The 1947 Centralia Mine Disaster

[Music] [Music] on march 9 1946 a letter was stamped received at the governor's office in springfield illinois members of local 52 of the united mine workers of america had addressed the letter to illinois governor dwight greene asking for help regarding what they consider to be unsafe conditions in a coal mine in which they worked near the town of centralia the letter read governor greene this is a plea to you to please save our lives to make the department of mines and minerals enforce the law the letter signed by four men went unanswered and less than a year later three of the four would die in a mine explosion it is history that deserves to be remembered centralia is located in south central illinois founded in 1853. it got its name from the illinois central railroad at the location where two of the railroads original lines converged centralia mine number five opened in 1907 and covered nearly six square miles underground at its height the mine employed 250 men and produced 2 000 tons of coal each day by the 1940s the mine was owned by the centralia coal company itself owned by the bell and zoller coal company one of the largest coal companies in illinois at the time in 1941 driscoll scanlan was appointed by newly elected governor dwight greene as one of illinois's 16 state mine inspectors green had earned his political reputation when he helped prosecute al capone for tax evasion and run on a platform that emphasized holding mining companies to the letter of the law the state mine inspector was a political patronage position and appointees were usually more interested in the financial benefits of their position than their responsibility but scanlon was an exception scandal was described as a stubborn righteous zealous man of fierce integrity he had begun his career working in a mine near centralia at 16. taken engineering classes at night and then spent 13 years as a company mine examiner until he was appointed inspector mine inspectors like many patronage jobs were ostensibly regulators but often very close with the men whose companies and minds they were supposed to be regulating while most inspectors reports were short only mentioning grave offenses of the law scanlon's reports were the longest submitted to the state exhaustive in their listing of violations and recommendations in 1942 he made his first report on the centralia number five mine recommending against several dangerous practices scanlon sent inspection reports to the state every three months reiterating his recommendations over and over specifically that tamping of shots with coal dust shots being the explosive used to blast coal from the seams be stopped as well as the mine be sufficiently rock dusted rock dusting is an incredibly important safety measure coal dust is extremely explosive not surprising since its explosive properties are precisely what makes it useful as an energy source dust is raised constantly in the mines as coal is cut from the earth and transferred out of the mine mixing with the air some of the dust settles on the walls and floor of the mine while more remains constantly in the air explosions in the mine can cause the coal dust in the air to explode which in turn displaces the coldest that is settled which can then explode and so on traveling along the course of the mine rock dusting was a method formulated decades earlier that involved using crushed limestone the limestone is applied to the walls and floor of a mine that can prevent the explosion from spreading if a local explosion disturbs the dust on the walls on the floor the limestone dust is thrown up along with the coal ultimately preventing further explosions by acting as a heat sink in the air and preventing the coal from combusting this way any explosion can be localized to minimizing risks to the entire mine scanlan sent his reports to the department of mines and minerals in springfield headed by director robert medell medel like scanlan was a political appointee who had been given his job for helping governor greene with his election in 1940 unlike scanlan medell was not especially zealous in making coal companies follow the law scanlon's reports were received by an office secretary who stamped them as received they were retyped and then a form letter would be attached to be sent to the mine owners the department endorses the recommendations made by inspector scanlint and request that you comply will you please advise the department on completion of the recommendations scanlin sent 13 reports that were accepted by the department this way but the central mine company didn't bother with complying at least once the department demanded that the company do something about the dust and the mine within 10 days but the company doesn't seem to have complied or even bothered to reply to the demand and nothing was done when they didn't miners have been complaining on the conditions in the mine for years the dust was over your shoe tops one miner complained and another said that i used to cough up chunks of coal dust like walnuts after work and it wasn't just the state inspections that were being ignored so we're federal inspections which began in 1942. the federal inspection made many of the same recommendations as scanlan's reports enumerating 106 recommendations including 33 major ones coal dust at this mine is highly explosive and would readily propagate an explosion the report read the federal reports would find that nothing was done about the recommendations in 1943 or 1944 but the federal inspectors had no power to actually force compliance only the illinois state department did finally in 1944 the local branch of the united mine workers of america complained directly to the mines and minerals department the condition of those roadways are very dirty and dusty they are getting dangerous but the coal company has ignored scanlan's reports the union wrote the department asked scanlon to investigate and he reiterated his same recommendations the mining company skinlin said would fix the water tank and sprinkle the roads within a week said that they would have done so sooner but they had had 20 or 30 men absent each day the company complained that wartime needs meant that they didn't have enough workers but that production was vital the mining company did actually begin safety work but only briefly scanlan reported again in december of 1944 that dust was an issue and that the mine should discontinue hoisting coal for a few days to do the necessary work the higher ups at bell and zuller continue to complain about manpower shortages and that they have been working under a very severe handicap for the past months i'm hopeful that the urgent demand for coal will ease up so that the mine could comply this reply satisfied the mines and minerals department the local miners were threatening to lodge an official complaint and director medel asked that they be patient a little longer and as much as coal is badly needed but the miners could only wait so long on april 4th 1945 they met to complain about the conditions again and that a foreman had set off explosive charges while an entire shift was still in the mine they filed charges against the mine manager and asked that his certificate of competency be revoked again nothing was done and the department investigated and reported that the explosives were fired on shift in an emergency and that it wouldn't happen again problems continued at the mine when recommendations were followed they were only followed for a short time and the local union again filed charges in december of 1945. a commission was finally sent to investigate but the workers were not told of the inspection or allowed to prove their charges they didn't see nothing they didn't get back in the buggy runs while the dust was the worst they stayed on the main line complaining one of the miners the commission reported that there was insufficient evidence to revoke any certificates the report they produced still highlighted the same issues that inspections had continually noted poor rock dusting illegal practices too many men working on a single split the commission believed the company would make the recommended changes and that anyway conditions there were no different than at most mines in the state it was this report that finally convinced the miners to write the letter they sent to governor greene asking that he save our lives they wrote in protest against the negligent and unfair practices of your department of mines in minerals although they specifically praised scalin's reports they asked that green do something before we have a dust explosion at this mine we are giving you a chance to correct the conditions at this time that may cause a much worse disaster the letter reached the governor's office but may never been read by the governor himself one of the governor's secretaries wrote that it is my opinion that the governor may be subjected to very severe criticism in the event the facts complained of are true the complaint was sent for investigation directly back to the department of mines and minerals of course the department was also accused in the letter of ignoring the miner's pleas and scanlan's reports medel replied that the complaint sounds a good deal worse than it really is and nothing further came of it in 1946 new changes in washington upended the whole mining system in the country john lewis leader of the united mine workers of america signed an agreement with julius crogg secretary of the interior which included a federal safety code that the government could enforce and put the mines under government operation under the new coal mines administration the same complaints against the centralia mine were reported by a federal inspector and action against the mine operators actually began the mine was ordered to correct 57 violations including 13 major ones in november 1946 while the government could close the mines if it found imminent danger but none was reported after all the same conditions hadn't led to an explosion for years worse in an injunction later upheld by the supreme court the union lost its right to strike while the government operated the mines sure we could have wildcated it as central miners had and we'd have had the supreme court and the government and the whole public breathing down our necks in the months before december 1946 and march 1947 the miners complained about conditions several more times but were ignored finally in march news broke in the st louis post-dispatch that the department of mines and minerals was soliciting money from mining companies for the chicago mayoral campaign governor greene may not have even known he was busy with a national reputation that hoped to make him a presidential or vice presidential candidate this presented something of a conflict of interest is once entirely a minor put it if a coal mine company gives you a thousand dollars they're going to expect something from it in fact many of the political appointees had worked for the same coal companies or work in them after they left their political appointments valenzuela may even have helped secure medea's job as director of the mines and minerals department on march 18th both scanlon and the federal inspector were at the centralia mine the mines had it had ordered pipe for a sprinkler system to sprinkle the roads and though little to no rock dusting had been done cars of rock dust had arrived at the mine the report that day read recommendations of previous inspections not complied with should be complied with a week later on march 25th the report was in springfield but its recommendations never made it to the company thirty-year-old miner john pick jr told the associated press the next day i looked at my watch and saw that it was pretty near quitting time that was around 3 30 yesterday afternoon we started up laughing like we always do and thinking about that fresh air we'd be getting in a few minutes we were about 500 feet underground when all of a sudden there was a rumbling explosion that rocked everything the u.s bureau of mines investigation found that the explosion was strictly a coldest explosion which was propagated by cold dust throughout four working sections of the mine and the coldest was raised into the air and ignited by explosives fired in a dangerous and non-permissible manner that didn't just come from the explosion those who survived the blast still died from breathing the after damp carbon monoxide rich air left after the explosion pick said you could just feel old man death rolling through the tunnels and corridors it was a terrible confusion enough to make a man crazy i felt sick all over the headline of the st louis post dispatch on march 26 read wives weep at mine entrance as they await news of husbands the story reads a closely grouped strangely silent crowd stood in the sunshine near the mine entrance today they were first aid workers mine officials and relatives of the trap miners waiting for the appearance of any possible survivors of the disaster and the bodies none to be blown ground that evening bodies began coming out of the mine from the 540 foot deep elevator it rained and as the night came the rain turned to snow it took five days for all the bodies to be pulled from the mine a note was found scrawled on the wall by the men who survived the blast but asphyxiated afterwards look in everybody's pockets we all have notes give them to our wives one note said dear wife goodbye forgive me take care of all the children another said i love you honey more than life itself if i don't make it please do the best you can and always remember and love me folk singer woody guthrie wrote a song about those notes called the dying minor john lewis cried that the men were murdered by the criminal negligence of secretary krug and declared a six-day period of mourning of 142 men in the mine at the time of the explosion 65 were killed by burns and injuries from the blast a 1987 edition of the newspaper the southern illinoisian reported that they died where they stood so badly disfigured by the awful force of the blast that some of their bodies could never be identified by relatives with any degree of certainty another 45 died from asphyxiation from the after damp eight men were rescued but one of those later died from effects of the after death 31 survived six separate investigations investigated both the explosion and what led to it a hearing before congress with john lewis was broadcast on radio nationwide on april 2nd in his testimony he said if we must grind up human flesh and bone in the industrial machine we call modern america then before god i assert that those who consume coal and you and i who benefit from that service because we live in comfort we owe protection to those men first and we owe security to their families if they die but little was actually done in the end the centralia coal company paid a fine of just a thousand dollars madeill resigned and governor greene lost his bid for re-election in 1948 and his political career was essentially ended but no laws were changed until a similar explosion in a coal mine in west frankfurt illinois in 1951 killed 119 miners and the nation was finally prompted to create a stricter mine safety code with better enforcement procedures the explosion created 99 widows and left 78 minor children fatherless the united mine workers paid a monthly stipend as part of the union benefits as the families tried to figure out how to get by having lost their primary breadwinners john pick jr was one of the few who survived he was overcome by gases he told the associated press i must have passed out because the next thing i remember a red cross nurse was wiping my face with a wet cloth not so lucky was his father john pitt senior he told the associated press i thought of my dad right away who had gone down with me into the shaft this morning lugging his lunchbox shouted so long jack see you at quitting time i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 153,735

Rating: 4.9825315 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, coal, labor, mining, illinois, us history, centralia mine disaster

Id: BwvpAlvM-SA

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021