They knew how many Horses and donkeys they lost but not how many Coal Miners. The Tragic Story of the Worst Industrial Accident and loss of life in the US in the little town of Monongah Wv.

I visit the small quiet and unique town of Monongah West Virginia  several times a year as I take care of one of the oldest AM Radio broadcasting sites in the state WMMN 920 AM " The Ticket" owned by LHTC  Laurel Highlands Total Communications of WV. built in 1927

Riding thru the old coal mining town you would never suspect it was  once the scene of extreme carnage and grief or that it  played its part in the worst industrial accident in the united states in 1907,
that is till you drive by the town hall and there you find the  3 monuments to the tragedy

  The town is quiet today with some boarded up old business in the main section of town and a few old business that still operate along US 19  But this was not the case on
6th of December 1907 in what would be the deadliest year ever for loss of coal miners lives.
 

Officially 361 miners lost their lives that day in shaft 4 and 6 of the monongah mine but  the toll was much higher as many as 461 graves where dug for the miners many children and relatives who went into the mines that day to help the person hired by the mine so there was no record of them being there
 4 miner escaped the mine but later died of injury's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Kdnn1HOU4

https://arlweb.msha.gov/DISASTER/MONONGAH/MONON1.asp

 

It was aprox. 10:20 am on a cold winter morning when the explosion in the Fairmont Coal company's Monongah 6&8 Shafts erupted shaking the entire town and lifting it nearly a foot  windows where broken as far as Fairmont 10 miles away  almost the entire upper part of the town was destroyed  from all the shaking.  There was total chaos all the local mining officials where missing or killed  luckily it was the feast of St. Nicholas and many of the miners being of Italian Heritage had taken the day off and went running to the mine some tried to rescue the trapped miners and quickly fell dead to the deadly gases.  The streets where soon  filled with coffins as help quickly arrived by train , trolley and wagon from nearby mining towns .  Fairmont Mining would not pay for head stones for the miners and where less than cooperative in helping the surviving families.

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Monongah-Mine-Disaster

This was just one of many horrific story's to come out of this tragedy you will read when   you do a google search of the disaster including the fact when they went back in to once again mine they would find body parts and just rebury them in the mine. The mining Company did not give one dam about the immigrants. 

However it did lead to better enforced safety rules in mines and this lead to fewer deaths each year. 

Mining today is by far safer than it ever has been and tragedy's like Farmington  still happen when rules are ignored and not enforced. 

:As a side note. Did you know that Pepperoni Rolls where invented by the coal miners of WV as a way to carry a nutritious lunch which held up in the mines instead of taking in a loaf of bread and sausage. 

The Duquesne Limited - A Horrific Train Tragedy you never heard of in Fayette County Pa.

Maybe because it happened so long ago and in such an isolated area of Fayette County most people would be hard pressed to have even known such a train route existed or such a tragedy which killed nearly 70 ever happened but it did.

https://www.heraldstandard.com/online_features/let-s-talk-connellsville-train-wreck-recalled/article_658af6d4-de72-5347-ae65-ea436ccad7d7.html

It was 7:45 PM  December 23 ,1903 and the pride of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the Duquesne Limited  only 3 years into its routes service ,was on its exclusive run from Pittsburgh to New York with an important stop in Connelsville  which it never made it would meet its fate  in the Laurel Run area curve about 2 miles from Dawson when a train going the opposite direction or directly in front of it  lost its load of lumber and was blocking the tracks . The engineers running the train full bore at 60 mph into the sharp curve never had a chance to stop it the entire crew was killed instantly and  engine and cars scattered all over the tracks in a mass of busted wood and the fire which resulted from the engine crashing.  It was a horrific  scene for the survivors and those who attempted to rescue those hurt.

This was one of just many horrific Train, Trolley and Coal Mine accidents to happen that year as America was expanding and the Industrial Revolution was in full swing and people paid for it in sweat and blood and some times even their lives.

Grave of Priest Killed while Traveling on the train

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connellsville_train_wreck

http://www.gendisasters.com/pennsylvania/10329/laurel-run-pa-train-wreck-dec-1903-sixty-dead-in-wreck

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5844204/1903_connellsville_wreck_main_story/

I do not know if you can visit the site,the tracks are still active in that  remote area  but you can view it from across the Yough River  on the Great Allegheny Rails Trail   I could find no info on a memorial of any kind about the wreck I can find. .Such a horrific act you would think it would have been better remembered like the nearby Darr Mine explosion.

The Story of where those 3 Crosses one Gold with a Blue one on each side you see along country roads in many eastern states came from

If you ride the back roads of Pa. Ohio and WV. sooner or later you will come across a set of 3 wooden crosses  similar to the picture below. You will see the majority of them in WV.
One set I run across is located on US40 near Tridelphia

Their story and how they got their is an interesting one.
They where put there by  Rev. Bernard Coffindaffer  who was from Craigsville West Virginia

 who made his millions in the coal industry and from a calling he received while on a trip to the Holy Land received the inspiration to erect the crosses having liquidated his business, he spent over $3,000,000.00 of his own funds  as he  spent the last years of his life on earth erecting them over several states. and several country's  from 1984 to 1993
He originally wanted to have at least one set in every county of every state. 

I saw him talking about this in a CBS evening  news piece as they where following him and his crew erecting them some where in US. 

Supposedly a local church was to adopt and care for them,but many have fallen into disrepair while others have been faithfully maintained one such set is near a church in Franklin Twp . Pa. in Lawrence County.

You can read more about this extraordinary man who came from nothing being orphaned at the age of 10 to go on and serve his god and country in the links below

http://www.crossesacrossamerica.org/history/

http://www.thecross-photo.com/Crosses_Across_America_Inc.htm 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/many-crosses-to-bear/

What was the extremely Loud Noise we heard while camping with Boyscouts as a teenager in early 1970's in Very Rural Butler County

 An old memory of mine was recently brought back when listening to Stan Gorden  a famous Pa. Ufologist when he gave  a speech at Hill View manor Hill Con as he described a noise residents who witnessed a UFO landing described

When I belonged to Troop 224 In Carrick we where very fortunate Harry Bishop a Business Executive for a paper manufacturer  and Scout Commissioner  who owned some acreage in very rural Butler County in Boyer Pa.  allowed us to camp on his property some where off a side road  of grub road .

We had  permanent camp sites where  we spent the weekend at several times a year .
One fall weekend in 72-73 was like no other it was mid Saturday afternoon when all of a sudden an extremely loud noise was heard thru out the valley the camp was situated in. It sounded  like some one taking a piece of sheet metal and bending it back and forth very fast but so loud we had to cover our ears. It lasted for almost 3 solid minutes and was intense. Some one suggested it sounded like one of those UFO  in a sci-fi movie . We looked all around even hiked up to top of valley where a previous strip mine operated  and was reclaimed but found nothing , however there was a discolored circle of rock and dirt in the strip mine but it did not appear to be burned. Plus the circle could have been site of an old water tank.

With the area being so large and so remote what was going on could have been anywhere in the valley which was several miles long and 2-3 miles across and thick with Forrest  and swamp areas

Our leaders kind of fluffed it off  maybe military was flying around caused the sound or coal mining equipment  . Maybe some exotic bird ?  but at this same time unknown to us at the time there where several sightings of UFO's in that area of Butler County.

But back then you did not have cell phones ,internet and social media  so people would call and report it to  the state police who would take a report and that was about it., Some times if it was really interesting they would notify Stan who would send a team to investigate, and the area even to this day is still very rural definite not a place to break down or wander if you do not know it.

Was it a UFO? who knows but I will never forget the sound thats for sure and never heard such a sound again . When I run across old scout friends they to wonder to this day just what was that noise.
some talk about it most do not want to admit they heard it all these years later. 

Butler County has always been a hot bed for Big Foot ,unknown Cryptids and UFO sightings  or was it something natural happening from all the strip  coal mining and reclamation going on ? I guess we will never know .

Its been almost 40 years since I was last at the camp some day I want to relocate it and check it out if it even still exists  as Mr Bishop has passed a while back and troop 224 is no longer as well ,  .

Update:Mr. Bishops cabin and the camp no longer exists was clear cut and bulldozed and now private property :picture below shows where hunting cabin stood and where we parked to go back to camp  bottom picture is country store we use to stop at in W. Sunbury which once had gas pumps and was also a coin laundromat which was few miles from camp.

There was a cabin and lake further down road  on Mr. Bishops side and cabin  was supposedly burned down deliberately after a black family moved in across from Mr Bishop.
Supposedly the family said property would never be used again as long as blacks where allowed to live there . I noticed the property is occupied and structures built so either the black family has either all passed or moved on or same for family who burned down the cabin. I meet the son of the black family that moved into that farm had a son Mike who would come over and visit while we where camping and they where nice people the little we saw of them.

The Strip Mined areas all around the camp area have now completely grown in since being reclaimed and one of them has been turned into a Waste management land fill.

where Mr Bishops cabin stood.

country market in W. Sunbury

The Coal Miners Report an unusual and long running West Virginia Radio Tradition .

If you listen to WWVA-1170 in Wheeling W.V.  4 times  a day for many decades there is the Coal miners Working Report.

it goes something like this.
  "Your Attention please The following is the  3 PM miners  report  of  mines working in the Ohio Valley area. Brought to you by your local coal mine company's .

Powhatan 1# and 2# mine will work
Eagle mine 1# will not work mine  2 #and 3# will work
 Edger mine  1# will not work processing plant is working.
 Consol Mine 1 #and 2# will work

Thank you this has been the coal miners report next report at 3PM

In days past the reports could go on for a full  2 minutes  and it was a very important tradition because unlike other jobs in W.V. miners did not always report for every shift do to conditions in the mines and the demand for the  coal , and the quickest and fastest way to let them know not to leave home and either start walking ,take the trolley or driving etc to the mine was the miners report .
Because many miners did not even have phones back in the day so this was their only means of knowing to report to work or not ..
. In Fact Unions demanded these reports for miners often in their contracts and it was very good source of income for AM radio stations that played the report. One station reportedly had one million in billings to make these reports which it was critical they got the report right or you had miners showing up demanding to be paid.
One DJ told me he got into big trouble one night when he put the report out wrong in the 80s one time 

Unfortunately with mining in decline not as many stations still do the reports but it was one of those great radio traditions to serve the community. and fun to listen to when you where a kid  I remember many times when our family would pile in the car for a road trip in 60s  on a Sunday and go around West Virginia and hearing these reports.