River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-12-14
BIG MINE DISASTER
EXPLOSION OF DUST TRAPS MEfl
FAR BACK IN TENNESSEE
WORKINGS.
RESCUERS ARE DRIVEN BACK
BY Flames and Smoke-OnIy Three
Men Escape From Shaft to
Bring Tidings of
Mishap-

Knoxville, Tennessee. - Far back
in the workings of the main Cross
mountain coal mine. near Briceville-
beyond hope of rescue, 100 to $50
miners were cut off from the world
to die of suffocation.
1t was soon after the men had gone
to their work far back in the wind
ing hole in the ground that reaches
two miles into the mountain, that a
puff of air shot from the mouth of the
main shaft. A message of death came
to the men at the surface with the
gust from the earth Then there came
smoke. 1t spelled doom. 1t was sew
eral hours before any effort could be
made to rescue the imprisoned min
ers-or bring out the bodies.
Rescuers Driven Back.
And when the belated rescuers final
ly arrived from adjoining mines it was
too late-if indeed the fate of the i'm
prisoned miners had not been sealed
from the instant of the explosion. AS
the rescue parties penetrated into the
shaft flames leaped out on the heels
of the smoke It would have meant
only the sacrificing of more lives to
make further effort to reach the living
tomb. So the men fell back.
And as they gave up, the women,
widows now, who had gathered at the
mouth of the mine at the first word
of the disaster, turned away in tears
or tore madly at restraining arms,
seeking To go themselves into the pit
where the lives of their husbands had
been snuffed out.
Help Comes From Knoxville.
President Stephenson of the Knox
vile Iron company, operating the
mines, was in charge of train which
left here over the Southern railway.
With him went officials of the local
mine rescue station. They carried
parapheTnalia of rescue.
President Stephenson declared that
the casualties would not be as large as
at first reported from Biceville. He
did not believe there were many men
in the mine at the time of the ex-
plosion. He said the mine is usually
manned by 200 workers.
Three Men Escape.
Members of rescue squads who were
driven from the mine by flames and
smoke, declared they had advanced a
mile into the main shaft until they
were forced to retire and that in that
distance they had discovered no signs
of the imprisoned men, Just before
these rescuers were driven out by
smoke, they encountered a cave-in at
each of the entrances. They were of
such character as to positively confirm
the early theory that dust had caused
the explosion.
Of all the men who went into the
mine, three have escaped. They were
John Lang, Same Farmer and Merit
Hatmaker. They were in one of the
lateral shafts at the time of the ex-
plosion.
The mine is owned and operated by
the Knoxville Iron company and is
about thirty-five miles from Knoxville.
Briceville, as a mining town, has
had a stormy history. 1t was the scene
in the early nineties of rioting when
miners rebelled against working with
convicts leased by the state. Troops
were sent there to quell the trouble.
Briceyille is in Anderson county. At
Coal Creek, near there, on May 10,
1902, 200 men were killed in the
Fraterville mine explosion. There are
several big mines at Briceville, known
as the Cross Mountain system. It
was in one of these that the explosion
occurred.