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Avondale Mine disaster
The Avondale Mine disaster was a massive fire at the Avondale Colliery near Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania, on September 6, 1869. It caused the death of 110 workers. It started when the wooden lining of the mine shaft caught fire and ignited the coal breaker built directly overhead. The shaft was the only entrance and exit to the mine, and the fire trapped and suffocated 108 of the workers (the other two fatalities were rescuers). It was the greatest mine disaster to that point in American history.
One of the first global relief efforts occurred after the disaster, with donations for the families of victims arriving from all over the world. Another result of the fire was the enacting by the Pennsylvania General Assembly of legislation establishing safety regulations for the coal mining industry, making Pennsylvania the first state to enact such legislation. These laws mandated, among other things, that there must be at least two entrances to underground mines.
The disaster also caused thousands of miners to join the Workingmen's Benevolent Association, one of the first unions to represent coal miners in the United States. Continuing labor and social strife in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields resulted in an increase of the activities of the "Molly Maguires", a controversial organization that conducted violent attacks against anthracite coal mine operators. These conflicts eventually resulted in the trial and execution of twenty members of the Molly Maguires in Pottsville and Jim Thorpe.
The Steuben Shaft at Avondale Colliery is situated on the right bank of the Susquehanna River, four miles from Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania in Luzerne County. It was developed in 1867 by the Nanticoke Coal Company, a subsidiary of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The 327-foot-deep (100 m) shaft allowed access to the 9-foot Red Ash Vein, which yielded a commercially desirable grade of anthracite. The shaft was lined with wooden timber, and partitioned into two sections. One section was reserved for upcast ventilation provided by a furnace; essentially, the upcast shaft was used as a chimney, with the hot exhaust gasses drawing air up and out of the mine. The breaker was built directly on top of the mouth of the shaft, and coal was extracted by use of the room and pillar method. There was only one exit from the mine, namely, the shaft. This practice had been banned in England, but was common for anthracite coal mines in the United States.
The Steuben Shaft seemed to have been a disaster waiting to happen, but this was state-of-the-art construction for American deep-shaft coal mines at the time. It was also, by design, the most economic configuration possible. Lack of a second exit minimized non-productive development time, location of the breaker above the headframe reduced coal haulage to the processing point, and furnace ventilation required less capital outlay than mechanical (fan) ventilation, which had been developed a decade before in England.
About 200 workers were employed at the colliery, with the workforce being predominantly Welsh. A three-month strike had just ended, and the day shift was in the mine on Monday, September 6, 1869.
During the morning of September 6, 1869, the coal breaker atop Steuben Shaft at the Avondale Colliery caught fire. The official investigators concluded that the furnace, located well over 100 feet from the shaft but connected to it by a flue, was the source of ignition, with flames traveling up the wood-reinforced shaft and engulfing the entire wooden structure up to the headhouse, 60 feet above the headframe. However, not everyone has accepted the theory, so ethnic conflict between Welsh and Irish workers, industrial espionage, and spontaneous combustion have also been considered as possible causes. The entire inside day shift was trapped underground.
The flames grew rapidly, quickly setting most of the surrounding wooden structures alight. James M. Corrigary, the writer of a research paper on the incident, described it as such: "Imagine a plane of fire running up at an angle of about thirty-three degrees toward the hill above, and after it has accomplished that distance, see it shoot up in one immense column into the air, while dense clouds of smoke envelope all surrounding objects, and the reader can have a faint idea of the spectacle."
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Avondale Mine disaster AI simulator
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Avondale Mine disaster
The Avondale Mine disaster was a massive fire at the Avondale Colliery near Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania, on September 6, 1869. It caused the death of 110 workers. It started when the wooden lining of the mine shaft caught fire and ignited the coal breaker built directly overhead. The shaft was the only entrance and exit to the mine, and the fire trapped and suffocated 108 of the workers (the other two fatalities were rescuers). It was the greatest mine disaster to that point in American history.
One of the first global relief efforts occurred after the disaster, with donations for the families of victims arriving from all over the world. Another result of the fire was the enacting by the Pennsylvania General Assembly of legislation establishing safety regulations for the coal mining industry, making Pennsylvania the first state to enact such legislation. These laws mandated, among other things, that there must be at least two entrances to underground mines.
The disaster also caused thousands of miners to join the Workingmen's Benevolent Association, one of the first unions to represent coal miners in the United States. Continuing labor and social strife in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields resulted in an increase of the activities of the "Molly Maguires", a controversial organization that conducted violent attacks against anthracite coal mine operators. These conflicts eventually resulted in the trial and execution of twenty members of the Molly Maguires in Pottsville and Jim Thorpe.
The Steuben Shaft at Avondale Colliery is situated on the right bank of the Susquehanna River, four miles from Plymouth Township, Pennsylvania in Luzerne County. It was developed in 1867 by the Nanticoke Coal Company, a subsidiary of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. The 327-foot-deep (100 m) shaft allowed access to the 9-foot Red Ash Vein, which yielded a commercially desirable grade of anthracite. The shaft was lined with wooden timber, and partitioned into two sections. One section was reserved for upcast ventilation provided by a furnace; essentially, the upcast shaft was used as a chimney, with the hot exhaust gasses drawing air up and out of the mine. The breaker was built directly on top of the mouth of the shaft, and coal was extracted by use of the room and pillar method. There was only one exit from the mine, namely, the shaft. This practice had been banned in England, but was common for anthracite coal mines in the United States.
The Steuben Shaft seemed to have been a disaster waiting to happen, but this was state-of-the-art construction for American deep-shaft coal mines at the time. It was also, by design, the most economic configuration possible. Lack of a second exit minimized non-productive development time, location of the breaker above the headframe reduced coal haulage to the processing point, and furnace ventilation required less capital outlay than mechanical (fan) ventilation, which had been developed a decade before in England.
About 200 workers were employed at the colliery, with the workforce being predominantly Welsh. A three-month strike had just ended, and the day shift was in the mine on Monday, September 6, 1869.
During the morning of September 6, 1869, the coal breaker atop Steuben Shaft at the Avondale Colliery caught fire. The official investigators concluded that the furnace, located well over 100 feet from the shaft but connected to it by a flue, was the source of ignition, with flames traveling up the wood-reinforced shaft and engulfing the entire wooden structure up to the headhouse, 60 feet above the headframe. However, not everyone has accepted the theory, so ethnic conflict between Welsh and Irish workers, industrial espionage, and spontaneous combustion have also been considered as possible causes. The entire inside day shift was trapped underground.
The flames grew rapidly, quickly setting most of the surrounding wooden structures alight. James M. Corrigary, the writer of a research paper on the incident, described it as such: "Imagine a plane of fire running up at an angle of about thirty-three degrees toward the hill above, and after it has accomplished that distance, see it shoot up in one immense column into the air, while dense clouds of smoke envelope all surrounding objects, and the reader can have a faint idea of the spectacle."