page_title: Colorado Labor Wars
section_title: Union violence, anti-union violence, and unnatural disasters
hierarchical_section_title: Colorado Labor Wars / Strikes not called / Union violence, anti-union violence, and unnatural disasters
caption_attribution_description: English: Independence Mine - near Victor, Colorado Springs &amp; Cripple Creek Railway. Image from the George H. Stone Collection of Colorado geological features and views, Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
context_page_description: The Colorado labor wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the US state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners. Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes.
  A nearly simultaneous strike in Colorado's northern and southern coal fields was also met with a military response by the Colorado National Guard.
  Colorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one exception, sided with the mine operators. Additional participants have included the National Guard, often informally called the militia; private contractors such as the Pinkertons, Baldwin–Felts, and Thiel detective agencies; and various labor entities, Mine Owners' Associations, and vigilante groups and business-dominated groups such as the Citizens' Alliance.
context_section_description: Using dynamite to effect social changes seems to have been a tradition in the Cripple Creek District even when there was no strike. Private assay offices catered to the individual prospector, and to miners who stole gold out of the mines. Mine owners were concerned about ore theft, and several large mines hired Pinkerton agents beginning in 1897,p.75 but high grading — the theft of rich gold ore by miners — was difficult to control. Jameson observes that "the Mine Owners' Association paid (someone) to blow up assay offices in 1902 to try to stop high grading."
caption: Stratton's Independence Mine and Mill. Image from the George H. Stone Collection of Colorado geological features and views, Special Collections, Tutt Library, Colorado College.
exif: {}