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Coal mine fire at Franklin suffocates 37 miners on August 24, 1894.

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On August 24, 1894, 37 miners die fighting a fire in the Oregon Improvement Co. coal mine at Franklin. The following day, a coroner's jury rules that the fire was caused by "party or parties unknown" who "did willfully, knowingly and maliciously cause said fire with intent and purpose to do great injury and damage to the lives of the miners and property of the Oregon Improvement Company." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, "few can be found here who are not in hearty accord with it."

Mine officials would not comment on the matter, but the following exchange with a pit boss was noted:

"I have an idea who set the breast [the face being worked at the end of an excavation] on fire, but I won't say."

"Why?"

"Cause the man I suspect is dead. He was smothered in the level."

The fire itself might not have had a fatal effect except for the combination of two unrelated factors. A worker shut down a fan that supplied air to the different levels, and a gas tester, John K. Johns, searching for his miner son, opened a door from another area thinking it would drive the smoke out. This changed the air flow and trapped the miners between two walls of smoke, approximately 1,300 feet below the surface. Johns was found with his son in his arms. Both were dead. The miners were apparently building a "stopping" or bulkhead to seal themselves off from the fire and smoke when they were overcome.

Oregon Improvement Co. superintendent Theron B. Corey (1846-1909) traveled from Seattle by train to supervise the recovery of bodies. The firm paid for all the burials and contributed $4,000 to a fund for the support of widows and orphans. Approximately, $2,000 was raised in contributions from citizens in Seattle and from the mining communities.

The dead miners were identified as follows:

Franklin was located in the Green River Gorge, approximately 1.6 miles east of Black Diamond.

Sources:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 25, 1894, p. 1; Ibid., August 26, 1894, pp. 1-2; Ibid., August 27, 1894, pp. 1-2; Ibid., August 30, 1894, p. 8.

By David Wilma, January 01, 1999

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