A History of Coal Mining 4
In Las Animas County, Colorado

Another major actor entered the stage in 1906 when the American Smelting and Refining Company, ASARCO, of which the Guggenheim family had recently gained control, bought and began construction of a mine site up Reilly Canyon. ASARCO needed a consistent supply of coke for its smelters both in Colorado and in EI Paso. For a year the company poured in money to build a company town, a washer house, a tipple, and one of the most impressive batteries of coke ovens in the state. The ASARCO subsidiary in charge of the operation was called the Carbon Coal and Coke Company. Mine number one opened in 1907 and within two years was sending 800 tons of coke per day from its 350 ovens to the ASARCO smelter in EI Paso. The population of the company town of Cokedale was by then 1500.

In its first decade under Rockefeller control, CF&I remained the leader in fuel production in the state. The Frederick and Quinto mines were opened along the Purgatoire, and the Morley mine begun at the base of Raton Pass. Morley quickly attained notoriety as being one of the gassiest mines in the district, a fact which precluded the use of electrical equipment in the mine. Mules were the sole means of hauling out the coal until the mine was closed in 1956. Despite the gassiness, the history of the mine remained untainted by explosive disaster.

The EI Moro ovens were abandoned in 1908 as the demand for coke dropped further, in concert with the drop in silver mining in the state. Coal production went through a major slump in the early teens, to be revived only by the demands of WWI. Those were not good years in the Las Animas County coal mines. Major coal mine explosions punctuated these years. Unionists were to claim that Colorado's death toll from mine explosions, the worst in the nation, was due to the same company intransigence which had not allowed unionization of the miners.

On the last day of January, 1910, 35 of the 110 men in Primero mine had already walked out of the mine and another four were in the portal mouth when an explosion shot out of the portal. Three of these four were killed when they were hurled against a set of moving coal cars. One man inside was found alive. The last of the bodies was found three and a half months later for a total of 75 dead. Then, at ten o'clock on the night of October 8 that same year, 56 were killed by a dust explosion in the Starkville mine. Only a month later at Victor-American's number three mine at Delagua, 79 more were killed, three of these killed by flying rocks and timbers outside the portal. After a four month lull, Cokedale blew; and then Hastings on June 18, 1912. Twelve men were killed by an explosion caused by a defective safety lamp carried by the fire boss. Hastings was to have yet a worse day before the end of the decade.

Then, the event in Las Animas coal mining which caught the national eye is that written about in McGovern's book, The Great Coalfield War, in Beshoar's Out of the Depths, and fictionalized in Sinclair's The Coal War (sequel to his King Coal). These center around the major coal strike of 1913-14, and an event within it which has become known as the Ludlow Massacre.

Mine explosions are quick events. In a matter of seconds the outcome is largely determined, though this may stretch out to a matter of days if there is a chance of live recovery of some of the trapped miners. Yet, a strike such as that back in 1903-04, which ended in massive deportation from the mines, and the strike in 1913-14, which culminated in the Ludlow disaster, are the kind of things that smolder.

District 15 of the UMW called a general strike on September 23, 1913 in order to call attention to the safety conditions and the pay and to gain company recognition of the labor union. The miners abandoned their homes and moved into tent colonies set up at the base of the coal-bearing canyons, on plots of land leased by the secretary-treasurer of the UMW district 15 for this purpose. The Colorado National Guard was eventually called out in fear of increased violence and damage to the mine works. The major camp was at Ludlow, situated at the base of the canyons holding the CF&I mines of Berwind and Tobasco, and the Victor-American mines of Hastings and Delagua. For the entire winter, these people lived in their canvas homes while company officials refused to negotiate with the union leaders such as John Lawson. The famous Mother Jones periodically bolstered morale with rousing speeches. But the companies did not budge. CF&I, Victor-American, and Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, the three giants in Colorado coal production, refused recognition of the union. Winter dragged on, with minor skirmishes intensified by the trigger-happiness of a set of national guardsmen who had received their training in the brutal Philippines War. This was also the time of the "Death Car," an armored vehicle that ran up and down the railroad tracks between the CF & I Steel Works in Pueblo and the mine foremen and guards scattered along the line in Las Animas County.