Okolona messenger., 1911-12-14
TENNESSEE HAS
MINE HORROR
$50 MEN AND BOYS PERISH NEAR
BRICEVILLE.
rt.Rending Scenes Enacted at Mine
Entrance When Wives and Children
of Entombed Miners Appear.

Briceville, Tenn.-That every miner OF
the number who walked into the Cross
Mountain mine at Briceville Saturday
morning met death in dust explosion
which occurred within one hour after
they had started to work, is a foregone
conclusion at midnight. Although res
cuers have been at work for hours and
although every known piece of apparatus
in the mine rescue service has been put
in use there is little doubt that every
man is dead.
The force of he explosion was terrific
and the hope that any one could survive
such shock is beyond belief Between
1876 and 165 men checked in.
The mouth of the mine is thronged
with anxious friends of the entombed
men who closely question every worker
as he comes to the mouth to gain
breath of fresh air Several women still
remain in the party of watchers and
their grief is heart-rending.
Company Abandons Hope.
The Knoxville Iron Company, owners
of the mine, have about abandoned hope
of finding anyone alive and have wired
Knoxville for a shipment of a carload Of
coffins.
To add to the gravity Of the situation
there is a food famine in the stricken
town, owing to the great influx of peo-
pie. Supplies will be rushed to the
scene in the morning.
An explosion of blasting powder or
coal dust rocked the earth within few
minutes after the shift had gone to work.
Three of the men, fortunately late to
their work, were in the passage leading
to the working pit two miles into the
bowels of the earth. They heard the
crash, and, turning, fled for their lives.
Horror stricken, they crawled to the
surface and gave the alarm. In an hour
rescue parties were organized and start
ed into the shaft.
But the rescue parties We're impotent.
Almost as soon as they descended a
column of smoke trickled from the
mouth of the cavern. A few seconds
later it became thick, black pillar
and the rescuers, choking and blinded,
rushed to the air.
The only hope now expressed is that
the explosion caved in part of the
roof and blocked the passageway be-
tween few of the miners and the
deadly fire.
The great air fan, &ere kept pump
ing at top speed throughout the day
and night in the hope that some one
was alive, and might, with proper air,
be rescued.
Rescue parties, time after time, at
tempted to descend into the workings,
but were driven back. Once the body
of miner was found. 1t was brought
to the surface and identified as that OF
Lee Paulson.
Shortly before midnight the rescuing
party uncovered two additional bodies,
one being that of Taylor Little, while
the other could not be identified. The
workers had passed and bratticed Up
twenty of the twenty-seven cross-en.
tries, leaving but seven yet to reach
before getting to the head of the mine,
and unless men are found alive in these
few remaining cross-entries, there is
none in the mine alive, and hope that
any such are yet in there has about
vanished. When the head of the mine is
reached the searchers will turn back and
no longer look for the living, but hunt
only in the debris for the dead.
The entombed men are walled in by
thousands of tons of slate and coal,
which were scattered loose from the
walls by the force of the explosion.
Women, wild-eyed and disheveled, ran
shrieking to the mouth of the pit and
attempted to enter what would have
been a place of certain DEATH Scores
of men dragged them back, and with
rude efforts tried to cheer them.
Even before that, it is feared the men
and boys who may have been saved from
instant death will have starved to death.
The federal rescue crew was powerless.
1t could make no headway in the smoke
filled pit and then announcement that
nothing could be done was received with
a long tremulous sob from the crowd of
hysterical men and women who sur.
rounded the opening.
Hundreds of wives and mothers, sweet
hearts and children, stood with tense,
drawn faces, sobbing the whole day and
night.
HAD OTHER DISASTERS