On August 27, 1922, 47 miners, mostly immigrants from
Italy,
Spain, and
Serbia, were trapped below ground when a fire broke out. Other miners who had been near the surface poured water down the shaft in an attempt to put out the flames. By dawn, townspeople and other miners arrived to help, but it took two-and-a-half days for the fire to be extinguished. Rescuers began re-opening tunnels from the Kennedy Mine which had been closed since an earlier fire in 1919. They were proceeding slowly, but hopes remained high until September 18, when a canary
inserted beyond a
bulkhead by oxygen-tank-equipped workers died. It took three weeks to reach the level at which the miners were trapped. No one survived and evidence indicated that they had all died within hours of the fire breaking out. One of the bodies was not recovered until a year later. It was determined that the mine had violated safety regulations, but the owners escaped punishment, as the
United States Bureau of Mines had little enforcement power. The exact cause of the fire was never determined, but it was said to be "incendiarism" (a broad term meaning either
arson or defective wiring). ==Listing as Superfund Site==