Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-05-02
Hundreds ENT0MBED
BY MINE EXPLOSION
POI BODIES RECOVERED AND 200 MORE KNOWN TO BE YET IN
MINE-D00MED MEN FACED DEATH
WHILE HOPING IN Vain FOR RESCUE
EXTENT OF DISASTER YET UNKNOWN-GHASTLY AND Pa
THETlC SCENES WHEN GRIEFSTRICKEN
WOMEN CLAIMED THEIR DEAD.
POI BODIES RECOVERED AND 200 MORE KNOWN TO
MINE-DOOMED MEN FACED DEATH

Salt Lake, Utah, May "A special to
Deseret News from Scofield. at 1880 this
morning says:
At this hour two hundred and one
bodies have been recovered. 1t is known
that between 500 and 400 men are en-
tombed in the mines and it is also known
that a great majority of them have been
killed.
The appalling nature of the disaster
had not fully dawned on the people of this
place last night as the company kept the
grief stricken wives and children away
from the scene of the operations.
All night long lights We're kept burning
in every home in Scofield and in the win
ter quarters, and the means of mothers
and the piteous cries of many orphans are
heartrending.
The two camps have always been con-
spicuous for the large number OF married
men employed This fact makes the dis
aster more appalling and far reaching in
it's results.
Several families have been robbed of all
their male representatives. In the Hun
ter family. seven are missing. Among the
dead are about twenty young boys who
acted as couplers and trap boys.
Just how the catastrophe occurred is
not known as various reasons are being
attributed.
At Provo a mass melting has been held
for the relief of the families of victims
and $4,000 was subscribed.
Salt Lake. Utah. May 1.-The first
news of the Scofield disaster received in
Salt Lake gave the list of killed as about
%. This even was horrifying and caused
profound sensation throughout the city.
Later details showed that the disaster
was more awful even than the first re-
ports indicated, but it was not until
evening that the full extent of the tre-
mendOus calamity was understood. Many
people of this city have friends and rela
tives at the mines. and the newspaper
offices and the coal company's Office
were visited by numbers of anxious peo-
pie who feared some of their friends or
relatives might be numbered among the
victims. AS the list kept constantly
growing, the anxiety of the inquirers in
creased, and many Of them never went
to bed.
, The calamity was of such a size and
so unprecedented in the history of the
state and even of the west that the mind
did not seem to be able to fully grasp it..
The Pleasant Valley Coal company
dates back Is years. It's mines are at
Scofield. where three are located-at Cas-
tie Gate. Sunnyside and Clear creek, the
latter being but seven miles from SEQ
field.
1t appears to have been one of those
accidents that are common to the very
best regulated mines and against the
best endeavors of the most competent su-
/ perintendents. among whom is numbered
even in this terrible calamity, Superin-
| tendent Sharp.
out data to lay blame on any one. OF
| course an inquest will have to determine
| just where the blame rests.
| The afterdamp delayed the work of the
rescuing party, but the magnitude of the
| disaster soon became apparent. All the
! men on the raise known as Pixies Peak
We're lying in clusters.
John James, a county commissioner,
| was found with his son. George, en-
! twined in loving embrace in each others
arms.
| All these men had apparently realized
! that death was coming, for all We're
found as though in attitudes of defense.
Some had their cloaks about them, others
had tried to protect themselves by bury
! ing their faces in the ground floor of the
mine hoping thus to escape the deadly
gas that was fast enveloping them. They
must haze lived for some time in prayer
| full expectation of rescue reaching them.
! Bernard Dougall. promising and en-
| terprising young engineer from Spring
ville Utah. who had only just entered
! the mine few minutes before with his
assistants. was found with his inStru-
ment set. while he and his men lay dead
around it.
/ AS fast as the bodies were removed
they were carried to the company barn
across the canyon. where they were
| washed and identified.
The scene was ghastly, yet most pa
! thetic. Between the blackened and stall
wart men lay about dozen lads who
had been engaged as couplers and trap
pers. Some lay alongside of their fathers
and elder brothers. 1t was a scene that
made many strong man turn away in
tears.
| After the foul air cleared away from
No. l, the work of rescuing began here
and it was soon found that great many
! of the miners of No. l had been suffO-
! Gated. The men from the lower levels
had been warned of the explosion and
made their escape.
! Cars were taken in and the dead We're
/ loaded into them and brought to the
| mouth.
Here the scene beggared all descrip-
| ton, for the men. women and children
relatives of the dead miners, had begun
to gather. and as the bodies We're brought
| out and recognized by their respective
| families the lamentations Were most
heartrending. The dead were all car
ried into the lodging house. opposite the
!. mine and at midnight 1877 stalwart men