One Hundred Years of Federal Mining Safety and Health Research

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Figure 5. Outdoor morgue following Monongah explosion. A third major disaster on December 19, 1907—a gas and dust explosion—killed 239 miners at the Darr Mine near Jacobs Creek in southwestern Pennsylvania. Many of the miners killed were Hungarian immigrants. A few were former workers from the Naomi Mine that had closed because of the explosion there earlier in the month. A follow-up inquiry determined that the explosion resulted from miners carrying open lamps in an area cordoned off the previous day by the fire boss. The mine’s owner, the Pittsburgh Coal Company, was not held responsible, but abandoned the use of open lamps after the disaster. The Darr Mine explosion remains the worst coal mining disaster in Pennsylvania history (see Figure 6). 5
Figure 6. Plaque commemorating the Darr Mine disaster. The second worst mining disaster in U.S. history, after the Monongah disaster, occurred on Saturday, November 13, 1909, at the Cherry Coal Mine in Cherry, IL. Nearly 500 men and boys were working in the mine that day. At about 1 p.m. a car full of hay, brought down to the second level of the mine to feed the mules, was accidentally ignited by a portable kerosene lamp, in use because of an electrical failure a few days earlier. The fire made its way up the timbers and stairs of the mine shaft, eventually burning the surface building that housed the mine fan. As the fire continued, many miners were saved by escaping up the hoist shaft. Twelve men made six successful rescue trips up and down this shaft, but on the seventh trip, confusing signals caused the hoist cage carrying the rescuers to be lowered down the shaft instead of being raised. As a result, the rescuers and the miners with them on the cage were all killed. Over the next few days, mine rescuers entered the mine wearing newly developed air supply apparatus (see Figure 7). On the eighth day after the fire, the rescuers met eight miners who had barricaded themselves deep in the mine and were trying to find their way out. They directed the rescuers on to the barricaded area where 13 other trapped miners were found alive. A total of 259 miners and rescuers died in the mine fire. All but three of their bodies were eventually recovered from the mine. 6
Page 1 and 2: Department of Health and Human Serv
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Page 5 and 6: 4.3.7 Spokane Mining Research Labor
Page 7 and 8: Figure 26. Joy loading machine in 1
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Page 11 and 12: The origins of the USBM were in the
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Page 29 and 30: observing the effects of temperatur
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Figure 37. Testing of the mine roof
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developed several new illumination
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which disturbs and exploits the lan
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1996 Appropriations Bill stated in
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Novel approaches undertaken by NIOS
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esearchers reanalyzed data from the
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other applications. The Libby mine
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6.2.8 Ground Control Ground falls i
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To facilitate the application of th
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on refuge alternatives [NIOSH, 2007
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6. Reduce ground failure fatalities
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7. Conclusion: Lessons Learned The
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8. References Amandus HE, Piacitell
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National Research Council and Insti
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Appendix A: Joseph A. Holmes Biogra
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Table 1. U.S. Bureau of Mines appro
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Table 3. Metal/Nonmetal Fatalities,
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One Hundred Years of Federal Mining Safety and Health Research

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