The Winter Quarters Mine Disaster
Winter Quarters Mine Number 4 was located near the town of Scofield, about 150 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah. It was part of the coal mining operations in the aptly named Carbon County. Coal mining began in 1878 in the Pleasant Valley region, which included the towns of Scofield and Helper, Clear Creek, Sunnyside, and other small towns which housed the miners. Pleasant Valley Coal Company produced about 60% of the coal mined in Utah by 1896, and in 1899 it opened new mines including Winter Quarters Number 4. The mines operated by Pleasant Valley Coal Company were considered to be among the safest in the west.
Winter Quarters mines number 1 and 4 were interconnected, and shifts of over 300 men worked within the mines at a given time. The Pleasant Valley Coal Company had recently been awarded a contract to provide 2,000 tons of coal per day, ensuring job security for the miners and increasing profits for the company. On May 1, 1900, workers near the entrance to mine number one were preparing black powder charges around half past ten in the morning when they felt a heavy shock, following with the acrid aroma of burning wood and coal. Men who could raced to the entrance portal of mine number one.
Men at the portal of mine number 4 heard a rumble deep within the mine, followed by a gush of smoke and flame rising up the mineshaft. Timber, portions of twisted steel rail, and the remnants of destroyed coal trams were ejected through the mine entrance. The blast was followed by an eerie silence. Rescue parties were formed to enter the mine to search for survivors. They encountered the phenomena which occurs after mine explosions, an unbreathable mix of toxic gases known as afterdamp. Without respirators they could not remain in the mine. Men who had survived the explosion had no chance of remaining conscious long enough to exit the mine.
The explosion in Winter Quarters Number 4 was blamed on coal dust, which was ignited either by a miner’s headlamp or possibly a windy shot. It was customary on the first of the month to load supplies of black powder into the work rooms of the mine, and these were consumed by and fed the blast. Special trains carrying officials of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company and reporters from Salt Lake City’s daily newspapers arrived on the scene, as bodies began to be removed from the mine that afternoon. Recovery was slow as searchers had to wait for the afterdamp to clear deep within the mine. Two hundred miners were killed in the explosion, most of them by toxic gases.
The mine explosion occurred on Monday, May 1 and by Wednesday mining work was resumed in Number 1, where about half of the more than 200 dead had succumbed to afterdamp. Official records list 200 dead, but some estimates were as high as 246, with several of the miners having relatives with them to assist them in their work. The Pleasant Valley Coal Company provided the heirs of the dead miners with $500, and absolved them of any debts to the company through the company store. A Carbon County Grand Jury found that the company had not been negligent, and that it was not responsible for the explosion.