no dis¬cipline among the members of the department.

“The coroner exonerated the janitor of any responsibility, and gave it as his opinion that the fire started in a closet under the front stairs, from overheated steam-pipes located too near to woodwork. The heavy loss of life, the coroner said, was due to the faulty construction of the building—a partition in front of the stairway made it necessary for the children to make a turn in trying to get to the doors.” (Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, Jan-June 1908, p. 255.)

Insurance Engineering: “The day after the public school fire at Collinwood the Board of Education of Greater New York adopted resolutions calling for a report on the condition of the school buildings in the different boroughs, respecting safety of life in the event of fire, and authorizing the superintendent of schools to close such build¬ings as were found unsafe.

“A report made on March 25 by Superintendent of Buildings C. B. J. Snyder contained facts and figures of considerable inter¬est to fathers and mothers. Out of a total of 511 public school buildings 429 were classed as non-fireproof — buildings that con¬tain elements of combustion that would endanger the lives of the young occupants. Two buildings were ordered closed pending the providing of proper exits, etc., as were also from one to four¬teen classrooms in eighteen other buildings for similar reasons. In twenty-three buildings it was recommended that the normal number of pupils occupying the assembly rooms be reduced one-half. An appropriation of $1,000,000 has been assured with which to begin to make necessary improvements, but three times that amount was said to be needed.” (Insurance Engineering. “New York’s Public Schools.” Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, Jan-Jun 1908, 259.)

Insurance Engineering: “Just after the Collinwood School tragedy, a prominent metropolitan newspaper printed the following editorial on this unnecessary loss of life:

A spasm of horrified emotion has passed over the country, as a consequence of the deaths of a crowd of children in the fire which destroyed the Collinwood School, at Cleveland. The horror is natural. It is a credit to the country. But the fire and its results were the natural effects of a succession of causes which discredit the country because they are characteristic of the country. The horror and the sympathy are human; they are com¬mon to all civilized communities; the recklessness which caused the unspeakable disaster is American. It has no counterpart elsewhere.

The city authorities, the school authorities, all were negligent. Behind their negligence stands the great, gap¬ing negligence of the public, the same negligence that causes annually in the United States more accidental deaths and injuries than three great wars.

There is a terrific loss of life and limb in this country from preventable causes. No other land shows anything like it, or anything approaching it. This is not because of the vastness of our population, but because of its careless¬ness. We are the most careless people on earth. We permit a looseness of conditions, a recklessness of method, or a method of recklessness which would not be tolerated in Great Britain or Germany, or France. This laxity runs on our railroads, pervades our coal mines, meanders in our mills, asserts itself in the slovenliness of our cities and our vacant lot’s and is traced directly to our homes along the icy sidewalks to our front doors and the doors of our churches and public institutions. The average American cares no more about the conditions outside the walls of his home than he cares about the conditions on the most distant planet. We are indifferent and unashamed. The spasms of public horror are soon over and forgotten. They accomplish nothing.

“This arraignment of the American people applies with equal force to our fire loss and ought to bring the blush of shame to every public spirited citizen. (Insurance Engineering. Vol. 16, No. 1, July 1908, pp. 34-35; newspaper quoted not named.)

Jablonski: “On March 4, 1908, the worst school fire in American history consumed Lakeview Elementary School in Collinwood, taking the lives of 172 children, two teachers, and one local resident…. On that fateful day, a fire started in the basement of the seven-year old Lakeview Elementary building. The wooden building was soon engulfed in flames as the fire bell was sounded. At the sound of the bell and the realization that this was no drill, the children inside the building panicked and rushed down the stairs to the only fire escape, located at the bottom of the back stairway.” (Jablonski, 1998)

NFPA, 1909: “Notwithstanding the lessons taught by the Collinwood School disaster, it would appear that comparatively little has been done to improve the conditions and safeguard the lives of our children. It is true that in some localities improvements have been made, such as fire escapes, chemical ex¬tinguishers, fire drills, etc., and in a few cases automatic sprinklers have been installed. The fact remains that the large majority of our schools are unsafe, poorly constructed, and without proper protection.

“It would seem that the only solution is the passing of state laws re¬quiring all school buildings to be either of fire-proof construction or equipped with automatic sprinklers as well as providing other well recog¬nized safeguards. In a single copy of the Journal of Commerce a few days ago there was mention of three schoolhouse fires, one of which oc¬curred while school was in session and seriously endangered the lives of the pupils. Is it not time to act?” (National Fire Protection Association. Editorial, Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association. Vol. 2, No. 3, Jan 1909, 326.)

NFPA, 1913: “Following the Collinwood fire and holocaust, cities in the vicinity of Ohio were forced to consider fire protection in connection with their schoolhouses. Cleveland decided to spend its money upon fire escapes, fireproof boiler houses and special exits, although the General Fire Extinguisher Company went so far as to equip the basement of the St. Clair Street School free of cost [with sprinkler system], and operate impressive illustrative tests thereon. The authorities in the city of Buffalo went somewhat further and equipped the basements of sixty-five of its school buildings with pipes and sprinklers. At the time of these installations the local under¬writers were skeptical as to the proper maintenance of these partial equip¬ments, particularly during those periods when the schools were not in session. Subsequent inspections of these properties have confirmed the underwriters’ fears in this respect, a considerable number of equipments being found shut off or inoperative, with no satisfactory explanation.

“It has always been the feeling of the engineers of our Association, founded sometimes on bitter experience, that a sprinkler system may represent false security where it is not kept under rigid inspection. While undoubtedly it would be an immense gain if all basements in the congested districts were equipped with automatic sprinklers, the full value of such protection could not be secured without rigid inspection continuously maintained.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Partial Sprinkler Equipments.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association. Vol. 6, No. 3, Jan 1913, p. 268.)

NFPA, 1939: “Lakeview School, Collinwood, Ohio, March 4, 1908. 175 Killed.

“The Lakeview School, Collinwood, a suburb of Cleveland, was destroyed by fire between the hours of ten and eleven o’clock on the morning of March 4, 1908, while school was in session, resulting in a loss of life of two teachers and 173 children.

“Smoke was first seen coming through the crevices in the stairway at the front of the building. Flames spread with great rapidity up the stairway to the upper floors. At the discovery of the fire the janitor sounded the school fire alarm gong, and the teachers immediately gave fire drill signals. Reports indi¬cate that the ‘children in the rooms on the first floor were safely ushered out of the building. In some manner, however, the children on the upper floors became panic- stricken, and made a mad rush for the rear stairway, which with the front stairway exit branched from the main corridor in the center of the building,. At the bottom of the rear stairway on first floor was a frame partition, which created a vestibule between the partition and outer doors of the building.

In the mad rush the children became jammed in. a heap, against the inside of this partition and were found there by rescuers. So tightly were the chil¬dren wedged that the rescuers could do little to free them, and consequently they perished. at that location. Because all attention was directed toward saving the occupants, and due to the total inadequacy of the fire department, the building was totally destroyed.

“At the time, the Collinwood schoolhouse was considered a modern build¬ing, of average school construction. The lighting and heating devices apparently were well installed. The building was provided with two separate exits and an outside fire escape. The children were familiar with the fire drill. All in all, there was nothing unusual in connection with the school to indicate that such a horrible catastrophe could happen. There remain hundreds of schools by no means as well constructed or secure against such a loss as was the Collinwood School.

“The direct cause of the fire is not positively known, although the con¬clusion reached by a thorough joint investigation and inquiry made by the Deputy State Fire Marshal, local coroner, chief of Cleveland Fire Department, and members of the Collinwood Board of Education is that the fire originated from a steam main which rested on wooden joists.

“Investigation also revealed that under the front stairway was a storage closet. The fact that smoke and fire were seen coming from the stairs directly over this closet, and that the closet was used for miscellaneous storage, leads to the theory that the fire may- have originated there.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Major School Disasters.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 33, No. 2, Oct 1939, pp. 163-164.)

Ohio History Central: “The Collinwood School Fire inspired local, state, and national governments to pass new building codes to prevent future disasters of this magnitude. The community of Collinwood raised funds to rebuild the school, making the new building a model for safety standards in that era.” (Ohio History Central, “Collinwood School Fire”)

Smith: “At nine thirty in the morning of March 4, 1908, stu¬dents and teachers were settled down to their day’s work when the fire bell sounded. Accustomed to fire drills, the students lined up and followed their teachers’ instruc¬tions to move out into the narrow halls.

“There to their surprise they were greeted with heavy black smoke and with the terrible realization that this was not a drill but the real thing. A fire that had started in the basement had made rapid progress through the brick structure, and within moments it had cut off exit through the front door with a wall of flame. On seeing this the students panicked. In their race for the rear door they trampled one another. Those who finally fought their way to the door found it locked, and their schoolmates charging up behind them crushed them against the sealed exit.

“Teachers tried to regain order, but it was a losing battle. One who was directing her class down the second- floor hall saw that the flames racing up the stairs toward them made passage down impossible. Quickly she redi¬rected her charges up to the third floor where she handed them out onto the fire escape and safety.

“But other students were not so lucky. As horrified parents rushed toward the blazing school-building, they saw their children at the windows, trapped and pleading to be saved. Women rushed for ladders. Men sought to break in the doors held fast by the bodies of the children piled up against them. Parent after parent had to watch as his or her child seemed close to safety and then fell back into the flames.

“After too long a delay the volunteer fire department of Collinwood arrived. As they drew up a sickening crash was heard—the interior of the school had just collapsed, sending children on the upper floors tumbling into the inferno that was the basement and first floor.

“The fire burned on for three hours, but it had already taken its terrible toll. Only eighty children had escaped injury. About seventy had burns and other injuries from which they would eventually recover. That left the stag¬gering total of 175 six- to fourteen-year-olds dead in the ruins of Lake View.” (Smith, Denis. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America… 1978, p. 118-120.)
Newspapers:

March 5, NYT: “Cleveland, Ohio, March 4 — In a fire that may have been incendiary between 160 and 170 children lost their lives this morning when Lake View School, in the suburb of Collinwood, burned. Penned in narrow hallways and jammed up against doors that only opened inward, the pupils were killed by fire and smoke and crushed under the grinding heels of their panic-stricken playmates. All of the victims were between the ages of 6 and 14 years. There were about 310 children in the school.

“Two teachers, in vain efforts to save the little ones perished. To-night 165 bodies are in the morgue at Collinwood, of which more than 100 have been identified and 57 are still unidentified. Thirteen children are still unaccounted for, and all the hospitals and houses for two miles around contained children, some mortally and many less seriously injured….

“What caused the fire is a mystery. There are hints that it was incendiary. There were no wires to cross and ignite the woodwork. There was no rubbish where the flames began, to ignite from spontaneous combustion. All that now seems to be known is that three little girls coming from the basement saw smoke. Before the janitor sounded the fire alarm a mass of flames was sweeping up the stairway from the basement. Before the children from the upper floors could reach the ground egress was cut off and they perished. It was all over almost before the frantic mothers who gathered realized that their children were lost.

“With the call for fire engines calls for ambulances were sent in. Every ambulance from the eastern end of Cleveland was pressed into service. Wagons were used to carry off the dead. Rescuers were present by the hundreds, but they could not save the life of one child, so dense was the jam at the foot of the stairways.

“The Lake View School was a three-story structure. Under the stairway in the front of the building was the furnace. Owing to the mild weather there was less fire than usual, and it is certain that the fire did not start there. On the first floor four rooms were in use when the fire started, and the children of this floor escaped with few exceptions. They believed the ringing of the fire gong was the usual fire drill signal and marched out in order. The pupils on the second and third floors became panic-stricken and rushed to death.

“…The number of pupils was more than normally large, and the smaller children had been placed in the upper part of the building. There was only one fire escape, and that was in the rear of the building. There were two stairways, one leading to a door in front and the other to a door in the rear. Both of these doors opened inward, and it is said that the rear door was locked as well.

“When the flames were discovered the teachers, who throughout seem to have acted with courage and self-possession, and to have struggled heroically for the safety of their pupils, marshaled the little ones into columns for the “fire drill,” which they had often practiced. Unfortunately the line of march in this exercise had always led to the front door, and the children had not been trained to seek any other exit. The fire to-day came from directly under this part of the building. When the children reached the foot of the stairs they found the flames close upon them, and so swift a rush was made for the door that in an instant a tightly packed mass of children was piled up against it. From that second none of those who were upon any portion of the first flight of stairs had a chance for their lives. The children at the foot of the stairs attempted to fight their way back to the floor above, while those who were coming down shoved them mercilessly back into the flames below.

“In an instant there was a frightful panic, with 200 of the pupils fighting for their lives. Most of those who were killed died here. The greater part of those who escaped managed to turn back and reach the fire escape and the windows in the rear. What happened at the foot of that first flight of stairs will never be known, for all of those who were caught in the full fury of the panic were killed. After the flames had died away, however, a huge heap of little bodies, burned by the fire and trampled into things of horror, told the tale.

“As soon as the alarm was given Mrs. Kelley ran from her home, which is not far from the schoolhouse, to the burning building. The front portion of the structure was a mass of flames, and, frenzied by the screams of the fighting and dying children which reached her from the death trap at the foot of the first flight of stairs and behind that closed door, Mrs. Kelley ran to the rear, hoping to effect an entrance there and save her children. She was joined by a man whose name is not known, and the two of them tugged and pulled frantically at the door. They were unable to move it in the slightest, and there was nothing at hand by which they could hope to break it down. In utter despair of saving any of the children, they turned their attention to the windows, and by smashing some of these they managed to save a few of the pupils. They could have saved many more,” said Mr. Kelley to-night, “if the door had not been locked. Nobody knows how many of the children might have made their way out before my wife reached there if the door had not been locked. If half a dozen men had been there when my wife and her companion arrived at the schoolhouse, perhaps they might have broken down the door, but the two could do nothing, and the flames spread so rapidly that it was all over in a few minutes.”

“Parents Fight with Firemen. The suburb of Collingwood contains about 8,000 people, and within a half hour after the outbreak of the fire nearly every one of them was gathered around the blazing ruins of the school house, hundreds of parents fighting frantically with the police and firemen who were busily engaged in saving the lives of the children caught in the burning building and doing their best to extinguish the fire. The police were utterly unable through lack of numbers to keep away the crowd that pressed upon them, and the situation soon became so serious that a number of the more cool-headed men in the throng took it upon themselves to aid in fighting back the crowd, while others worked to help the firemen and the police.

“Among the latter were Wallace Upton, who reached the building shortly after the front door had caved in, and disclosed to the horror-stricken crowd the awful scenes that had occurred there. Just in front of Upton’s eyes was his own ten-year-old daughter, helpless in the crush, badly burned, and trampled upon, but still alive. The fire was close upon her, and if she could not be saved at once she could not be saved at all. Upton sprang to help her, and with all his strength sought to tear her from the weight that was pressing her down and from the flames which were creeping close. Although he worked with a desperation of despair, his strength was unequal to the task. He fought until his clothing was partly burned from him and the skin of his face and hands was scorched black. Other men attempted to induce him to move, but he refused until he saw that his girl was dead, and that he could not save her life by sacrificing his own. He then withdrew from the schoolhouse, and, although so seriously injured that he may die, lingered about the place for several hours, refusing to go to a hospital or to seek medical attention….

“County Coroner Burke immediately after the fire said: “The construction of the school house was an outrage. The hallways were narrow and there was practically only one mode of exit. The children were caught like rats in a trap.”….

“Glenn Sanderson, a boy 12 years of age, met his death in plain view of a large crowd which was utterly unable to help him. He was on the third floor in the school auditorium in which were a number of pieces of scenery, the floor beneath him was on fire, and young Sanderson swung from one piece of scenery to another trying to reach the fire escape. He managed to cross the stage about half way when he missed his grasp and fell into the fire….” (New York Times. “165 Children Perish in Fire,” March 5, 1908.)

March 11, NYT: “Cleveland, Ohio, March 10 — “The loss of the lives of the little children in the Collinwood school fire was absolutely inexcusable,” Coroner Burke declared to-day, after making a thorough investigation into the causes of the fire. “The poor little children were caught in a veritable trap and held and crushed until burned to death.” he said. “Someone is responsible for this, and should be held.” “I find that the steam pipes caused the fire by being placed too close to the wood of the joists. There is no doubt in my mind that the overheated pipes caused the fire.” “But the children should have escaped, and would have done so, had it not been for the partition built in the hall at the foot of the stairway. This is what caused their death.” The Coroner said that the building was also deficient in automatic devices for opening of doors.” (New York Times. “Finds Cause of School Fire. Collinwood Coroner Says…Steam Pipes.” March 11, 1908.)

Sources

Case Western Reserve University. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “The Collingwood School Fire.” Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/collinwood-school-fire

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium: Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Country Beautiful Editors. Great Fires of America. Waukesha, WI: Country Beautiful, 1973.

Elliott, Fred W. “The Need of State Building Codes.” Safety Engineering, Vol. 26, No. 3, September, 1913, pp. 141-144. Accessed 9-22-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=L9YMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr

Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. “The Collinwood School Fire.” March 27 1998 update. Accessed at: http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=CSF

Everett, Marshall. Complete Story of the Collingwood School Disaster and How Such Horrors Can Be Prevented. Cleveland, OH: N.G. Hamilton Publishing Co., 1908.

Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. “Why the State Regulates Buildings,” Safety Engineering, Vol. 28, No. 4, Oct 1914, pp. 283-286. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=a9YMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr#v=onepage&q=why%20the%20state%20regulates&f=false

Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, Jan-June 1908. New York: The Insurance Press, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=AhbOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:OCLC2161581

Insurance Engineering. Vol. 16, No’s 1-6, July-Dec 1908. New York: The Insurance Press, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=bxbOAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions:OCLC2161581&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Jablonski, Ray. “The Neighborhood Never Forgets: 90 Years After Infamous Blaze, Ceremony is Tribute to Lakeview Victims.” Sun News, October 8, 1998. Accessed at: http://web.archive.org/web/20070310221713/http://www.sunnews.com/news/1998/1008/collinwoodfire.htm

Lima News, OH. “Fire is Fourth Major Disaster.” 2-3-1946, p. 1. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=18963237&sterm=fire+garfield+heights

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 Fire Protection Association. “Major School Disasters.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 33, No. 2, Oct 1939.

National Fire Protection Association. “Partial Sprinkler Equipments.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association. Vol. 6, No. 3, Jan 1913, p. 268.)
National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

New York Times. “165 Children Perish in Fire.” 3-5-1908. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D02E2D71F3EE233A25756C0A9659C946997D6CF

New York Times. “Finds Cause of School Fire. Collinwood Coroner Says it Was Started by Steam Pipes.” 3-11-1908. Accessed at:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D04E5D6173EE233A25752C1A9659C946997D6CF

Ohio Historical Society. “Collinwood School Fire.” Ohio History Central: An Encyclopedia of Ohio History. Accessed 11/12/2008 at: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=491

Ohio History Central, Ohio History Connection. “Collinwood School Fire.” Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Collinwood_School_Fire

Pepper. Chester L. “Phases of Fire Prevention Teachers Should Know,” Safety Engineering, Vol. 31, No. 4, April 1916, pp. 197-202. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=mtcMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr#v=onepage&q=%22phases%20of%20fire%22&f=false

Safety Engineering. Vol. 28, No’s 1-6, July-December, 1914. NY: Safety Press, Inc., 1914. At: http://books.google.com/books?id=a9YMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr

Safety Engineering. Vol. 31, No’s. 1-6, January-June, 1916. NY: Safety Press, Inc., 1916. At: http://books.google.com/books?id=mtcMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr

Smith, Dennis. Dennis Smith’s History of Firefighting in America: 300 Years of Courage. NY: The Dial Press, 1978.

— 170 Blanchard*
— 175 Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No. 2, Feb 1908, p. 151.
–167-175 New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” January 15, 1908.
— 173 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database.
— 171 Wikipedia. “Rhoads Opera House.”
— 170 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 323.
— 170 Devlin. “100th Anniversary of the Rhoads Opera House Fire in Boyertown.” 2008.
— 170 Galveston Daily News, TX. “Chronology of the Year,” Jan 1, 1909, p. 12.
— 170 Lynch. “Victims of 1908 Boyertown opera house fire…” Reading Eagle, PA, 1-12-2020.
— 170 National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 170 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
— 170 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, p. 6.
— 170 O’Laughlin. “Rhoads Opera House…victims…Boyertown.” Reading Eagle, 1-16-2017.
— 170 Schneider. A Town In Tragedy: The Boyertown Opera House Fire, Vol. II. 1992, p.1.
— 170 WFMZ-TV News. The Rhoads Opera House Fire: The Legacy of a Tragedy.
— 169 Decatur Daily Review, IL. “Theater Death Toll in Past Disasters…,” 1-30-1922, p.1.
— 169 The Morning Call, Allentown, PA. “Other Valley-area…Disasters…” 3-26-1992.

*While we show a range of death-toll numbers the consensus of sources appears to us to be 170 fatalities. If one goes to the Reading Eagle website and type in Opera House Fire, one can access many articles commemorating and writing about this disaster. Every one we have read (most) note 170 fatalities. (Reading is about 35 miles to the west of Boyertown.)

Narrative Information

Jan 15, NYT: “Boyertown, Penn., Jan. 14 — Of the 175 persons believed to have perished in the fire and panic at Rhoades’s Opera House last night, 167 bodies have been recovered. Of these 45 have been identified at a late hour to-night.

”The proportion of victims was about nine females to one male. In almost every case the upper portions of the bodies were burned away, the lower portions below the waist being intact, showing that the members of the audience were wedged in, the flames sweeping over them and killing them as they were caught.

H. W. Fisher, the man who had charge of the stereopticon machine, the tank of which exploded and started the fire, accuses himself bitterly of having been the cause of the fire and panic. The Coroner will arrest Fisher and hold him pending the result of the inquest. Fisher said:

“I must have turned the wrong valve. There was a long drawn out hissing sound that frightened the woman and children. Several of them jumped up and screamed and ran toward the stage. The curtain was down. I don’t know what happened next. I was caught in a mob of crazy people. I was knocked down and trampled on. I struggled along. I was badly burned. I feel that I am responsible for this terrible affair.”

“It was told today that when the hissing sound was heard by the actors on the stage, some of them lifted the curtain to see what caused it. The heavy pole at the bottom of the curtain knocked over the tank of kerosene which supplied the footlights. These lamps at once exploded, and a sheet of flame ran up the flimsy curtain and the filmy[sic] scenery.

”Men jumped from their seats, and, seizing chairs, batted down women and children in their rush for safety. It was the battle of the strong.

Whole Families Wiped Out.

”Piled in a mass seven feet deep are the charred remains of at least eighty bodies, which it is believed will have to be buried in a common grave. While whole families in some instances have been wiped out, yet the members of the community were so closely related that those who are not mourning the loss of parents and children are saddened by the death of kinsmen and blood relations.

”While the calcium lighting outfit was the cause of a slight panic, it was not the fault of this mechanism that caused so much desolation. It was the upsetting of the kerosene tank feeding the footlights with oil which set fire to the building and cremated the spectators.

Coroner Robert E. Strausser of Reading and Burgess D. R. Kohler of Boyertown to-night made the rounds of the improvised morgues and counted the charred bodies. The tally at the end of the inspection showed that 167 bodies had been removed. The officials believe that there are more bodies hidden by debris. It is expected by Burgess Kohler that the death roll will reach 175.
Coroner Strausser stated to-night that he will institute a searching inquiry into the cause of the fire.

Say Doors Were Bolted.

”Survivors charged today that the swinging exit doors leading from the rear of the opera house auditorium on the second floor were bolted when the cry of fire was raised and the rush to the doors began. It was at the head of the flight of stairs guarded by the swinging exit doors that the loss of life was greatest.

”Around the head of the four-foot-wide steps the dead were piled five and six deep. The charge that the exit doors were bolted is being rigidly investigated. Several of those who escaped from the auditorium say that the doorkeeper became so interested in the tableaus that he bolted the doors, to prevent entrance of a crowd of Italians who had assembled about the entrance, and took a rear seat, where he could enjoy the show.

”When the lamps exploded many who knew of the small, narrow stairway at one side of the stage turned in that direction, and were confronted with a solid sheet of rearing fire.

Fight at the Door.

“It was at the doorway leading to Philadelphia Avenue that the whirlpool of humanity began a fight for life. This was the door said to be bolted. The narrow four-foot aisles were clogged with men turned brutes, women fighting and tearing at the faces of those in front, and children, screaming, kicking and twisting. The middle section of the Opera House, that part between the two aisles called the reserved seat section because the chairs are more comfortable and are screwed to the floor, soon emptied its contents into the gorged aisles. The sections to the right and left, in which were seats of frail construction, and which were not fastened to the floor and could be moved about at will, became battlefields.

”The crowds in these cheaper sections tripped over the loose chairs while trying to get into the aisles. The chairs, tripping up the maddened throng, slid along the floor, lost their regularity of form, and made the sections to right and left of the centre a maze in which many fell and never rose.

”Someone remembered the fire escapes built up on both sides of the building and shouted out the knowledge. Those struggling about the entrance door turned and braved the flames, which were sweeping over the ceiling and lapping at the woodwork along the side walls. The windows which gave access to the fire-escapes became scenes of minor fights.

Men Felled Women with Chairs.

”Men used the chairs which had entangled their feet as weapons with which to clear a way to the open. Several women say that they saw men respected in the community raise the chairs high over their heads and bring them down with crushing force on the heads of women and children. These men are reported among the missing, and probably died in the flames or were suffocated.

The Rev. Adam M. Weber, pastor of the St. John’s Lutheran Church, who with his daughters, was seated in the front row of the auditorium, endeavored to stay the panic. He shouted for the people to take things coolly and to file out without shoving or pushing. His words were not heard above the uproar. The curtain had by this time burned away, and the minister leaped to the stage and tried to right the kerosene tank. He was fearfully burned. He turned to protect his children and found them gone. He waited in the hall until only fifty uninjured persons were left. Then he climbed down the fire escape. Later he recovered one of his daughters. The other is reported among the missing.

“A big German who encountered the locked entrance door pounded against it with his fists. Others fumbled for the bolt. The door stood firm. The German placed his shoulders against the door, but it did not give. It was only when the crowd had pressed those next the door forward with tremendous force that the door gave way and the foremost were thrown down the steep steps. The momentum of the crowd carried others over the brink, and threw them on top of the scrambling, squirming heap at the bottom. At least a score were trampled to death in the struggle to regain their footing at the bottom of the steps. The mass of bodies obstructed the stair and prevented those in the rear from getting out.

”The Boyertown Volunteer Fire Department had water playing on the building five minutes after the alarm was sounded. The Pottstown Fire Department arrived at 11:50, but all the available water failed to quench the flames. At 5 o’clock the roof of the building fell in. At 6 o’clock this morning the fire was under control. The first body was not brought out until 8:30 o’clock.

“As soon as the firemen could get into the building there was a demand for bags to place the charred bodies and bones in. Owing to the fact that but few ladders were available the task of carrying the bodies to the ground was slow. Later in the day a detachment of Troop C, State Constabulary, arrived from Wissinoming, and the crowd which impeded the work was pushed back from the ruins, larger ladders secured, and the work was facilitated.

School Building a Morgue.

“The public school building on Washington Street was turned into a morgue….

The Burgess stated that the borough has no ordinances covering building inspection. He said that the State building law applies to the town. “Several years ago,” he stated, ‘a State Inspector visited the Opera House and looked it over. He ordered that fire escaped be erected on both sides of the building. This was done, and the Inspector then said that the building was satisfactory.’….” (New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” January 15, 1908.)

DCPR: “At the coroner’s hearing, Deputy Factory Inspector Harry Bechtel of Pottstown testified that the building’s owner, Dr. Thomas J.B. Rhoads, installed fire escapes only reluctantly and after much prodding. The fire escapes were located outside windows, but at floor height, so that people would have to climb over a three-foot-high sill to leave the building.” (DCPR, 2005)

Devlin: Dozens of townspeople had roles as cast members in the debut of the play “The Scottish Reformation.” (WFMZ-TV News, The Rhoads Opera House Fire.”) The play “featured Harriet E. Monroe, an internationally acclaimed dramatist…” (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” 2008)

“A sellout crowd of about 312 squeezed into a second-floor hall in the building, a three-story structure that dominates the corner of East Philadelphia Avenue and South Washington Street.” (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” Reading Eagle (PA), January 13, 2008)

“The sequence of events has never been fully explained, but most historians agree that about 9:30 p.m. someone on stage kicked over a kerosene lamp and ignited a fire. The hall did not have electricity, so stage lights were fed by a 5-gallon barrel of kerosene at the foot of the stage.
Attempting to stop the spread of the fire, some men tried to move the barrel. It ruptured, spewing kerosene on the floor and fueling the fire….

“…firefighters pulled 169 bodies from the ruins — two-thirds were women and children. A firefighter also died fighting the inferno that turned the night sky red, pushing the death toll to 170…..

“… virtually every family in the town of 2,500 was affected by the tragedy.”

“Based on initial reports, a coroner’s jury indicted Harriet Monroe, claiming that oxygen tanks on a primitive slide projector ruptured and caused the fire. The device, called a stereopticon, projected photographs of Scotland and Germany onto a screen between acts of the play. Monroe, who fiercely denied the allegations, argued the tanks were found in the rubble and had not ruptured… Monroe, hired U.S. Rep. Champ Clark to answer the charges…. no one was criminally prosecuted for the opera house fire….

On January 18, “more than 100 people” were buried that day in Boyertown. (Devlin, “100th Anniversary…,” 2008) (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” 1-13-2008.)

Insurance Engineering: “The fire at Boyertown, Pa…was another such fire as regards loss of life as occurred in the Iroquois Theater, Chicago… More than 175 persons, mostly adults, lost their lives, and a larger number were reported injured. A hissing noise, said to have been caused by a calcium light machine, startled the audience and the fire that occurred immediately after is said to have been caused by upsetting the oil-burning footlight arrangement. The opera house occupied the second story of a fairly large 3-story brick building that was used for stores in the ground story and for lodge rooms in the top story. There was one stairway in the front and a small one at the rear, with ordinary lire escapes on three sides. speaking of the cause of the fire, a report said:

There was absolutely no panic up to this time and nothing probably would have happened if one or more of the performers behind the curtain had not been curious to learn what was causing the noise. Who he, or they were, probably will never be known. Hearing the hissing and the slight commotion in the audience one of the performers raised the curtain from the floor. In front of the curtain and serving as footlights was a tin tank perhaps 8 feet long, 3 inches wide and 3 inches high. It contained coal oil and about 10 lights. In raising the curtain the performer accidentally turned this tank over and it fell to the floor within a few inches of those persons in the front row.

Rev. Adam A. Weber, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, for the benefit of whose Sunday School the entertainment was being given, tried to pick up the tank with the assistance of others, but before they could do so the oil flowed out and caught fire.

The victims were found piled four and five deep near the main stair, and jammed together near the windows leading to the fire escapes. Probably less than one-half the audience, which numbered about 400 persons, got out alive. It was also said that some of the doors were bolted to facilitate the collecting of tickets and were left in that condition after the performance began.”

(Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No. 2, Feb 1908, pp. 151 & 153.)

WFMZ-TV News: “The entire opera house was engulfed in minutes. Many of the victims couldn’t escape the flames because the fire exits weren’t clearly marked. Also, the doors of the opera house opened inward, so panicked patrons sealed their own fate when they crowded together in front of them….

“The fire wiped out about 10 percent of the town…”

“…the fire that killed 170 people…sparked changes in fire safety standards that still stand today. (WFMZ-TV News, The Rhoads Opera House Fire.”)

Wikipedia: “January 13, 1908: A local church, St. John’s Lutheran, has sponsored a stage play at the Rhoads Opera House, in Boyertown, Berks County, PA….

“The stage and auditorium were located on the 2nd floor and all auxiliary exits were either unmarked or locked. One fire escape was available but unable to be accessed through a locked window above a 3 foot sill. 171 people perished when the exit was crowded against to escape the fire. Entire families were wiped out….

“The incident spurred the Pennsylvania legislature into passing new legislative standards for doors, landings, lighting, curtains, fire extinguishers, aisles, marked exits, and doors. All doors were required to open outward and remain unlocked. Pennsylvania governor Edwin Stuart signed Pennsylvania’s first fire law on May 3, 1909.” (Wikipedia)

Sources

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium: Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Decatur Daily Review, IL. “Theater Death Toll in Past Disasters Shows Heavy Totals,” 1-30- 1922, p.1. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=1245857

Devlin, Ron. “100th Anniversary of the Rhoads Opera House Fire in Boyertown: A Tragedy’s Legacy.” Reading Eagle (PA), January 13. 2008. At: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=75908

Galveston Daily News, TX. “Chronology of the Year,” Jan 1, 1909, p. 12. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=42436423

Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, Jan-June 1908. New York: The Insurance Press, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=AhbOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:OCLC2161581

Lynch, Michelle. “Victims of 1908 Boyertown opera house fire remembered with wreath laying.” Reading Eagle, PA, 1-12-2020. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://www.readingeagle.com/news/local/victims-of-1908-boyertown-opera-house-fire-remembered-with-wreath-laying/article_af613d70-3543-11ea-8f98-b35e77ac19c6.html

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 Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf

New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” 1-15-1908. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E0CEFDB173EE233A25756C1A9679C946997D6CF

O’Laughlin, Lindsey. “Rhoads Opera House fire victims remembered in Boyertown.” Reading Eagle, 1-16-2017. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://www.readingeagle.com/news/rhoads-opera-house-fire-victims-remembered-in-boyertown/article_0323c35e-54cb-522b-ac2e-9b1c46130fca.html

Schneider, Mary Jane. A Town In Tragedy: The Boyertown Opera House Fire, Volume II. Boyertown, PA: MJS Publications. 1992.

The Morning Call, Allentown, PA. “Other Valley-area Mishaps and Disasters Have Taken Lives.” 3-26-1992. At: http://articles.mcall.com/1992-03-26/features/2835266_1_quarry-disaster-explosion

WFMZ-TV 69 News. The Rhoads Opera House Fire: The Legacy of a Tragedy (Documentary film). Documentary website, “History” subsection. At: http://www.wfmz.com/special/operahousefire/history.asp

Wikipedia. “Rhoads Opera House.” 1-12-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoads_Opera_House

— ~500 Wisconsin State Journal, Madison. “Latest Mine Tragedy Kills Nearly 500…” 12-19-1907, 1.
–200-250 New York Times. “Mine Explosion Entombs 250 Men…” 12-20-1907, pp. 1 and 2.
— 239 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 313.
— 239 History.com. This Day in Disaster History, Disasters, December 19, 1907, PA Miners…
— 239 Minedisasters.blogspot.com. “After Century, Darr Mine Blast Still Worst in State.” 10-4-2007.
— 239 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 239 National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health (CDC). Mine Disasters.
— 239 PA Dept. of Mines. Report of the Dept. of Mines of [PA], Part II, Bituminous, 1907.
— 239 Powell. “Scofield Mine Disaster.” Utah History Encyclopedia.
— 239 US Mine Rescue Assoc. Mine Disasters… “Pittsburg Coal Company Darr Mine Explosion.”
— 238 Fleming. “Organization of Safety Work in Mines.” Safety Engineering, 26/2, 1913, 108.
— 230 Chicago Daily News Almanac & Yearbook 1919, Great Mining Disasters…

Narrative Information

History.com: “A coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, kills 239 workers on this day in 1907. Only one worker in the deep mine at the time survived the tragedy.

“The Pittsburgh Coal Company set up the Darr mine on the side of a mountain near the Youghiogheny River [about 40 miles east of Pittsburg and 18 west of Connellsville]. The mine was almost two miles deep and six workers at a time–most of whom were immigrants–would ride a wood bucket back and forth from the surface.

“At about 11:30 on the morning of December 19, 240 workers were below the surface when a huge explosion rocked the mine. It was so powerful that homes in Jacobs Creek rattled and windows shattered. Thick black smoke poured out of the mine before the entrance collapsed. Mrs. John Campbell reported her observation, ‘My husband was about due for his dinner when the loud report came and I looked out the back door toward the mine. Instead of my husband, I saw a great cloud of dust and smoke pouring out of the mouth of the mine. It floated upward and disappeared across the river’….

“Joseph Mapleton, who was near a side entryway to the mine when the explosion occurred, was the sole survivor of the disaster. The victims died from a variety of causes: Some were crushed to death from the collapse of the mine, others suffocated and the remainder was killed in the blast itself. The precise cause of the explosion was never determined, but most coal-mine blasts are set off when a pocket of gas is accidentally ignited. Prior to the disaster, there was much talk among the miners about the prevalence of gas pockets in the Darr mine.” (History.com. This Day in Disaster History, Disasters, December 19, 1907, “PA Miners Perish in Coal Mine Explosion.”)

PA Dept. of Mines: “….The Darr mine is a slope opening in the Pittsburg coal seam and it was never deemed a very dangerous mine, inasmuch as it generated only a small percentage of explosive gas and was worked with open lights.

“Daniel R. Blower, temporary inspector of the Nineteenth District, in which the mine is situated, reached the mine a short time after the explosion occurred. The inspector of the district, W. J. Neilson, and eighteen of the other inspectors, were notified by the Department of Mines to go at once to the assistance of Inspector Blower.

“The explosion had been so terrific in its force that the inspectors were convinced upon a superficial investigation that it would be impossible for any of the entombed workmen to be rescued alive, as the after damp they found pouring out of the openings would have smothered any persons that had escaped the force of the explosion….

“The progress made by the rescuers was very slow, owing to the fact that all the stoppings in the mine were blown out and had to be replaced as the men advanced, and great precautions had to be taken in conducting the ventilation for fear of fire smoldering in the coal or in old timber….

“Of the 239 miners killed more than half the number were Americans or English-speaking miners….

“After the bodies were taken out of the mine, the superintendent and foremen of the mine, with the mining experts and engineers for the company, made a thorough examination of the mine and were of the opinion that the explosion was caused by workmen crossing the danger mark and their open lights coming in contact with the gas. Their report is as follows:

….It appearing from the book of the fire bosses that right butt entries 3 and 4 off 28 entry were fenced off by the fire boss on the morning of the explosion and prior thereto as dangerous because he discovered danger from the roof falling, and the bodies of five miners being found in No. 3 butt and 200 feet or more beyond said fenced-off portion and in said dangerous and forbidden section, this is conclusive proof that miners were in dangerous and forbidden portions of the mine without the knowledge, consent, or approval of the owners of the mine; and with such facts established and together with evidenced we discovered in the mine, that the course of the explosion was from said fenced-off section into other parts of the mine, we are unanimously of the opinion that said explosion resulted from the presence of said miners in said fenced-off section, into other parts of the mine, we are unanimously of the opinion that said explosion resulted from the presence of said mine4rs in said fenced-off section, at a time when there must have been considerable fall and the possible liberation of gas; and that, for the presence of said miners in said forbidden section and the explosion resulting therefrom the owners of the mine are in no way to lame nor are they in any manner responsible.

(PA Dept. of Mines. “The Darr Mine Disaster.” Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, Part II, Bituminous, 1907. 1908, pp. xviii-xx)

A listing of fatalities can be found at: https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/Darr_Fatalities.pdf

Newspapers

Dec 19: “The mouth of the mine was wrecked and this circumstance, in connection with the fire which was discovered to be raging inside, prevented effectually up to 1 o’clock any attempt at rescue of the imprisoned men.” (Wisconsin State Journal, 12-19-1907, p. 1)

In a sidebar article to reporting on the Darr Mine Explosion, the Wisconsin State Journal runs another which states that “The coal mines of the United States are killing three times as many men per 1000 employees as those of most European countries. In the last seventeen years 22,840 men have given up their lives in mines of this country.” (Wisconsin State Journal, 12-19-1907, p. 1.)

Dec 20: “Jacob’s Creek, Penn., Dec. 19. – Another mine disaster was added to the long list in the bituminous region today. The Darr mine of the Pittsburg Coal Company was wrecked by an explosion at 11:30 A.M., which was heard for many miles about, and from 200 to 250 men are believed to have perished in the mine.

“The Pittsburg Coal Company in a bulletin stated that 125 coal miners took out their checks [tags] to work in the mine this morning. There would also be about 65 laborers, drivers, and other workers in the digging. Many of these were Greeks and Italians. Only two men escaped the deadly shock and live to tell the story of the disaster. It is believed that quite a number of men entered the mine to break down the coal who failed to take checks with them, as they did not intend to load the coal today.

“Five bodies have been recovered. These are so mangled, blackened, and scarred that they have not been identified and are lying 5,000 feet inside the mine in what is known as the pit boss’s office….

“That today’s disaster does not equal or even surpass in loss of life the West Virginia tragedy [Monongah/400-550 deaths] is due to the devotion to church duties of a considerable number of the miners. In observance of St. Nicholas Day many of the 400 or more Russians employed at the mine did not go to work this morning.

“The explosion followed a brief shutdown. It was 11:30 o’clock when the tenth train of loaded cars had been brought to the tipple that there came a rumbling sound, followed immediately by a loud report and a concussion that was felt for a radius of several miles. At the same time there came out of the mouth of the mine an immense cloud of smoke and dust that floated across the Youghiogheny River.

“Intuitively every one in the vicinity knew what had happened, and all started for the mouth of the mine. The river separates the mine from the homes of many of the miners, so that only a portion of those who started for the scene were able to reach it, there being scant facilities for crossing the stream.

“The ventilating fans were kept in operation almost without interruption, however, the power plant having withstood the force of the explosion, and up to this time the rescuers have found no fire at any place in the mine.

“Joseph Mapleton, a pumper, emerged from one of the side entries shortly after the explosion. He had left the part of the mine where most of the men were working and was on his way to the engine room for oil. ‘I was near entry 21,’ said he, ‘when I heard an awful rumbling. I started toward the entry, but the next instant I was blinded, and for a little time I did not know anything. Then I got to the side entry and worked my way out.’ Mapleton, after having his injuries dressed, returned to the mine and joined the rescuing parties.

“William Kelvington, Superintendent of the mine, was not in the mine when the explosion occurred, and he quickly organized rescuing parties, starting a force of twenty-five men with relief in the main entry and a similar force at a side entry.

“It is hoped to reach the greater part of the victims through the latter entry. So far little trouble has been encountered on account of gas or lack of air by the rescuers. While the officials and the rescuers have only the faintest hope that any of the men may be living, all work is being carried on upon the theory that some may have found places of safety. Every point of the workings will be explored at the earliest possible moment.

“The main office of the company is in Pittsburg, and immediately upon receipt of the news the officers hurried to the mine, and are leading and directing the rescue work.

“About 1,500 feet from the mouth of the mine a heavy fall of roof was encountered by the rescuers. It is believed that most of the men will be found nearly a mile and a half beyond this point. How long it will require to open a passage to these remote workings can only be conjectured, as it depends upon how frequently these falls are met with. It is hoped, from the progress made up to this time, however, that the further section will be reached early tomorrow.

“One unusual feature of this disaster is the almost complete absence of the harrowing sights usually seen at such disasters. The difficulty of easy access to the mouth of the mine is partly responsible for this, and those in charge of the work are doing everything possible to keep the women and children away.

“Mrs. John Campbell, wife of the mine foreman, whose home is located about fifty yards from the mouth of the mine, graphically describes the explosion. She said: ‘About 11:30 o’clock there was a loud report and the dishes in my cupboard and on the table were rattled and knocked out of place, while the glass in the windows was shattered. Instinctively I knew what had happened. I have for a long time feared an explosion in the mine, for I knew it was gaseous. My husband and I had talked of it, and he often referred to the gas in the mine. My husband was just about due for his dinner when the loud report came, and I looked out the back door toward a manway from the mine, through which he always came to his meals. Instead of my husband I saw a great cloud of dust and smoke pouring out of the mouth of the mine through the manway. It floated upward and disappeared across the river.

Location of the Mine.

“The Darr Mine is located on the west side of the Youghiogheny River, in Westmoreland County, along the line of the Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad, forty miles southeast of Pittsburg and eighteen miles northwest of Connellsville. The main line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad runs along the opposite bank of the river. It is one of a group of five mines within a radius of a mile and a half, and is part of the original Connellsville cokefields, its product being used for coking.

“It is a slope mine, opened in 1899, very similar to the Naomi Mine of the United Coal Company at Fayette City, when an explosion Dec. 1 killed thirty-four men. The two mines are about ten miles apart. The Darr Mine is one of the largest of the Pittsburg Coal Company’s having a daily capacity of 2,000 tons, and is modern in all equipments, including a complete electrical plant.

“The only means of reaching the mouth of the mine from Jacobs Creek, where most of the miners’ homes are located, is by means of a ‘sky ferry,’ a basket-like car suspended from a cable in which the men pull themselves back and forth. This car accommodates only six persons, and there is almost a riot every time it starts.

“There are fears of serious disorder tomorrow, and thee is a report out tonight that the State constabulary may be called here for guard duty until the rescue work is completed.” (New York Times. “Mine Explosion Entombs 250 Men…” 12-20-1907, pp. 1 and 2.)

Dec 20: That this disaster was not worse is attributed to the fact that many were immigrants who were members of the Greek Catholic Church and took the day off for a church festival. (Galveston Daily News (TX), “Mine Horror No. 3,” December 20, 1907.)

Sources

Chicago Daily News Almanac and Yearbook 1919. James Langland, (Ed.). Chicago: Chicago Daily News Company. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=vWQTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA788&dq=Ohio+River+Steamship+Disasters#PPA13,M1

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Fleming, J.R. “Organization of Safety Work in Mines.” Safety Engineering, Vol. 26, No. 2, August 1913, p. 108. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=L9YMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr

Galveston Daily News, TX. “Mine Horror No. 3,” 12-20-1907. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=42556155

History.com. This Day in Disaster History, Disasters, December 19, 1907. “Pennsylvania Miners Perish in Coal Mine Explosion.” Accessed 12-4-2008

Minedisasters.blogspot.com. “After Century, Darr Mine Blast Still Worst in State.” 10-4-2007. Accessed at: http://minedisasters.blogspot.com/2007/10/after-century-darr-mine-blast-still.html

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

New York Times. “Mine Explosion Entombs 250 Men.” 12-20-1907, pp. 1 and 2. Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/12/20/issue.html

Pennsylvania Department of Mines. Report of the Department of Mines of Pennsylvania, Part II, Bituminous, 1907. Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing CO., State Printer, 1908. Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://archive.org/details/reportdepartmen00penngoog/page/n4/mode/2up

Powell, Allan Kent. “Scofield Mine Disaster.” Utah History Encyclopedia. Accessed 10-5-2008 at: http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/s/SCOFIELDMINEDIS.html

United States Mine Rescue Association. Mine Disasters in the United States. “Pittsburg Coal Company Darr Mine Explosion.” Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/darr.htm

Wisconsin State Journal, Madison. “Latest Mine Tragedy Kills Nearly 500; Disaster at Jacobs Creek, Penn. Today’ Third in Fortnight.” 12-19-1907, p. 1. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=59126908

— 60 Evening News, Roanoke, VA. “Awful Slaughter of Men in Mines,” 12-23-1907, p. 1.
–~60 Logansport Semi-Weekly Reporter, IN. “Sixty Men Perish in Mine Explosion,” 12-20-1907, 1.
–~57 Ludlam. “Yolande coal mine disaster is recalled.” Tuscaloosa News, AL. 3-1-1978, p.53.
— 57 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, CDC. Mine Disasters.
— 57 US Mine Rescue Assoc. Mine Disasters… “Yolande Coal and Coke…Mine Explosion.”
— 56 Fleming. “Organization of Safety Work in Mines.” Safety Engineering, 26/2, 1913, 108.
— 56 USGS. Mineral Resources of the United States Calendar Year 1908, Part II. 1909, p. 53.
— 50 Cullman Times Democrat, AL. “Explosion in Yolande: Fifty Miners Killed.” 12-19-1907, p. 2.

Narrative Information

Ludlam: “….what happened at Yolande, Tuscaloosa County, on Dec. 16, 1907 is a true story. Carlton Jackson, professor of history at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, has been researching coal mine explosions that occurred in the United States in December, 1907. According to a letter from Jackson, that is ‘the most disastrous month in U.S. coal mining history.’

“According to reports which have been gathered by Jackson, approximately 57 persons lost their lives in the mine explosion at Yolande, located just inside the Tuscaloosa County line about 35 miles south of Birmingham….

“Professor Jackson feels that the disaster could have been caused by great carelessness on the part of the workers. Explaining the process used to ‘blow out the coal’, he said that miners drilled two or three feet into the face of the mine. They then put black powder at the bottom of the hole and ran out a fuse. This is referred to as tamping, and if not done properly, the end result was a flame along with the desired explosion, he said.

“Jackson explained that if the mine was not tamped with the proper materials then the coal dust in the atmosphere would cause a type of chair reaction….

“According to Jackson, the explosion probably was caused by coal dust in the mine. He said conditions in the mine probably were similar to that in a grain elevator, and this type of explosion is similar to the recent grain elevator explosions….” (Ludlam, Dianne. “Yolande coal mine disaster is recalled.” Tuscaloosa News, AL. 3-1-1978, p. 53.)

Dec 16, NYT: “Birmingham, Ala., Dec. 16. — About seventy-five men are buried in No. 1 mine of the Yolande Coal and Coke Company at Yolande, thirty-five miles south of Birmingham, in Tuscaloosa County, following and explosion today. Ninety men were checked in for work. Within an hour after the explosion seventeen men had crawled out of the mine, all burned. Thirty-five dead bodies had been recovered up to dark.

“While officials of the company are hoping for the best, the rescue party is forcing its way into the mines. It is feared that few of those still entombed will escape death. Little houses just outside the mines were destroyed by the immense amount of dust and timber blown out of the mines. A relief train and mine inspectors went to the scene this afternoon. Sixty coffins were prepared to be sent to Yolande.

“The work of recovery is slow, and while hundreds of miners from adjacent mining camps are present to assist, it is thought that all of the dead cannot be taken out before two days.

“The mine inspectors have concluded that the explosion was caused by a “windy shot” bringing about a dust explosion. For two hours after the explosion it was impossible to venture even near the mouth of the mine, so hot was the air that rushed out.

“The explosion was below the second right sub-entry. The mines go down something like 1,500 feet. There was a terrific explosion, the force being made known outside by the dust and timbers that were blown out in great quantities, destroying small buildings nearby and landing some distance away. There was a terrific heat near the shaft after the explosion.

“Officers of the mining company immediately took steps to start a rescue party to get to the men on the inside. The fans were started, and other means employed to eliminate the bad air. Within an hour seventeen men had crawled out of the mine, and their description of the interior conditions was terrible. Several of these men were severely burned.

“Among the dead taken out early was Robert Arnold, the bank boss and Assistant Superintendent of the Yolande Company….

“Yolande Mine is a few miles from Virginia City, where a similar explosion occurred two years ago when 112 men were killed. The Yolande Coal and Coke Company, owner of the mine, is headed by Dr. G. B. Crowe of Birmingham.

“The mine is among the model collieries of the Birmingham region. Non-union men were employed exclusively, but everything possible had been done to insure the contentment of employees. Yolande is situated on a beautiful hill, and all the houses are painted white with green trimmings, giving it an air of picturesqueness and healthfulness unusual in mining quarters.” (New York Times. “75 Men Entombed by Mine Explosion.” 12-17-1907.)

Dec 17: “Birmingham, Ala., Dec. 17. – Advices from Yolande indicated that about 60 men met death by an explosion in the mines at that place Monday morning. The recovery is very slow, though hundreds of miners from the adjacent mining camps are present to assist. Thirty-five bodies had been recovered up to Monday evening [16th]….

“Less than 100 men went into the mine Monday morning, and this accounts for the fact that the loss of life was not heavier. The mine has in the past been pronounced free from gas by the state mine inspectors and it is supposed that the explosion was caused by dust. When a mine in not properly sprinkled and the air is allowed to get filled with fine coal dust, particles of it become almost as explosive as gas itself….” (Logansport Semi-Weekly Reporter, IN. “Sixty Men Perish in Mine Explosion 12-20-1907, p. 1.)

Dec 19: “Birmingham, Ala. – An explosion at 10:25 o’clock Monday morning at the mines of the Yolande Coal and Coke Company, Yolande, Tuscaloosa county, Ala., is said to have entombed fifty or more men….The estimate of fifty men underground is based upon the number supposed to have been at work at the time. The mine was a non-union slope, and was operated largely by native American labor, white and colored, about half of each. Other reports say that there are as many as 125 men entombed, and that the pumps cannot be gotten into operations.

“C. C. Huckabee was superintendent of the mine where the accident occurred. The company is operated by a company of Birmingham capitalists, headed by Dr. Gratton B. Crowe, of this city. Officials of the company hurried to the scene of the accident in an automobile as soon as possible after hearing of the trouble.

“Fourteen living men are already out of the mines, according to a telephone message. All were injured in the explosion.

“Chief Inspector J. M. Gray was notified from Yolande of the explosion and left a few minutes afterwards in an automobile for the scene….He says that the Yolande mine in which the explosion occurred has an output of about 400 tons a day. The number of men employed should be between fifty and seventy-five, but this being Monday after pay day it is doubtful if the full force was at work.

“Superintendent Brooks, of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, was notified shortly after 10 o’clock about the explosion through the road’s agent at Yolande. It was reported to him that the explosion occurred about 9 o’clock, and that there were 100 men entombed. The Louisville and Nashville has special trains in readiness to go to the mines if needed.

“At 2:20 o’clock Monday afternoon four dead bodies are known to have been taken from the mines….

“A long distance telephone message from Yolande states that twenty living men are out of the shaft of death, and the informant stated that he had seen but one dead man….

“Later indications seem to be that a dust explosion occurred in the No. 2 entry, causing the trouble that followed. The men who escaped got away through what some describe as a fiery furnace, and it is hinted that some of the victims may possibly be neither suffocated nor killed by the shock, but may be burned alive before aid can reach them.

“Matthew Humphrey, John Smedley and Harris Hall are said to be the three first victims, and it is understood that theirs were the bodies first brought out.

“The first men who got out, fourteen in number, were working at the time on sub-entry No. 2. The belief of many was that the men still under them were either dead or would die before relief could reach them.

“Men from mines all over Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties, especially those in the vicinity of the disaster, have rushed to aid their fellow unfortunates, and a gallant fight will be made for the life of every living man.

“Dust, timbers, fragments of coal, etc., are understood to have been blown to a considerable distance from the mouth of the mine, and the debris and the first machinery are understood to have been badly damaged the mine machinery. It seems, however, that this is working again.

“It is understood that perhaps twenty mules stabled in the mines were killed, but this is not confirmed at the company’s local offices.” (Cullman Times Democrat, AL. “Explosion in Yolande: Fifty Miners Killed.” 12-19-1907, p. 2.)

Sources

Cullman Times Democrat, AL. “Explosion in Yolande: Fifty Miners Killed.” 12-19-1907, p. 2. Accessed 5-26-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/cullman-times-democrat-dec-19-1907-p-2/

Evening News, Roanoke, VA. “Awful Slaughter of Men in Mines,” 12-23-1907, p. 1. Accessed 5-26-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/harrisonburg-evening-news-dec-23-1907-p-1/

Fleming, J.R. “Organization of Safety Work in Mines.” Safety Engineering, Vol. 26, No. 2, August 1913, p. 108. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=L9YMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsc80000582&lr

Logansport Semi-Weekly Reporter, IN. “Sixty Men Perish in Mine Explosion 12-20-1907, p. 1. Accessed 5-26-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/logansport-reporter-dec-20-1907-p-5/

Ludlam, Dianne. “Yolande coal mine disaster is recalled.” Tuscaloosa News, AL. 3-1-1978, p. 53. Accessed 5-26-2020 at: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19780301&id=BgkdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7J4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6794,243193

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

New York Times. “75 Men Entombed by Mine Explosion.” 12-17-1907. Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/yolande_news_only.htm

United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. Mineral Resources of the United States Calendar Year 1908, Part II – Nonmetallic Products. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909. Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/United_States_Congressional_Serial_Set/FeXeli-wGOcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=yolande+coal+mine+explosion+1907&pg=PA53&printsec=frontcover

United States Mine Rescue Association. Mine Disasters in the United States. “Yolande Coal and Coke Company Yolande No. 1 Mine Explosion.” Accessed 5-25-2020 at: https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/yolande_news_only.htm

— 400 – 550 Blanchard (See Blanchard note immediately below death toll breakouts.)
— 500 – 578 McAteer noting early estimates by Lee Malone and Mine Superintendent Gaskill.*
— 400 – 564 New York Times. “Loss in Mines May Reach 564 Lives,” 12-8-1907, p. 24.
— 500 – 550 McAteer. Monongah. 2007, p. 241.*a
— 425 – 550 Baltimore Sun. “Was There When Shock Came.” 12-7-1907, p. 2.
–>400->550 McAteer. Monongah…Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster. 2007.*b
— ~500 Baltimore Sun. 225 Bodies Are Out. Death List Will Reach 500.” 12-12-1907, p.11
— >500 Briggs, Father Everett. Monongah parish priest, in letter to McAteer 5-4-2001.
— 500 Swayzee Press, IN. “Five Hundred Buried…Explosion…Coal Mine.” 12-13-1907, p. 3.
— 488 McAteer calculation as opposed to estimate above. Monongah, 2007, p. 241.*c
— 432 – 442 McAteer addition of 70-80 unidentified or unknown bodies to list of 362 named.
— 436 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p1; cites a fire boss on “checks” issued to miners.
— 400 – 425 Mine official Lee Malone, cited in McAteer 2007, p. 224.
— 415 McAteer (2007, 237-238) based on data collected by Fathers D’Andrea & Lekston.
— 410 Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac. “Great Casualties, 1907.” Vol. XXIII, 1908, p.596.
— 408 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p. 3; cited by McAteer. Monongah. 2007, p. 227.
— 406 Pittsburgh Dispatch. 12-9-1907, p. 1; citing officials of the mining company.
— 400 Baltimore Sun. “400 Die in Mine.” 12-7-1907, p. 1.
— 300 – 400 North Adams Transcript, MA. “The Year 1907 in Brief…,” 1-1-1908, p. 3.
— 390 No. of deaths reported to Gov. Dawson by State Inspector Paul from payroll clerk.
— 389 Pittsburgh Dispatch. “Known Dead at Monongah.” 12-8-1907, p. 4.
— 375 Charleston Gazette (WV). “375 Dead in Monongah Mine Disaster.” 12-7-1907.
— 375 New York Times, “350 Men Entombed in Mine Explosion.” 12-7-1907.
— 371 Morning Herald, Uniontown, PA. “Fire Sends Threat of New Horror…” 12-9-1907, p1.
— 350- 369 Cornell, J. The Great International Disaster Book (3rd Edition). 1982, p. 313.*d
— 362 Gunn, Encyclopedia of Disasters: (Volume 1). Greenwood Press, 2007, p. 362.
— 362 Mine Safety Health Admin. Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the US. 2008.
— 358- 362 Monongah Mines Relief Com. History of the Monongah Mines Relief Fund. 1910, p.4-8.
— 74 Americans (white) BWB note: all are named; no unnamed included.
— 11 Americans (colored)
–171 Italians
— 15 Austrians
— 52 Hungarians
— 31 Russians
— 5 Turkish subjects
— 3 Rescue workers Maurice Beedle, Richard Beedle and John Neary.
— 362 NFPA. U.S. Unintentional Fire Death Rates by State. December 2008, p. 26.
— 362 NIOSH, CDC. Mine Disasters.
— 362 Skog, Jason. The Monongah Mining Disaster. Compass Point Books, 2008, p. 31.*e
— 362 WV Div. Culture & Hist. WV Archives & History. “On This Day in WV History…”
— 361 Dillon, Lacy. They Died in Darkness. 1976, p. 81.*f
— 361 Fleming. “Organization…Safety…Mines.” Safety Engineering, 26/2, 1913, p. 108.
— 361 West Virginia Office of Miners’
— 360 Chicago Daily News Almanac & Yearbook 1919, “Great Mining Disasters…” 169.
— 360 Smith, Roger. Catastrophes and Disasters. Edinburgh/NY: Chambers, 1992, p.126.
— 358 Barrett. “Retrospect: We’ve Come a Long Way.” MESA. 1976, pp. 12-22.
— 358 Fleming. “Statement of Hon. A. B. Fleming, of West Virginia.” US House, 1908, p. 15.
— 300 Fayette Tribune, WV/ “As from the Tomb – Forty Seven Survivors…,” 3-11-1915.

Blanchard: While we are of the opinion that McAteer makes a compelling case for 500-550 fatalities, we choose to take a conservative approach and use a death toll of 400 as the low-end of the range we use, while accepting McAteer for the high-end of 550 (though some believed it was even higher). Clearly the “official” death toll of 362 number put forward by the mine company is very much an undercount, as, we believe, any fair reading of the information below will show. We see no purpose in perpetuating the inaccurate number of 362 deaths put forward by the mine company simply because it was labeled “official.”

* “There were two men who were first in a position to know and were also asked immediately about the disaster, Lee Malone [General Manager, Fairmont Coal Co.] and Mine Superintendent Gaskill both, independently of one another, stated that the number was in excess of 500 and as high as 550 or 578.”

*a “The only independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches was 410. When added to the ‘Americans, both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5) the total comes to 500, so it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men.” (p. 241.)

*b “The number of victims at Monongah will never be known with certainty. Clearly it is above 400, more likely above 550. The official number, 362, without question undercounts the dead.” See Narrative section below under McAteer’s name. McAteer retired as Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health, U.S. Department of Labor. He notes the official death toll came from the company and pertained only to men on the payroll. He describes why this significantly undercounts the number of people actually in the mine at the time of the explosion.

*c “The official number of 362 was clearly a count of located bodies, identified victims that were matched with names from the company survey. Thirteen others were recorded in newspaper accounts or as visitors, railroad men, and so on, making the total 375. In addition, Victim testified that the recovery crews identified 301 bodies in the working rooms where only 243 miners had been assigned. The difference of 58 bodies would likely have been boys and men working off the books, thus likely bringing the total to 433. Using a conservative estimate, the approximately 50 bodies that wre never recovered results in a total of 488.”

*d “The crew numbered somewhere between 350 and 370 men. No one knows exactly, for no formal roll call was taken and the crowd included visitors, management staff, a group of twelve-year-old apprentices, and even one life insurance salesman who hoped to peddle policies during the work-break periods. ….Over the next three weeks, 362 bodies would be recovered. Although many miners claimed still more dead remained below, only one survivor would be found, Peter Urban, a native of Poland, who had been knocked unconscious…” Blanchard note: According to Skog (2008, pp. 19 and 26), four other miners were able to find a small opening in the mine and crawl free by themselves, meaning they were not rescued.

*e This number refers to recovered bodies, one of whom was a life insurance salesman.

*f After noting that “the book was closed” after the last body was found sometime in February, Dillon notes that “To this day, everyone who had studied that facts of the disaster…is positive that not all bodies were ever found. There were so many rockfalls and cave-ins that months would have been required to remove this debris. Furthermore, records of those days were a slipshod affair. Fathers took their sons in to help load coal and the boys’ names were not on the mine office roll.” (Pp. 81-82.)

Narrative Information

Cole/MSHA: The sole survivor was Patrick McDonald. [Inaccurate] (Cole. History of MSHA, Slide 8.)

This disaster “…impelled Congress to create The Bureau of Mines.” (MSHA/DOL 2008)

• Public Law 61-179 (Effective May 16, 1910)
• Established the Bureau of Mines in the Department of Interior
• Actions of Bureau limited to research and investigations
• Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, First Director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

(Cole. History of MSHA, Slide 9)

Dillon: One account: “At 2:20 P.M. the motorman came out of the No. 6 mine with a trip of sixteen loaded cars. The coal seam dipped downward gently for about 2,000 feet into the mine from the …mouth then leveled off. At the pit mouth there was an incline that rose several feet to cross the river to…the side opposite the mine mouth. From an apex of this incline or bridge to the level of the mine floor inside, was about one-half mile. As the motorman crossed the river, his train broke in two at a coupling allowing eight cars to start rolling backward. The farther, the faster they ran until they struck bottom where they wrecked with a terrific impact. At this instant the mine blew up. Fire spurted out the mouth of No. 6, and a few seconds later, No. 8 mine blew with noise that is indescribable….

“Nobody knows or will anyone ever know the exact place or the exact flame that set off the world’s worst mine disaster up to this time. Inspectors and officials dallied and surmised and said they could not see any reason why it happened. They said that the mine had been duly inspected, with no gas registering on the safety lamps; that several fire bosses were constantly on duty at the time. They also stated that no appreciable dust existed. The old-timers say differently. One man…stated that the dust was hip deep at the place where the run-a-way mine cars wrecked.”

“When 361 men (more no doubt) entered the mine that December 6 morning, they took 361 reasons for an explosion by carrying 361 open-flame lights. Every time the motor arm arced on the trolley wire, a chance for a blowup existed; and countless other ways that today are prohibited by state and federal laws…

“Over 250 women became widows and 1,000 children became fatherless. A survey indicated that sixty-four widows were pregnant….” (Dillon 1976, pp. 68-81.)

Fleming, A.B., a director of the Fairmont Fuel Co., before House of Representatives committee, March 9, 1908: “You [Representative Englebright] asked if we knew the initial cause of the explosion….The accident in our mines at Monongah could not have been the result of gas alone. The mines in that country generate more or less fire damp or gas, but the investigations of these mines showed that they were not considered in law gaseous mines. The inspector gave a certificate saying that they were not, and did not need to be worked with safety lamps, and after this explosion there was just a trace of gas found, not enough to explode even with the defects in ventilation, disturbed as it was. But our coal is dusty, and where the mines are dry there is more or less dust. The law requires that dust to be dampened, but it is very hard to dampen dust. We had an experiment made by our chemist showing that dust will not mix with water….so that you can not, as we understand, make a mine safe simply by wetting it….” [pp. 17-18]

“….In these Monongah mines that blew up we did not use safety lamps. There was no need of it. There was no gas there in dangerous quantities, and we did not know, and do not know now, the conditions under which dust will explode from a lamp or from an open light….” [p. 19]

“You [Representative Chaney] asked me what caused that explosion….There have been several theories…Some thought that the cause of the initial blast was a runaway trip that caused a short circuit, and that was the first theory, but it was incorrect, because it was shown that the trip broke loose after the initial explosion had started. It ran into the mine after the explosion started. It came, undoubtedly, from a blown-out shot or loose powder….Then the fire from the explosion of powder or from the blown-out shot, whichever it was, ignited whatever there was there to be ignited, some dust in suspension, or whatever gases were there, too little to be dangerous by themselves…” [p.19]

On McAteer: In 2007 Davitt McAteer, who had served as the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health, Department of Labor, published a new study of this disaster – Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, the Worst Industrial Accident in U.S. History (West Virginia University Press, 331 pages). McAteer concludes that the fatalities were about 500, noting that the official death toll was based upon company documents of the men on its payroll. The well-known practice there and elsewhere at the time, however, was for miners to take their sons or others into the mines with them to help out. Another practice was for miners to in essence subcontract with adult helpers out of their own pay. Whether a son or a helper, these people were not on the company payroll and thus not on the list of names of miners provided to authorities by the mining company.

McAteer: “….At Monongah, like virtually every other mine in the country, there was no adequate system for keeping track of the number of miners underground. The principal means of identifying miners was a duplicate brass or tin tag system, which, in theory, registered each miner present in the mine. As the miner entered the mine, one tag was placed on a board with numbered hooks and the other was put in the miner’s pocket. The first tag was to be carried on his persons and used as a means of identification in the event of a mine disaster or accident. The second tag hung on the board showing that the miner was in the mine. The numbering system did not include men and boys who were brought in as subcontractors for the miners who were being paid per ton of coal loaded out…’many were off the books.’ This system was by no means fail-safe, and in this case it was rendered completely useless when the explosion rocketed out of the No. 8, ripping a cavity in the earth nearly 100 feet across. The explosion blew everything in its path to bits, including both boards containing tags for nearly all the miners inside both mines, as the No. 8 portal was the entrance used by the majority of the miners in both mines.

“A second factor that blurred the question of the number of miners underground was the employment system itself. At Monongah, two methods of employment were in place; first was the hiring of miners as independent contractors. The miner entered into a contract with the mine operator. The operator allowed the miner to have access to the coal underground and provided rail cars to carry the mined coal from underground, while the miner was responsible for the tools and necessary equipment including picks, shovels, black powder, timbers, drills, or anything needed during the mining process. The miner drilled and shot or dislodged the coal from the seam, loaded it on a horse or mule drawn cart, and later transferred the cart to the underground rail system. When the loaded car reached the surface, it was weighed by a company weighman and the miner was paid according to the amount of coal he had mined. These were the men who hired others as unofficial subcontractors to increase production.

“Under the second employment system, workmen or laborers, titles distinct from miner, worked on an hourly or daily basis. This system was used for men or boys who performed support or backup work tor the company, such as preparing the mine tunnels or other internal or external workings of the mine. For example, trapper boys opened and closed the doors, which controlled the mine ventilation trapping the air. Other jobs included pumpers and mule drivers. As these men were not actually mining the coal, they were paid an hourly wage.

“As mentioned above, miners frequently brought with them brothers, sons, nephews, or employed helpers. These boys or men were not on the company payroll or records and were paid by the miners themselves, in effect working as subcontractors….The practice of having subcontract miners off the books was common throughout the mining industry, including in West Virginia, and was practiced at No. 6 and No. 8. President Watson, Superintendent Gaskill and Payroll Clerk Gibbons each admitted that the practice existed at the Monongah mines. Although it is difficult to believe, Watson asserted after the disaster that it had occurred in only one instance when the body of a miner and his sone who was not on the payroll were located and positively identified.

“Watson’s assertion conflicted with the sworn testimony of the company payroll clerk, George Gibbons….Gibbons’ answers affirmed that the practice of helpers working off the payroll existed and that men and boys were in the mine without being listed….

“Additional victims not on the books show the limited value of the records to produce an accurate account of the number underground. For example, Gibbons agreed that a man from Fairmont had gone into the mine seeking employment and died in the explosion and tht persons was not on his records.

“But Gibbon’s testimony also sheds doubt about the adequacy of the payroll records, especially as to whether new or recent hires would be recorded for the day that they started. Prosecutor Lowe presented him with a note written by John McGraw, a mine superintendent. The note read: ‘No. 8 Petro Frediaro, Bessilo Pillea, o.k. Morris 56 coal (signed) Jno. McGraw.’ On December 12, 1907, R. T. Cunningham sent to Watson a list with morgue numbers. Bossilo Pillelo and Petro Frediro are listed with the note ‘Italians were in No. 8 Selecting a place to work…’ Neither name is found in the Monongah Mine Relief Committee report or record….one company official…said that a number of new employees had started to work the Friday of the explosion. But just as significant as this information was the fact that many bodies brought intact to the surface had no tags in the pockets….

“An estimated number of miners killed could also be determined by a review of the number of men at work during periods leading up to the explosion. J. C. Gaskill, during his testimony on January 10, 1908, put into the official transcript of the hearing two records of the mine foreman for No. 8 and No. 6 for October 30, 1907. Mine No. 6, the larger of the two, showed 224 men employed on the day shift and No. 8 employed 145 men working on the day shift, totaling 369. The 369 miners were actually on the payroll just over one month before the explosion. If that number had stayed constant, coupled with the miners working off the books, the number of victims is substantially higher than officially recorded….” [pp. 219-223]

“While most miners lived in and around Monongah, many lived some distance away in Fairmont or Clarksburg and surrounding communities and on remote farms, traveling by foot or on the interurban to work. Several such names are not included in the official list. Even some miners whose bodies were recovered, embalmed, and transported to their homes were not listed in the official record. On Monday, December 9, the Pittsburgh Dispatch reported that Fred Rogers, aged 26, was killed in the Monongah explosion and was buried at Fairchance near Uniontown, Pennsylvania….Fred Rogers is not included in the Relief Committees list, the Company list, or the Coroner’s list… [pp. 227-228]

“The number of unknown or unidentified bodies is at various times given at 70 or 80. The official number 362 does not include any unknown, if it did, the death total would reach 432-442. Father Everett Briggs, who founded St. Barbara’s Nursing Home in 1961, argued that the unknowns were excluded and estimated the number killed at above 500….

“Numerous officials were quoted as saying that as many as 100 bodies could have been either destroyed or trapped under massive falls and unrecoverable….” [pp. 232-233]

“The violence and ferocity of the explosions without doubt destroyed a number of miner’s bodies entirely, and as the newspapers reported and Trader indicates in his 1950s interview, bodies and parts of bodies were being found even as the recovery wrapped up….Without question, given the ferocity of the two explosions and the fires and roof- and ribfalls that occurred immediately thereafter, as well as the rapid cleanup and return to production it is probable that a good number of bodies were never recovered…..

“Father Everett Briggs came to Monongah in 1952 to serve as parish priest. He became very interested in the disaster and its victims as a result of listening to the people of the parishes and the town. Through the years he has collected information on the accident and especially its victims. By working through local interviews and graveyard records, he has asserted that over 500 men died that day….” [p. 237]

“Trader, in his later interviews, speaks of bodies being found months and years later as does the news media….” [p. 239.]

“It could be argued that the widows and families of the victims would have come forward and complained if their loved ones were not counted, especially if there was a potential for economic recovery. However, this may not have been the case because many miners were single or had no family in this country. Wives were at a terrible disadvantage because of the language, lack of access to information, and a common fear of deportation as they were still strangers in a strange land.

“Father Francesco Pelliccia, Arch Priest, wrote to the Monongah Mine Relief Committed from Duraniadel Sannio on January 21, 1908. He provided the names of individuals who he had identified in his village who were killed in the explosion and had not been identified for relief: Farcse Giovanni, Zeoli Sabastino, De-Maria Sebastiano, and D’uva Giuseppe. The names were not added to any list. Indeed, what recourse would a parent, spouse, or priest have in this instance in a foreign country, 3,000 miles away?” [p. 240]

“Finally, the only independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches was 410. When added to the ‘Americans’, both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5) the total comes to 500, so it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men.” (McAteer, Davitt. Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster, The Worst Industrial Accident in US History. 2007, p. 219-241.)

Skog: “The jury [Coroner’s] concluded that it [explosion] was caused by the ignition of methane gas. The gas explosion then caused the highly flammable coal dust to explode….The jury found the ignition itself could have come from runaway coal cars of from an improperly fired blast into the coal. Exactly what lit the methane gas remains a mystery. Experts have argued a variety of theories. It could have been carelessness with an open flame in a lamp, a blast gone wrong, or a stray spark from some electrical equipment….” (Skog, Jason. The Monongah Mining Disaster. Minneapolis MN: Compass Point Books, 2008, p. 34.)

Tuckwiller: “One woman was giving birth at home when they hauled her husband’s corpse through the door. Officials handed another woman some severed body parts. They told her that was her husband. She never knew for sure. Another woman’s husband was never found. For years, kids would walk past her house and see her ceaselessly hauling rubble away from the old mine, one little sack at a time, piling it maybe 350 tons deep next to her house, trying to unbury him….Nobody has ever really talked about what happened to the widows and estimated 1,000 children — mostly immigrants who spoke little English — left to fend for themselves….Some lost not only their husbands, but also their young sons, maybe 9 to 12 years old, who were used to boost their fathers’ tonnage per day and thereby boost their paychecks….The widows were supposed to get a whopping $200 to $800 compensation from a fund that had collected $150,000 in donations. But one man…remembers his mother saying she saw only $40 of that money….

“One hundred years ago, when corpses and body parts were being pulled from the wreckage of the mine, nobody stopped for a church service. Women were hustled through the bodies, allowed to hastily identify their dead husbands and sons, and then the bodies were immediately buried — without the burial Mass the mourners, many of them Catholics, would have wanted.” (Tuckwiller, “Monongah Disaster,” 2007)

Ward: “More than 500 men and boys likely perished in the nation’s worst industrial accident, longtime mine safety advocate Davitt McAteer explains in his comprehensive examination of the disaster. “The number of victims at Monongah will never be known with certainty,” McAteer writes. “Clearly it is above 400, more likely above 550. The official number, 362, without question undercounts the dead.” McAteer details how mine operators never kept an accurate count of the workers underground at any particular time, and then set out to deliberately downplay the real number of deaths at Monongah. He pieces together both old and newly unearthed papers to document a more accurate count of those killed. McAteer, a Fairmont native who ran the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, has been investigating Monongah for nearly 30 years. He made a short documentary about the disaster in 1986….

“…in his investigation, McAteer compared various lists and public records to come up with a more comprehensive count. ‘The official number of 362 was clearly a count of located bodies, identified victims that were matched with names from a company survey,’ McAteer writes. ‘Thirteen others were recorded in newspaper accounts or as visitors, railroad men, and so on, making the total 375.’ At least another 58 bodies of boys and men ‘working off the books,’ also were found, McAteer discovered, bringing the total to 433. ‘Using a conservative estimate, the approximately 50 bodies that were never recovered results in a total of 488,’ he writes. And two early estimates from mine officials put the number in excess of 500, and as high as 550 or 578.

“Independent surveys by the parish priests of Italian and Austro-Hungarian members of the two immigrant churches in Monongah came up with a count of 410. ‘When added to the ‘Americans,’ both black (11) and white (74), and the Turks (5), the total comes to 500,’ McAteer concludes. “So it is reasonable to conclude that the disaster at the Monongah mines certainly claimed in excess of 500 lives and probably more than 550 men’.” (Ward 2007.)

“In his book, McAteer points out that he is not the first to question the official death figure from Monongah. After coming to the community as parish priest in 1952, Father Everett Briggs became interested in the victims as he listened to residents tell stories about the disaster. Through the years, he has collected information on the accident and especially its victims,” McAteer wrote. “By working through local interviews and graveyard records, he has asserted that over 500 men died that day.” (Ward 2007)

WV Saturday Gazette-Mail, 2007: “The explosion shook the earth as far as eight miles away. Several miners were blown out of the mine. People and horses were hurled to the ground, and streetcars were knocked off their rails.” (Saturday Gazette-Mail, WV. “Scarred – Monongah Disaster,” 12-6- 2007)

Newspapers

Dec 7, Charleston Gazette: “There is much speculation as to the cause of the explosion but the most generally accepted theory is that it resulted from black damp. It is believed that a miner attempted to set off a blast, which blew out and ignited the accumulation of this deadly gas and this in turn ignited the coal dust, a highly inflammable substance found in greater or less quantity in all West Virginia mines….

“As evidence of the terrific force of the concussion, the props in the entry of No. 6, supporting the roof, are not only shattered and torn from their position, but blown out of the entry to the opposite side of the river.” (Charleston Gazette, 12-7-1907.)

Dec 7, NYT: “The worst mining disaster in US history occurred when shafts 6 and 8 of a Consolidated Coal Company mine in Monongah, West Virginia, exploded.

“Mines Nos. 6 and 8 are located on opposite sides of the West Fork River; No. 6 on the east side and No. 8 on the west side, the homes of the miners occupying both sides of the river. The two mines are connected by a heading far back in the hills from the opening of No. 8 mine, and their underground workings are merged….

“Shortly after the explosion a ‘heavy cave-in’ occurred which blocked entrance into the mine a “few hundred feet” inside. “The two mines regularly employ 760 men, working in two shifts, 380 during the day and 380 during the night….

“Along the hills, far back from the main opening of Mine No. 8, there are a number of openings into the mine, and to these hundreds of relatives and friends of the entombed men frantically rushed in the vain hope that their loved ones might find escape through these channels or that they might be merely readily reached and released. So far as known, however, not a single man escaped this way, and the would-be rescuers are helpless at these points….

“Until about ten years ago the mines were operated almost exclusively by Americans, but during a general strike of miners in the Pennsylvania and Ohio fields many of these West Virginia miners went out in sympathy to prevent the filling of contracts at lake ports and elsewhere with West Virginia coal by the companies in Ohio and West Virginia, against which the strike was directed. At that time the mine owners brought a large number of foreigners into the field to take the places of the strikers, and ever since the foreigners have been displacing Americans, until they are now in the majority.” (NYT, December 7, 1907.)

Dec 8: “Monongah, West Va., Dec. 8. Only fifty-three bodies had been recovered from Mines 6 and 8 of the Fairmont Coal Company at dark tonight. Fifty-six hours had elapsed since the awful explosion, and there is little hope that any of the others will be found alive. It is now believed that the number of dead will not reach 400. A thorough investigation was made by the company today, and it was discovered that many miners believed to have been entombed had escaped because they had not gone to work Friday after Thursday’s holiday. It is said that 406 men were in the mine when the explosion occurred, of whom twenty-two have been found.

“Shortly after 4 o’clock this afternoon fire started again in Mine No. 8, and the rescuers were at once ordered to the surface. Thousands of sightseers from the surrounding towns had gathered about the openings. Through megaphones the people were notified of the fire and the danger of another explosion, but they refused to leave, and it was with great difficulty that the special police, assisted by many miners, forced them to seek places of safety.” (NYT, “Fire Stops Rescue Work at Monongah,” 12-9-1907.)

Dec 11: “(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.) Fairmont, W. Va., Dec. 11. – More than 225 bodies have thus far been recovered from the wrecked mines at Monongah, 120 having been taken out of the mines today. Most of those taken out have been buried.

“A number of the bodies brought out today did not bear the brass checks used in the company’s system of records and accounts of a majority of its employees, thus substantiating the statements of Monday that a large number of men and boys in the mines were not included in the checking rolls upon which estimates of the dead were largely based. This has also almost dispelled the hope expressed by mining officials the last few days that the number of dead had been overestimated. There is reason to believe tonight that the number will not fall far short of 500.

“A canvass of miners’ homes will be completed tomorrow, and this, together with a list of hundreds of unclaimed letters in the post office, will furnish data for a new and probably accurate estimate.

“Conditions outside the mine tonight are much improved through the freezing solid of the mud, making the work much easier. An opening between the two mines was completed tonight, and it is believed that within 48 hours all the bodies to be found will have been taken to the morgue.

“More than 50 funerals were held today. On each casket there was a bunch of American Beauty roses or white carnations. The source of the flowers remained secret until late in the day, when it was learned that Miss Elizabeth Watson, daughter of S. L. Watson, treasurer of the coal company, had ordered them….

“The mines of the company are being put into running shape again as soon as possible, so that those who are left may have work. A good output of coal is reported for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday….

“The installation of additional fans has much improved the ventilation system…

“The cash contributions up to this time totals $40,000. In reply to an expression of sympathy and offer of assistance from the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Arnett wired that the relief committee figured on 300 widows and 1,000 orphans as a result of the disaster, and there was no question that the destitution among them would be very great….

“Recently some of the newspaper men went from house to house trying to learn something of the condition of the families and their wants. After telling her sad story one woman wrote her name on a slip of paper for a reporter. She could speak fairly good English, but an old woman, who stood watching the transaction, could not even mutter a word of the language, but her eyes were keen and her mind suspecting. When the reporter had left she told the younger woman she had done wrong to sign a paper, fearing that she had signed away a claim or something of the sort, the young woman became hysterical. She ran after the reporters and was greatly distressed until she was allowed to erase her hand-writing from the paper. The excitement created by the young woman was noticed by several of the women, and all shut up like clams, refusing to talk. However, one young woman, who came to America when quite a child, spoke English fluently. When the real purpose of obtaining the name was explained to her she quieted the hysterical woman.” (Baltimore Sun. 225 Bodies Are Out. Death List Will Reach 500.” 12-12-1907, p. 11.)

Sources

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— 26 U.S. Congress. House Documents Vol. 25, 64th Congress, 1st Session, 1916.
— 25 New York Times. “Steamer Founders; 25 Are Drowned,” Oct 13, 1907, p. 11.
— 23 North Adams Transcript, MA. “The Year 1907 in Brief…,” Jan 1, 1908, p. 3.
— 22 AP (Flesher). “Century Old Shipwreck Found in Superior,” Washington Post. 9-10-2007.
— 22 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Mariners Press Inc., 1972, 240.
— 22 Nash. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters 1977, p. 694.
— 22 Thompson, Mark L. Graveyard of the Lakes. Wayne State Univ. Press, 2004, p. 243.
— 22 Wolff. Lake Superior Shipwrecks…Maritime Accidents and Disasters. 1990, 124-125.
— 22 U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the United States…1908, p. 381.
— 22 U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report 1908, p. 13.
— 22 Wikipedia. “SS Cyprus.”
— 21 Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, WI. “Full Score Are Lost,” Oct 12, 1907, p. 1.
— 21 Ratigan, William. Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals (Revised). 1969, p. 256.
— 21 Salt Lake Tribune, UT. “Eighteen Bodies of Cypress Disaster Found,” Oct 14, 1907, p. 2.
— 21 Swayze, David D. Shipwreck!…Directory of…Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. 1992, p.65.
— 21 The Herald, Eldora, IA. “Find Nineteen Bodies of Drowned,” Oct 19, 1907, p. 2

Narrative Information

Swayze: “Cyprus. Steel bulk freight steamer of 4,900 t. [tons] and 420 ft., launched at Lorain, OH, in 1907.

“Lake Superior: Sometimes the best and most modern vessel that the shipbuilder can put on the lake is no match for the fury of an equinoctial storm. The Cyprus was of a proven design and was only 21 days old when she was blasted by a big gale on October 11, 1907. The proud ship was downbound with a full load of iron ore and was 19 miles off Deer Park, Michigan, when she turned turtle and sank, taking 21 of her 22 crew to a watery death with her. She apparently was pushed around abeam of the storm-driven seas, and the violent rocking caused her cargo to shift.” (Swayze, David D. Shipwreck!…Directory of…Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. 1992, pp. 64-65.)

U.S. Congress: “October 12, 1907, northwest gale. Steamer Cypress foundered off Deer Park, Mich.; total loss; 26 of crew drowned; 1 saved.” (U.S. Congress. House Documents Vol. 25, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 1916. )

US Steamboat Inspection Service: “Another disaster in which there was a large loss of life was the foundering of the steamer Cypress on October 11, 1907, off Deer Park life-saving station, Lake Superior, in which 22 persons lost their lives. The steamer was laden with iron ore, bound for Buffalo, N.Y., when it encountered a heavy northwest gale of wind and sea, and by water leakage through the hatch covers, or otherwise, into the cargo hold, shifted the cargo, causing the steamer to roll heavily, gradually list to port, and finally sink. Only one person escaped, being washed ashore and picked up on the beach by one of the Deer Park life-saving crew. The vessel…was a total loss.” (U.S. Steamboat Inspection Service. Annual Report 1908, p. 13.)

Washington Post, 2007 (AP/Flesher): “Traverse City, Mich. — Explorers have discovered the wreckage of an ore carrier that mysteriously sank during a storm on Lake Superior 100 years ago, officials announced Monday. Only one survivor made it to shore as the ship went down on Oct. 11, 1907. Last month, a team with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society found the wreckage of the Cyprus about 460 feet below the surface. The wreckage was located about eight miles north of Deer Park, a village in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula where the lone survivor, Charles G. Pitz, stumbled ashore after floating aboard a life raft for nearly seven hours. Twenty-two others aboard the Cyprus perished….

“Built in Lorain, Ohio, the Cyprus was launched Aug. 17, 1907. It was as ‘seaworthy a vessel as has ever been turned out by a lake ship yard,’ The Marine Review, a Cleveland trade publication, said after the sinking. The gale in which the ship perished was ‘so moderate that only the smaller class of vessels sought shelter while the big steamers scarcely noticed it at all,’ the Review said. But Pitz, the second mate, said after the wreck that the Cyprus was being pounded by northwesterly waves and developed a gradually worsening list the fatal afternoon.

“The engines finally stopped and crew members donned life jackets. Most headed to lifeboats, but Pitz and three others — the captain, the first mate and a watchman — gathered near a raft closer to the front. About 7:45 p.m., the Cyprus capsized and quickly sank. Pitz and his companions were hurled into the lake. They climbed aboard the raft and by 2 a.m. had drifted within 300 feet of land. But the raft flipped over several times in the churning surf, drowning everyone but Pitz, who washed ashore, cold and exhausted. All but two of the 22 victims’ bodies were recovered….” (Washington Post. “Century Old Shipwreck Found in Superior,” Sep 10, 2007.)

Wikipedia: “SS Cyprus was a lake freighter that sank during a gale storm on Lake Superior on 11 October 1907. The ship went down in 460 feet (140 m) of water at 46°47′N 85°36′W / 46.79°N 85.60°W in United States waters about 8 miles (7 nm; 13 km) north of Deer Park in Luce County, Michigan. All but one of the 23 members of the crew perished….

“According to Second Mate Charles G. Pitz — the sole survivor — Cyprus had been pounded by northwesterly waves all afternoon which caused an increasing list to port. At around 7:45 p.m. the ship lurched to port and capsized. Pitz and three others, which included Captain F. B. Huyck (according to some accounts) secured themselves on a raft. By 2:00 a.m. the raft and its occupants were within 300 feet (91 m) of shore when breaking waves flipped the raft, and all but Pitz drowned in the surf. Pitz unwittingly staggered ashore, just a half-mile east of the Deer Park Life-Saving Station. All the bodies but two were eventually recovered.

“It was never clear what caused the ship to list in the first place…. Speculation on the source of the leak has centered on the type of Mulholland sliding hatch cover the nearly new ship had been outfitted with. With a steel on steel seal, this type of hatch was prone to allowing water past unless special tarpaulins were fitted on the hatches. It was not clear if Huyck had ordered these tarpaulins deployed or not. Some alternate theories propose that the engine or rudder failed, leaving Cyprus without the maneuverability needed to avoid wave troughs where ships are most vulnerable to rolling, or propose that labor unrest in Lorain during Cyprus’ construction may have contributed to other, as yet undiscovered flaws.” (Wikipedia. “SS Cyprus.”)

Wolfe: “1907….This October was a rough one….Then came the shocking event of October 11, the capsizing of the two-month-old 420-foot, 4,900-ton steel steamer Cyprus, a Lackawanna Transportation Company vessel managed by Picklands Mather & Company. Perhaps no foundering since that of the Western Reserve in 1892 surprised the marine world more. The Cyprus had been launched the previous August 17 at Lorain, Ohio, and was on her second trip, having loaded 7,400 tons of iron ore at the Allouez docks in Superior, which she left at 8 a.m. on October 10. A moderate northerly storm began blowing east of the Keweenaw. Still when observed by Captain Smith of the 504-foot steel steamer Charles O. Jenkins at 10 a.m., October 11, the Cyprus was pushing right along about 10 miles off Stannard Rock. Later in the day, she was observed by Captain Harbottle of the Pittsburgher George Stephenson and seemed to be doing well.

“That evening, about 7 p.m., as the Cypress was headed east about 18 miles north of Deer Park, Michigan, and roughly 35 miles west of Whitefish Point, the steamer listed sharply to port, taking water in the hatches. Crewmen put on life jackets, but Captain F.B. Huyck did not order the boats lowered since the engines were functioning perfectly and the weather was not really alarming. He expected they would be safe in three or four hours. Some minutes later, however, the Cyprus rolled over on her port side and sank instantly. Four men forward, two mates, a watchman and a wheelsman slashed loose a life raft as the ship dove to the bottom. They clung to the precarious float for seven dreadful hours as the wind slowly drove them toward the Michigan coast. When they struck the malevolent south shore surg, however, it was the usual story. Over and over rolled the life raft until only one man remained, Second Mate Charles J. Pitz. As the raft touched the sandy beach, Pitz had sufficient strength to crawl out of reach of the waves before he collapsed in the darkness.

“Some time later, a patrolling lifesaver discovered his unconscious form and carried him to the Deer Park Life-Saving Station where, after more hours, he was revived and told what had happened. When first brought in, he could only gasp out the name of the ship and report the crew gone. From information furnished by Second Mate Pitz, vessel men deduced that the Cyprus, equipped with new Mulholland hatches, but no tarpaulins, had taken water seepage around the hatch covers which were not water tight. A sufficient quantity of water mixing with the natural iron ore caused the cargo to shift as the vessel rolled, and the Cyprus capsized. She was an official loss of $280,000 and 22 men went down with her. Lifesavers maintained a beach patrol for many days after the sinking. 20 life-jacketed bodies being recovered, that of Captain Huyck some 10 miles east of where Pitz had come ashore. The crew apparently had died of exposure in the frigid water. An aftermath of the Cyprus disaster was the requirement of tarpaulined hatches on Lake Superior at certain times of the year.” (Wolff, Julius F., Jr. Lake Superior Shipwrecks: Complete Reference to Maritime Accidents and Disasters. Duluth, MN: 1990, 124-125.)

Newspapers

Oct 12: “Sault Ste Marie, Mich., Oct. 12 (Associated Press). A bulletin from the Deer Park station says that the Cypress foundered Friday evening at 7:45 o’clock, eighteen miles north of the station and that the two bodies washed ashore were those of the first mate and watchman.

“Sault Ste Marie, Mich., Oct 12 – The steel steamer Cypress, owned by the Lackawanna Transportation company, and on her second trip down the lakes with a cargo of iron ore, was wrecked last night in Lake Superior off Deer Park, about thirty miles from Grand Marais, and all of the crew of twenty-two, excepting the second mate, were lost.

Survivor May Die.

“He was washed ashore near Deer Creek lashed to a life raft and barely alive. He is in a critical condition and thus far has been able to tell only that the steamer was the Cypress and that he is the sole survivor….

“The Cypress was a new boat 440 feet long with a capacity of 7,400 tons. It is believed here that the machinery of the Cypress must have met with an accident as the northwest storm last night was not severe enough to wreck such a strong ship….

“The Cypress was bound for Buffalo. She left Superior, Wis., at nine o’clock Thursday morning.” (Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, WI. “Full Score Are Lost,” Oct 12, 1907, p. 1.)

Oct 12: “Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Oct 12 – The steel steamer Cypress…foundered…in Lake Superior…and all of the crew of twenty-six, excepting the second mate, were lost.

“Further details seem to indicate that the foundering of the brand-new ship was due to a sudden leak through which the waters rushed in such volume as to overcome all efforts to keep her afloat….

“The steamer George Stephenson of the Pittsburg Steamship Company, while locking through here this morning, reported that she had passed the Cypress late yesterday. A red streak was distinguishable in the water behind her, indicating that her plates had been sprung, and that the iron with which the ship was loaded was discoloring the water. Capt. Harbottle of the steamer Stephenson says his vessel passed within 150 feet of the Cypress, so close that he was able to see that the hatches of the latter ship were not covered with the customary covering to keep out the water. A heavy sea was running, and the decks of the Cypress were continually awash with the big combers that broke over her rails. The water poured into the hold through the hatches so rapidly that the pumps were unable to keep the vessel afloat.

“Later last night, the lights of a vessel near Deer Park were visible to the crew of the Stephenson, and then suddenly disappeared.

“The records here show the Cypress to have been manned by a crew of twenty-five men under the command of Capt. F. R. Huyck. The second mate, C. G. Pitz, is the sole survivor….”

“Jamestown, N.Y., Oct. 12 – A message from Sheridan says that Capt. Huyck was the only member of the crew of the Cypress from that section. It is believed that most of the members of the crew were from Lorain, Ohio, where the steamer was launched only a short time ago. When Capt. Huyck left home on the present trip he was accompanied by his wife and two sons….” (New York Times. “Steamer Founders; 25 Are Drowned,” Oct 13, 1907, p. 11.)

Oct 13: “Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Oct. 13 – The bodies of nineteen members of the crew of the steamer Cypress, which foundered in Lake Superior Friday night, off Deer Park, have been recovered and brought to this city. Second Mate C. J. Pitt, of Manitowoc, Wis., the sole survivor of the twenty-two people who were on the ship, arrived here this afternoon on a tug which brought the bodies from the Deer Park life-saving station. The bodies of two firemen whose names are not known are still missing.” (Salt Lake Tribune, UT. “Eighteen Bodies of Cypress Disaster Found,” Oct 14, 1907, p. 2.)

Oct 15: “Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Oct 15 – The tug Schenck brought here nineteen bodies of victims of the wreck of the steamship Cypress on Lake Superior Friday night. The bodies were picked up along the shore and each had a life preserver fastened to it. The only victims whose bodies have not been recovered are Capt. Huyck and one of the firemen. The Captain’s wife and family are in St. Paul.” (The Herald, Eldora, IA. “Find Nineteen Bodies of Drowned,” Oct 19, 1907, p. 2.)

Oct 16: “….John Smith, first mate on the steamer Cypress, which went to the bottom in Lake Superior last week, was well known in the Soo….Smith was one of the men who endeavored to escape on the life raft with the Captain, Second Mate Pitt, and Watchman George Thorn of this city….” (The Evening News, Sault Ste Marie, MI. “Was Well Known Here…J. Smith… Cypress…,” 10-16-1907, p. 1.)

Oct 16: “The bodies of four of the victims of the Cypress disaster were shipped from Ryan’s undertaking rooms today. That of William Chambers, oiler, of whose home or relatives…[unclear] could be learned at first, was sent to his home at Courtright, Ont. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. William Dondon, respectively steward and second cook, were sent to Cleveland and that of Jean Marquette, deckhand, was sent to Detroit.

“The body of one of the unknown deckhands was identified just before noon today, R. E. Somerville arriving in the city this forenoon from his home at Ashland, Wis., and identifying the body as that of his brother, Lyle E. Somerville. Mr. Somerville had known that his brother had shipped on the Cypress as a deckhand from Canton. As soon, as he heard of the wreck he began making investigations and finally assured himself that his brother was on the boat at the time of the wreck and then hastened here. He will probably leave with the body today. There is still the body of another unidentified deckhand here who Mr. Somerville believes, shipped with his brother from Canton as he understood from his brother that two or three had shipped together. This agrees with Second Mate Pitt’s story, who stated that the unknown deckhands were shipped from Canton….” (The Evening News, Sault Ste Marie, MI. “Identified the Body. Ashland Man Finds Brother in the Morgue. Four More Bodies of Cypress Wreck Victims Shipped by Undertaker James R. Ryan.” 10-16-1907, p. 1.)

Oct 17: “Detroit, Oct. 17. — Further details of the meeting of the steamer George Stephenson and the steamer Cypress shortly before the latter went down are given in a letter to Capt. J. W. Westcott of this city from Capt. H. G. Harbottle of the Stephenson. The Captain says:

We were down bound with the barge Magna in tow, with the wind north-northwest and about forty miles an hour and quite a sea running. The Cypress passed us between 12:30 and 1 p. m. Friday. We were running with one boiler disabled and making about four miles an hour. The Cypress passed about 1,000 feet to southward of us, and running about five miles an hour faster than we were. He was taking some water on deck, and there was a red wake behind him. He was making good weather of it, and looked fit to weather any storm.

We could see him until 3 o’clock. As to our seeing his lights (as reported) at night: When we were within a half hour’s run of being abreast of Crisp Point light, at 10:30 p. m., I picked up some bright lights well down to the southward and eastward of us. It was raining at the time. We only saw them for a moment, and took them to be lights ashore. When I got to the Soo and learned of the loss of the Cypress. I thought possibly they might have been her lights. There was no time during the run that we could not have gone to any vessel in distress.

“According to the story of Second Mate Pitt of the Cypress, the steamer rolled and sank at 7:45 p.m., so the lights seen by Capt. Harbottle nearly three hour later could not have been those of the Cypress. (The Evening News, Sault Ste. Marie, MI. “Writes of the Wreck,” Oct 17, 1907, p. 6.)

Sources

Associated Press (John Flesher). “Century Old Shipwreck Found in Superior” [Steamer Cypress/Cyprus]. Washington Post. 9-10-2007. Accessed 11-21-2020 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091000675_pf.html

Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972.

Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, WI. “Full Score Are Lost,” 10-12-1907, p. 1. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=9266098

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

New York Times. “Steamer Founders [Cypress]; 25 Are Drowned,” Oct 13, 1907, p. 11. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=56998141

North Adams Transcript, MA. “The Year 1907 in Brief. Chief Events of the Year,” Jan 1, 1908, p. 3. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=62356225

Ratigan, William. Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals (New Revised and Enlarged Edition). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1969.

Thompson, Mark L. Graveyard of the Lakes. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2004.

United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Fortieth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed 11-21-2020 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=kF0uAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Salt Lake Tribune, UT. “Eighteen Bodies of Cypress Disaster Found,” Oct 14, 1907, p. 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=94773546

Swayze, David D. Shipwreck! A Comprehensive Directory of Over 3,700 Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. Boyne City, MI: Harbor House Publications, Inc., 1992.

The Evening News, Sault Ste Marie, MI. “Identified the Body. Ashland Man Finds Brother in the Morgue. Four More Bodies of Cypress Wreck Victims Shipped by Undertaker James R. Ryan.” 10-16-1907, p. 1. Accessed 11-21-2020 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/sault-ste-marie-evening-news-oct-16-1907-p-1/

The Evening News, Sault Ste Marie, MI. “Was Well Known Here. John Smith of Cypress Crew…,” 10-16-1907, 1. Accessed 11-21-2020 at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=109240273

The Herald, Eldora, IA. “Find Nineteen Bodies of Drowned” [Steamer Cypress], 10-19-1907, p. 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=141365759

United States Congress. House of Representatives. House Documents Vol. 25, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., 1916, “Supplemental Report on Reexamination of Harbor of Refuge at Grand Marais, Mich.” War Department, U.S. Engineer Office, Duluth, Minn., May 26, 1916, p. 49. Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=BJk3AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=clmson&f=false

United States Steamboat-Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat-Inspection Service to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908. 387 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed 11-21-2020 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=5FcpAAAAYAAJ

Wikipedia. “SS Cyprus.” Accessed 3-29-2011 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cyprus

–80-88 Blanchard estimated death toll range:

There is no single source which appears to us be the definitive source for the death toll.
We choose to rule out the newspaper accounts in that we have a number of published
sources, including US government sources which provide numbers, though the two government agencies cited note different death tolls. Thus, we use for the low-end of our estimated death toll range, the number 80 noted by the US Bureau of Navigation. For the high-end of our estimated death toll we rely on Dalton, Gibbs and Wrecksite.eu, all of which note 88 fatalities We point out that Gibbs also noted 87 fatalities in a different publication, and that the US Steamship Inspection Service noted 86, both numbers falling with the death toll estimate we choose to show.

–150 Oakland Tribune. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150…Drowned.” 7-22-1907, p.1.
[Headline editor death toll. The AP story below the headline notes 100-150 deaths.]
–100-150 Associated Press. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County…” 7-22-1907, p. 1.
–100 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss…” 8-30-1929, D3.
— 88 Dalton. A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California. 2010, p.65.
—<88 Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978, p. 96. -- 88 Wrecksite.eu. “Columbia SS (1880 ~1906) Columbia SS (+1907).” Accessed 9-22-2021.* -- 87 Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships…shipwrecks, California to Alaska. 1971, p. 33. -- 86 U.S. Steamship Inspection Service. Annual Report, 1908, p. 13. -- 80 Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. 1972, p. 206. -- 80 U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the United States…1908, p. 381. *This wrecksite.eu webpage notes as references: Lloyd’s of London and Lloyd’s Register of Casualty Returns. Narrative Information Gibbs, Disaster Log of Ships: “On the black night of July 20, 1907 [just after midnight, thus July 21], the wooden steam schooner San Pedro collided with the much larger passenger liner Columbia off Shelter Cove, south of Mendocino Cape. The San Pedro struck her bow firmly into the side of the liner tearing a gash 30 feet wide. In a mad moment of terror, the Columbia careened sharply and as her whistle emitted calls of distress the 200 passengers, some clad only in night clothes, scrambled to the decks. Counting the crew, the Columbia had 249 persons aboard. So quickly did the liner go down that many terrified passengers never had a chance. In only five minutes the liner was gone, and when the death toll was finally released, the number lost was 87. The San Pedro was also badly damaged. She lost her mainmast, part of her cutwater and her battered bow was filled with water. Despite this, 70 survivors of the Columbia were taken aboard…adding more weight to the little 400 ton vessel. The SS George W. Elder finally came to the rescue, picking up the survivors. The San Pedro was towed to port. Masters of both ships were found guilty, one for not being on the bridge after being called by the watch officer, the other for travelling at excessive speed in fog-patched weather. The 2,721 ton steel liner Columbia, built in 1880, was the first vessel in the world equipped with electric lights.” (Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships…shipwrecks, California to Alaska. 1971, p. 33.) Gibbs, Oregon’s Salty Coast: “The SS Columbia was in a collision with another vessel near Point Delgada, Calif., July 21, 1907, where estimates of the dead ranged up to 88…” (Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978, p. 96.) US Bureau Navigation: According to the Bureau of Navigation there were 227 aboard the Columbia, from which all the fatalities occurred. (U.S. Bureau of Navigation. Merchant Vessels of the U.S.…1908, p. 381.) US Steamboat Inspection Service: “The most serious disaster of the year was the collision of the Columbia and San Pedro, which occurred off Shelter Cove, California, a little after midnight on July 21, 1907, and in which 86 persons lost their lives and there was a large property loss. The weather was foggy, which was doubtless partly responsible for the disaster. The San Pedro rammed the Columbia, causing the latter vessel to sink. The disaster was thoroughly investigated by the officers of this Service, and as a result of their findings the license of B. Hendriksen, chief mate off the San Pedro, was revoked, and the license of Magnus Hanson, master of the San Pedro, was suspended for twelve months.” (US Steamship Inspection Service. Annual Report, 1908, p13.) Newspapers July 22, Oakland Tribune: “By Associated Press. San Francisco, July 22. – In one of the worst marine disasters in the history of the California coast, between 100 and 150 lives were lost, as far as has been learned, by a midnight collision between the steamer Columbia and the steam lumber schooner San Pedro in Shelter Cove, twelve miles southwest of the Mendocino-Humboldt county line, between 12 and 1 o’clock yesterday morning. Only meager details of the tragedy have been received… Scores of telegrams to Eureka, the nearest point of importance, remain unanswered. The few details know here were brought by the steamer Roanoke and the steam schooner Daisy Mitchell, which arrived in San Francisco this forenoon. “The Columbia, a 300-foot steel vessel of the San Francisco and Portland Steamship Co., while bound from San Francisco for Portland, Or., with 189 passengers and a crew of sixty, collided with and was rammed by the San Pedro, a 160-foot wooden schooner, southbound for this city. The sea was smooth but the weather was foggy. The San Pedro looming out of the mist a few ship’s lengths away, bore down on the Columbia at high speed, despite frantic efforts to clear, and with a grinding crash sank her stem fully ten feet into the Columbia’s port-bow. “Nearly all of the Columbia’s passengers and many of her crew were asleep in their cabins and bunks when the crash came. As the San Pedro backed away the sea poured in through the ragged hole in the Columbia’s bow above and below her water line, and in five minutes the vessel sank to the bottom, the deep waters of Shelter Cove covering even the tips of her masts. “….According to J. S. Flynn, a passenger on the Roanoke, Captain P. A. Doran of the Columbia, succeeded in launching four life boats and two rafts before the Columbia sank. Flynn, in an interview as quoted as saying that eight-eight passengers – all men, got away in this manner and were saved; that Captain Doran acted with great coolness in the face of death and went down with the ship. Flynn is further quoted as saying that not one of the hundred off women passengers were saved. “Shortly after the collision the steamers Roanoke and George W. Elder and the steam schooner Daisy Mitchell, all southbound, came upon the scene and stood by. The Elder took the San Pedro in tow and the latest report announces their arrival in Eureka. “The stem of the San Pedro was smashed to splinters, one of her masts was snapped off at the deck, she was settling and had a heavy list when taken in tow. Captain Hansen remained on board.” July 24, Oakland Tribune: “ ‘The San Pedro refused to take passengers not only from my boat, but from all the boats, saying that they had all the people on board they could accommodate. Had they taken off the passengers and permitted the empty boats to return for survivors at least thirty or forty more passengers would have been saved. It is not true that many people went down in the interior of the vessel. All had time to get to the decks, and those that were lost went down because they could not cling to wreckage for hours, and the boats that were full could not return for them. “ ‘Other officers have omitted this statement from their reports because it would increase the liability of the owners of the San Pedro, and officers don’t like to antagonize owners because it makes it difficult for them to get a berth. I know it will hurt me, but I intend to tell the truth, and I say that the San Pedro refused to take passengers from other boats than mine.’ “The foregoing is a portion of a statement made by Robert Hawse, third officer of the Columbia, during which he explained the causes of the accident and the events following it. Hawse, who saved the lives of many passengers with his boat, made the following statement: The United States laws regulating navigation require that a vessel during a fog, mist or snow-story shall proceed at reduced speed, but as a matter of fact they never do. The Columbia was going at full speed and the fog was heavy. As the captain was on the bridge, no one else could be responsible. When I am on the bridge during a fog I report to the captain and follow his orders regarding speed. The San Pedro was going at full speed, and her captain was not on the bridge, where he should have been during a fog, at least part of the time. Furthermore, we were headed in our proper course, while the San Pedro was not. When she struck us she was headed to sea, or on a course that would have taken her to China, whereas she was bound for San Pedro. Moreover, the officer on her bridge did not wait for the Columbia’s signal,, in which he was criminally negligent. She was on our starboard, and the Columbia blew two blasts to pass her on the starboard. Instead of waiting for the two blasts, the officer on the bridge blew one blast before he had had time to hear the second blast of the Columbia and ported the helm. The Columbia then gave three blast for full speed astern, and instead of doing the same the San Pedro merely stopped her engines. Had her engines been reversed when the Columbia gave three blasts the impact of the collision would have been much less. What I blame them most for was not taking our passengers. When I returned to them with the second boatload, they replied that they were full up, and I got the same answer to repeated requests to take my passengers aboard. I passed a number of people clinging to the wreckage, but I could not take them aboard, as the boat was loaded…. The San Pedro did this not only with me, but with other officers in command of boats. The boats cruised around until daylight, full of people whom the San Pedro refused to take on board. Many of them were naked women, shivering under stripe of sail canvas…. There is no doubt but what this action on the part of the officers of the San Pedro sacrificed between thirty and forty lives that could have been saved, and when the time comes I will make this statement under oath to the inspectors. “Hawse spoke very highly of the courage of the women who took refuge in his boat. He said that he saw two women floating in the water and ordered his men to row to them. This is the story in his own words: When we reached them I saw that one of the women was either dead or unconscious, and that the other, only a young girl, was keeping her companion afloat. I wanted to take the girl in firs, but she said no, she was all right, but that her companion needed assistance. I took the unconscious woman in the boat – I did not learn er name – and then took in the girl. She said her name was Maybelle Watson and that she lived in Berkeley. She said she had got into one of the port boats, but as they were too high to launch on account of the list to starboard, she had been thrown out when the vessel went down. She had on a life belt, but her companion had none. She came up and found the other woman floating near her and supported her. When I found them they must have been in the water for two hours, and the fortitude of this girl cannot be too highly praised. Her companion afterward became delirious and she worked over her all night. I picked up a number of others, but I did not learn their names.’” (Oakland Tribune, CA. “San Pedro Could Have Saved More Lives, He Claims.” 7-24-1907, p. 1.) Sources Associated Press. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150 Passengers Drowned.” Oakland Tribune, CA, 7-22-1907, p.1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-1/ Berman, Bruce D. Encyclopedia of American Shipwrecks. Boston: Mariners Press Inc., 1972. Dalton, Anthony. A Long, Dangerous Coastline: Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California. Chapter 7, Columbia: Speed Kills,” pp. 60-65. Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary: Heritage House Publishing. 2010. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=LOQ67VeU3WwC&pg=PA63&dq=SS+Columbia+(1880)#v=onepage&q=SS%20Columbia%20(1880)&f=true Gibbs, Jim. Disaster Log of Ships: A Pictorial account of shipwrecks, California to Alaska. NY: Bonanza Books, 1971. Gibbs, Jim. Oregon’s Salty Coast. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1978. Oakland Tribune, CA. “Horrible Scenes Follow Collision At Sea.” 7-22-1907, p. 2. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-2/ Oakland Tribune, CA. “San Pedro Could Have Saved More Lives, He Claims.” 7-24-1907, p. 1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-24-1907-p-1/ Oakland Tribune, CA. “Shipwreck [San Juan] One of Worst Since Janeiro’s Loss, 1901.” 8-30-1929, D3. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=105413307 Oakland Tribune, CA. “Steamers Collide off the coast of Mendocino County. 150 Passengers Drowned.” 7-22-1907, p. 1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/oakland-tribune-jul-22-1907-p-1/ The Bakersfield Californian. “Steamer Pomona Arrives With Seamen and One Passenger.” 8-23-1907, p1. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/bakersfield-californian-jul-23-1907-p-1/ United States Bureau of Navigation, Department of Commerce and Labor. Fortieth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States…For the Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=kF0uAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:LCCNsn88028129#v=onepage&q&f=false United States Steamboat-Inspection Service. Annual Report of the Supervising Inspector General, Steamboat-Inspection Service to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1908. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908. 387 pages. Digitized by Google. Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=5FcpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Wrecksite.eu. “Columbia SS (1880 ~1906) Columbia SS (+1907).” Accessed 9-22-2021 at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?275595