Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1909-11-23
MEN DOOMED IN FLAMING PIT
Hay Being Taken Down by En-
gineer Becomes Ignited from Cap
Lamp and Blasts Follow.
HEROIC DOCTOR SAVES MANY
Fire Is smothered and First Res
No Bodies, Alive or Dead.


in the history of the United States oc-
Cured Saturday afternoon in the little
town of Cherry. Bureau County, Ill.
A fire that started in the main shaft
of the ST. Paul Coal Companys works
choked out the lives of 300 men work
ing there Thirteen rescuers who went
down into blazing shaft were roasted
alive to man. A few score of surviv
ors, blackened by smoke and singed
by fame, crawled from reeking crew
ices in the earth to tell an incoherent
story of almost inconeeivable horrors
in the corridors below The rest
there were 565 human beings in the
mine when the fire broke out-per
ished in the fiame-swept works.
Saturday night the exits of the mine,
from which smoke and flame had
belched since 1870 in the afternoon,
were battened down. This heroic rem
edy was decided on as a last means of
extinguishing the fire in the works
beneath. Above a seething furnace, in
which three-fourths of the male popula-
ton of the community is imprisoned,
the town waited in silent dread for the
dawning of the morning. When day
came the matches were to be opened
and the toll of death begun. The cry
of the widow and the orphan rang
dolefully on the ear.
The fire broke out at about 1880.
Engineer John Cowley, who is in
charge of the elevator running from
the surface to the higher of the three
veins in the mine, had descended with
load of six bales of hay. On the
way down the hay was ignited by his
torch. Reaching the level below him
he dragged the bales out of the car
and attempted to hurl them into the
stump of the second shaft, at the bot
tom of which is a pool of water. Be
fore he could do so both the first and
second shafts were afire. A strong
draft coming up to the surface turned
the two shafts into red-hot flues. AL
most before the danger could be real
lied the mine was ablaze everywhere,
and thS main avenues of escape cut off.
The Cherry disaster, like every great
disaster in America, developed its men
of the hour, its heroes. There is in
Cherry one man who Is deserving of
all the glory that the highest personal
bravery and self-sacrifice merit. He
is DIR. L. B. Howe, the st. Taul Min
ing Company's physician. To him
twenty-five of the rescued miners owe
their lives Escaping by miracle
from a red-hot lift in which twelve of
his companions were roasted like quail
on a griddle, he returned six times
| alone into the seething inferno of the
shaft, and each time came to the sur
| face with group of men he had saved
| He desisted from his efforts only after
it had become apparent to every one
that to descend in to the shaft again
would be certain death.
Exploration of the mine was begun
Sunday Volunteers, equipped with
oxygen helmets, essayed to explore the
shaft. Two of them in a bucket were
lowered three times down the air
shaft They found no bodies. living
or dead. At a depth of $40 feet the
| temperature of the mine was found
to be practically normal-94 degrees
indicating that the fire had burned
| itself out.
Mine Stin Burning.
Fire in the Cherry mine continued
1 all Of
forts at rescue of the 800 or more en-
tombed miners or recovery of their
bodies. The pit remained sealed, and,
/ although every effort to fight the fire
was made. it probably will be several
DAYS before the shaft can be opened
with safety Temperature taken at the
| top of the burning mine Tuesday reg
istered los degrees Fahrenheit. This
was in the wet surface sand and in
dictated that the fire below is intense.
| Meanwhile The hopeless mourners
were giving part of their attention TO
| the rites over the victims whose
| bodies had been found Funerals of
/ eight of the miners were held Tues
| day. and the surviving miners and
/ families of the dead filed through the
| streets behind the hearses. which were
| driven in line. Several of the dead
were taken in funeral trains to Ladd
and other nearby towns. Special flu
neral trains were ordered and hearses
were provided from Ladd, Spring VAL
| lev. La Sale and Mendoza. Officials
| of the mine workers unions took an
active part in the burial ceremonies.
Mere children Die I'm Mine.
How many of the underground work.
ers who persisted in the Cherry mine
holocaust we're mere ehildren-5oys
| who had been haruessed up in the in.
dustry in their first teens. That is
bvly ose Of the problems confronting
tho Investigators. While the mine Of
| ficiaIs in unison have declared that the
child labor laws Nave not been VIC
lated. and that no hoy under is years
of age persisted in the flames of the
relentless inferno there are mothers
who deny this in grief-stricken voices
Aid for Miners Families.
With the arrival of Ernest p Bick.
nell. national director of the Red
Cross Society; sherman 2. Kingsley
superintendent Of the United Chart
ties Of Chicago. Prof. Graham Taylor
of the Chicago Commons and other
philanthropie workers at Cherry steps
were taken toward extending aid tc
the needy families OF the men who mel
| death IN the mine disaster.
Phcnograph records made by emf
nent actors are used in some of the
Vienna schools to teach defamation