What
are the problems and dangers that Uncle Cyrus would face as a coal miner?
There were many
dangers inside a coalmine. It was dark and either very hot or very
cold. The air was filled with coal dust. Many miners suffered from lung disease after years of breathing
the coal dust.
Sometimes a cable car lost its brakes and went out of control
on the steep hillside. In July 1893, some Blue
Canyon miners were injured when they jumped off a run-away cable car on the
hill.
A
miner was sometimes crushed to death. If the supporting timbers rotted
and gave way, a miner could be crushed by the collapsing roof. Sometimes
the collapse happened gradually, over weeks or months. At other times it
happened suddenly, in four or five hours.
If the collapse happened suddenly, it sounded like rumbling thunder. The
ground in the Blue Canyon Mine caved in easily. In June1893, a cave-in of a tunnel roof in the mine killed a
miner named Alexander Grant. A miner
also faced the danger of being crushed between a coal car and the wall of
the tunnel.
A
miner could be blown to pieces by a dynamite blast that exploded too
soon. The miner had to place the blasting powder and caps just right. If
he didn’t, he and the other miners could die.
Another
danger faced by a miner was that of being burned to death by exploding gas.
Methane gas was very common inside the tunnels. 
The
gas could cause a dust explosion and fire that could cause damage a mile away.
The Blue Canyon Coal Mine suffered from a series of small gas explosions. A local newspaper, called the “Reveille”,
listed nine serious accidents that occurred in 1893. On April 16, 1893, a gas
explosion slightly burned a miner whose name was Otto Mullenberg. In April
1895, one huge explosion killed 23 miners.
It was the worst mining accident in Washington's recorded history. Nobody knows exactly what caused the
explosion. Two men were killed in another explosion in 1900.
From 1870-1902, 10,000 American men and boys
were killed in coal mining accidents.
25,000 were injured. There were not very many old men working in the
coalmines. The average age of those killed was 32 years.
Image Credit:
Microsoft ClipArt Gallery