The Millfield Mine Disaster
The Sunday Creek Coal Company owned and operated a mine in the Hocking Valley of Ohio called Poston Mine Number 6, which was regarded as one of the most modern and safest in the industry in 1930. Despite the favorable reputation, sections of the mine were known among the miners and the company to be “gassy”, meaning that they accumulated larger than normal levels of methane gas, emitted naturally from the veins of coal. On November 5, 1930, the President of the Sunday Creek Coal Company was escorting company executives on a tour demonstrating newly installed safety equipment. They were just some of the more than 250 men in the mine that morning.
Just before noon, at a point over ten thousand feet from the main shaft of the mine, an explosion rocked the entire structure, causing walls to collapse, uprooting trolley rails, and smashing coal trolleys. About 120 men managed to escape the mine, either through the main shaft, secondary shafts, or in many cases ventilation shafts. Calls for assistance were sent out to Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Doctors and nurses were dispatched to the scene. Rescue teams entered the mine to locate survivors. They arrived within four hours of the explosion and were supervised by the United States Bureau of Mines.
Ten hours after the explosion one of the rescue teams found nineteen men alive in the mine, nearly three miles from the entrance, and only two of them conscious. The men had barricaded themselves near a ventilation shaft. All of them were carried out of the mine, and all of them survived. Eighty-two men died in the explosion and its aftermath, with the majority of them succumbing to asphyxiation caused by carbon monoxide. The company president and the executives he was proudly showing the new safety features were among the dead. It took several weeks to clear the mine of the deadly gases which had resulted from the explosion and fire.
The explosion was caused by an accident in one of the known gassy areas of the mine, which was disused at the time. A fallen electrical connection, which was not supposed to have power being supplied to it at the time, was found to have arced across a nearby trolley rail, which triggered the explosion. Why the connection had power applied to it was never determined, but it has been speculated that power was applied accidentally as part of the demonstration of some of the new equipment being examined by the company officers.
The Poston mine was reopened in October 1930, was declared clear of dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and other gases the following month, and resumed operation before the end of the year. It remained in operation until the end of the Second World War, when it was closed down. Ohio’s state Department of Mines completed its investigation by finding the Sunday Creek Coal Company to have not been in violation of safety regulations and procedures at the time of the explosion. It also recommended that existing procedures and safety regulations be examined by the legislature for the purpose of creating a safer work environment for coal miners.