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Marker is sole
reminder of White Ash Mine Tragedy
September 7, 1989
At the end of 12th Street in Golden
there is a marker--standard, medium-sized, average
granite marker.
It states, "White Ash Mine Disaster,
Dedicated to the Memory of ...(names of miners) who
lost their lives here on September 9, 1889, and are
entombed in this plot.
One hundred years ago...
Headlines screamed from the September 11
issue of the Denver Republican:
"Buried Forever"
"The Bodies of the Miners Beyond"
"Possible Recovery"
"All Victims Caught in the Mine's Lowest
Level" and
"That Level Taken by Flood"
The Rocky Mountain News declared:
"The Greatest Disaster Recorded in the History of
the State."
Strangely, in the Golden Globe
the story was buried in the back pages under a
simple heading small type: "Possible Disaster."
Copies of the Transcript for the ill-fated
date and several weeks following cannot be found on
file in archives, possibly because all copies were
sold, kept as souvenirs and so on, leaving no copies
for archival preservation.
What was that day, 100 years ago,
like--the morning of the disaster, which would occur
without warning in mid-afternoon? As the men, young
to middle-aged, went to their jobs at the White
Ash--so called because the coal from the mine, when
burned, left a pure white ash--in the steel gray
dawn of that September so long ago--what was the
morning like?
Was there a dusting of an early snow? Or
did a ere shroud of mist hang over the far-reaching
valley where Clear Creek wandered at will, creating
numerous stream beds, bogs and marshes? Were there
red-winged blackbirds singing among the cattails and
swamp bushes growing there?
Since not even descendants of these
miners, if indeed there are any left in the area,
could answer these questions, we can only surmise
about that Monday morning preceding the disaster.
The men entered the mine, carrying tin
pails of thick-slabbed biscuit sandwiches or dinner
buckets of cold-meat pasties (like the Cornish
hard-rock miners in the gold fields, who
affectionately referred to the coal miners
responsible for digging the "black diamond" that
went to the booming mining camps as "Cousin Jacks"),
wearing their hats with the carbide lamps that
barely illuminated the cavernous, timbered tunnels
burrowing 700 feet below and extending under the bed
of Clear Creek--these men could not know of the
nearness of the wall of water that would break
through from flooded tunnels of the abandoned
Loveland Mine on the north side of the creek.
Having nearly exhausted the rich veins
of high-grade coal in the mine on the south side,
mine owners John C. Hodge and C.C. Welch decided to
tunnel beneath Clear Creek to richer beds and were
planning to sink a new shaft the following week.
Mine inspectors found nothing unsafe
about this proposed procedure or in the tunneling
that had been done.
According to one of the two Denver
papers, with their tabloid headlines, there had been
some seepage in the White Ash Mine for several
weeks, a fact not mentioned in other papers or in
the research papers of Golden historian Irene Goetz.
According to the Goetz papers, the
actual mine entrances were nearly 2,000 feet apart,
the White Ash located in what was described as "in
the heart of town, only a five-minute walk from the
post office," and the Loveland, owned and operated
by W.A.H. Loveland, 1859 pioneer, located beside the
Colorado and Central Railroad. (This would probably
place it on the far end of what is now Eighth
Street.)
In an article in the Golden Globe
September 14, 1889, a fire, reportedly burning more
than a decade along the White Ash side of a 90-foot
barrier wall between two mines, had been sealed off
for some time in an effort to smother it.
Having made numerous inspections over
the succeeding years, John McNeal, state mine
inspector, felt this had been accomplished. He said
an atmosphere of "black damp," low in oxygen and
high in carbon dioxide, surrounding the walls
indicated the fire was out.
McNeal then theorized that a fire
burning in a dump over the surface of the mine had
eaten its way below the surface into the veins and
crevices of the coal, thus weakening the barrier
wall so it was only a matter of time before it
broke.
Does anyone actually know? Even those
working down at the lower level may not have known.
Was it a miscalculation as to just how far and how
close the two mines' tunnels had reached and become?
It was thought the last tunnel of the
White Ash extended 900 feet toward the abandoned
Loveland. Perhaps one small strike of an ax severed
a spot softened by seepage of water standing
stagnated and sour for years but silently, without a
surface ripple, exerting thousands of pounds of
pressure on old timbered walls.
One small fissure quickly enlarged to a
yawning, gaping hole that accommodated a full-scale
cascading flood to pour with unleashed energy into
the upper levels. In a frothing, foaming waterfall,
it filled every tunnel below 200 feet. With
torrential swiftness, it cut off any chance of
escape for the miners.
Possibly due to the magnitude and
hysteria of the tragedy, the day's papers didn't
agree on the scope or even the existence of water in
the mine. One article said fire raged on one level,
a second said steam issued from the walls; another
that a bottle lowered hundreds of feet came up
filled with water.
The latter seems quite unlikely since it
is doubtful anything was lowered that far after the
mine flooded.
There was general agreement on the major
details.
At approximately 4 p.m., an urgent
signal was received to lower the cage to the 730
foot level, where the men were working. However,
when the cage was lowered, it would not go to the
bottom.
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