The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1914-04-25
THOUSAND ARMED MINERS Or
CAME TO REPEL TROOPS
FROM DENVER.
SIX COAL MINES ON FIRE
rHIRTY-FvE PERSONS TRAPPED
BENEATH BLAZING SHAFT
HOUSE AT EMPIRE.
Western Newspaper Union News Service.

and three children, trapped beneath
the blazing shafthouse of the South
western Fuel Company's mine at EN-
pire, near Aguilar, at O'Clock this
morning We're given up for dead.
twenty-five persons trapped in the
shaft of the Southwestern mine are
facing similar fate.
Matthew Waddel, son of the super
intendent, and his wife; Ray Wiswald,
his wife and young baby, and three
other women and two children whose
names have not been ascertained, are
IN the mine at Empire.
One thousand armed strikers are
gathering at Aguilar and along the
line OF the Colorado & Southern rail
road to cut off relief to the two mines
and TO halt the troop train with re-
Endorsements of soldiers from Denver.
The strikers declare that no soldiers
will pass their lines alive today.
The burning of the big mine prop
critics followed day unparalleled in
he history of industrial warfare in the
United States. and in which the list
of known dead increased to twenty-six.
The burning of the Empire mine
ollowed clash early Wednesday
between mine guards and strikers.
The miners are accused of throwing
dynamite bombs and sealing the
mouth of the mine against escape by
the thirty imprisoned within.
H. D. King, one OF the owners OF
the Empire mine, at . o'clock this
morning telephoned that the stope of
the shaft has been destroyed and the
air shaft is the only path to safety
Five hundred armed strikers, he says,
surround and fire into the blazing pit.
He says the imprisoned guard and Of
ficials of whom President Sipple of
Denver is one. can not possible escape
alive.
To his plea that he be allowed to or
garize a rescue party, he says miners
have asked him to remember how the
women died in the pits ct Ludlow. he
saws they have told him they will
shoot down any person who goes to
the rescue.
No. 4 of the Colorado Coal Company
in Green canon, according to King, is
now in flames and the fate Of the mine
attaches who are thought to nave
fled into the slope, is unknown.
Six great coal properties were In
flames at l o'clock this morning. They
are. The Southwestern mine, owned
by the Southwestern Fuel Company;
the Hasting mine, owned by the victor
American Fuel Company; the Delagua
mine, owned by the Victor American
Fuel Company: the Empire mine,
owned by the Empire Coal Mining
Company, and the Green Canon mine,
owned by the National Fuel Company.
Two more mines are in ashes.
Scores are homeless and missing,
and scores are hurt, while in the hills
striking coal miners await the coming
of dawn to attack again about hali
their number in mine guards and
state troops, stretched out in the hills
over eighteen miles of territory.
All the strike district, from Rouse,
twelve miles south of Walsenburg, to
Delagua, four miles northwest OF the
Ludlow station, is in the strikers pos
session
Three battles were fought yesterday
at Delagua, the Black Hills and the
Empire mine Three mine guards
were killed at Delagua and two are
missing.
In the early stages OF the fight at
Empire, which continued Tuesday
night, two strikers met death and two
were wounded. Dynamite was resort
ed to by the strikers to drive the thir-
ty imprisoned persons from their shef
ter in the mine stope, according to
telephone message from Trinidad by
H. d, King, one of the mine owners,
who said that he was virtual prls-
oner in his house, short distance
from the mine opening.
Lieutenant Governor Fitzgerald
lasA night ordered out all the state
militia to suppress disorder in the
strike field after determining to cali
a special session of the Legislature to
provide funds for payments OF the
troops.
Three hundred armed men are
marching from Trinidad to Ludlow to
make a final attack upon the militia
stationed there before the arrival OF
troops ordered out by Adjutant Cen
eral Chase
Fear is entertained here that the
force, coupled with that of the strikers
known to be in the Black hills, will be
sufficient to drive the militia back up
on the burning coal camps of Hast
ings and Delagua.
Major Hamrock over the telephone
last night said that he had 100 men
and two machine guns with which to
oppose them.
The militia has been able to give no
assistance either in checking the
spread of flames in outlying proper
ties or to defend the lives of those i'm
prisoned in the burning Empire shaft