The Coeur d’Alene Violence of 1899
In 1899 workers at the non-union Bunker Hill Mining Company – the only non-union mine in the area – were being paid fifty cents less per hour than their contemporaries at union mines, leading to a drive to unionize. The company responded by hiring Pinkerton Agents to work at the mine and the nearby Sullivan mine to act as spies, reporting any workers who joined a union. When the union miners struck, demanding equal pay, seventeen were summarily fired and a warning went out to all union members to collect whatever pay was owed them and leave the company.
Union workers at nearby mines went on strike in support. Of these, a group of more than two hundred seized a train and loaded it with dynamite and additional strikers (most of whom were unaware of the dynamite). When the train loaded reached the Bunker Hill mine they ordered the non-union miners still working there to evacuate. Shots were fired and at least one non-union miner was killed. The union miners then detonated the dynamite in a mill adjoining the mine.
The mill was totally destroyed and several other buildings were then damaged by arson before the union members left the scene. Concerned about the amount of damage and the potential for additional violence, Idaho requested help from President McKinley, who sent US Army troops to the scene to help restore order and to protect the non-union miners and company property. The bulk of the troops were from the 24th Infantry Regiment, an African-American Regiment in the then segregated US Army. Miners were angered by the requirement to comply with orders issued by black soldiers.
The troops were used to effect mass arrests, and over one thousand miners were rounded up and incarcerated in a wooden enclosure which became known as “the bullpen.” Surrounded by a wooden stockade which the prisoners were forced to erect themselves, the bullpen was further enclosed with barbed wire, guarded by troops, and open to the elements. At least three of the prisoners died in the enclosure due to the living conditions. Most of the imprisoned were either union members or vocal union sympathizers.
The majority of the prisoners were held for only a few weeks, although without trial or legal action. Newspaper writers and editors critical of the operation were held for sedition and their publications were ordered to cease printing; most did not comply and continued to publish. The military occupation clearly favored the mine owners over the unions and temporarily weakened the drive for full unionization in the western mines, with the federal troops enjoying the support of state officials and most of the general public.