Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster

The hydroelectric project began in 1927, when Union Carbide and Carbon Company, later shortened to Union Carbide, created a wholly owned subsidiary, the New Kanawha Power Company. The name "Kanawha" comes from the Native American tribe upon whose land the project would be built. The Kanawha River, a tributary of the Ohio River, and West Virginia's largest inland waterway (96.5 miles), begins near the town of Gauley Bridge, but it did not have the speed to create hydroelectric power. The plan was to divert water from the fast-flowing New River through Gauley Mountain to generate hydro-electric power generation at a plant in Alloy, West Virginia. The additional advantage of this tunnel was that it had a downward angle of 162 feet. The project came to employ nearly 3000 men, with three-fourths of them African-American. The first step was to construct a dam immediately below Hawks Nest to divert water from New River near Ansted, West Virginia into the tunnel. The water would then re-enter the Kanawha River near Gauley Bridge leaving a section known as "the Dries" in between. Beginning on March 31,1930, its contractor, Rinehart and Dennis, the lowest bidder among 35 and one of few large enough to tackle this project, According to records, the workers created between 250 and 300 feet of tunnel per week. == Workers ==

Facing widespread unemployment during the Great Depression, the men came to West Virginia to dig the tunnel. Even though the nearly 80% of the people of Fayette County, where the project was located, were white, the majority of the workforce hired were Black. Their wages were in scrip, which meant they had to use the company store, and their pay was at a lower rate than the white workers. Still, they were happy to have work, and the pay. One worker, Shirley Jones, who at 18 was expecting to make good money and return home to wed, said, “Think of it, honey. A job! Twenty-five cents an hour, 12 hours a day. That’s—why, that’s $3 a day! We’ll be marryin' soon, honey.” He was the first to die. They worked ten- to fifteen-hour shifts using drills and dynamite to mine sandstone composed primarily of cemented quartz (silica) sand. Once Rinehart & Dennis learned that the tunnel's route would be through a vein of high-quality silica used to make ferro silicon, a component used to make steel, As a result, again, according to transcripts from a Congressional Inquiry in 1936, workers were not given any masks or breathing equipment to use while mining; the company chose not to use "wet drilling," a type of drilling that removes harmful dust. Some reports claim the silica turned drinking water white. Black workers told Congress in 1936 that they were denied breaks and even forced to work at gunpoint by "shack rousters" or individuals who served as law enforcement. A large number of workers eventually died from silicosis, in some cases within a year. There are no definitive statistics as to the Hawks Nest death toll, partially because many African-American workers from the southern US returned home or left the region after becoming sick, making it difficult to calculate an accurate total. Union Carbide estimated the number of deaths at 109, which is the number documented in an onsite historical marker. A Congressional hearing in 1936 placed the death toll at 476. Martin Cherniak, a physician who published a history of the event, put the number at 764. == Legal trials and government investigations ==

The tragedy led to two major trials and a congressional investigation, yet even today, neither Rinehart & Dennis (still in operation) nor Union Carbide admit any guilt or responsibility. In 1932, the first legal claim leading to a trial came from Cora Jones who filed a suit against Rinehart and Dennis after her husband and three sons died. Overall, there were 538 lawsuits filed, requesting a total of $4 million. The trial ended in 1933, after hearing nearly 170 witnesses. The jury could not make a decision, and the victims ended with a small settlement of $130,000; lawyers took their 50%. 1936. House of Representatives Committee on Labor summarized their findings by saying "the tunnel was begun, continued, and completed with grave and inhuman disregard of all consideration for the health, lives and futures of the employees. That as a result many workmen became infected with silicosis; that many have died from the disease and many not yet dead are doomed to die. Union Carbide and Carbon Company responded with a report. == Regulatory legacy ==

==Hawks Nest workers memorials and gravesites==

In 1986, West Virginia placed a historical marker, a three-foot sign, at the site.Construction of nearby tunnel, diverting waters of New River through Gauley Mt for hydroelectric power, resulted in state's worst industrial disaster. Silica rock dust caused 109 admitted deaths in mostly black, migrant underground work force of 3,000. Congressional hearing placed toll at 476 for 1930-35. Tragedy brought recognition of acute silicosis as occupational lung disease and compensation legislation to protect workers.In 2009, another memorial to the Hawks Nest workers and their gravesite was installed at 98 Hilltop Drive in Mount Lookout, near Summersville Lake and U.S. Route 19 (). The site is located several miles from Martha White’s farm at Summersville where many of the black miners were buried, since they were not allowed to be buried in "white" cemeteries. The location of the site was rediscovered with help of West Virginia State University professor Richard Hartman, after local couple George and Charlotte Yeager spearheaded effort to build the memorial in 2009. The Memorial was dedicated on September 7, 2012. The memorial, unmarked for 40 years, sits where Department of Highways reburied the bodies of about 48 miners while widening U.S. Route 19. The text reads:This Memorial honors an estimated 764 tunnel workers who died from mining a 3.8 mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain to divert water from the New River to a hydroelectric plant near Gauley Bridge in 1930–31. The tunnel cut through almost pure silica in some areas and exposed the unprotected workers to silica dust that quickly caused acute silicosis, a fatal lung disease. This is considered America's worst industrial disaster. Workers in the tunnel were primarily migrant workers, mostly black, who were paid a few dollars per day. When they became sick, many were driven out of the camps to die elsewhere. Those African Americans who died in the camps could not be buried in local "white" cemeteries. A few were sent by rail back to their families. More were taken at night under the cover of darkness to Summersville and buried unceremoniously on a farm. Later these graves had to be moved to widen US Route 19. The remains were disinterred in 1972 and transported several miles to the present site. The decomposed remains were placed in child size coffins and reburied here, resulting in about 48 small grave depressions seen at this grave site.An online site, Hawk's Nest Names, is also a place to learn more about who was killed as a result of this disaster. The site also contains a 1936 report from Union Carbide and Carbon Company, focusing on accident and mortality data and miscellaneous data on silicosis. ==Cultural references==

• 1936: Under the pseudonym of "Pinewood Tom," Josh White wrote and sang "Silicosis Is Killing Me" (1936), describing the plight of the miners. An article about this song is available in the Internet Archives. • 1938: Muriel Rukeyser wrote a poetry sequence, The Book of the Dead, about this disaster, which can be found in her collection of poems: U.S. 1 (Covici and Friede, 1938). • 1938: Vladimir Pozner's Disunited States (chapter "Cadavers, By-products of Dividends"), Seven Stories Press, 2014 ( was originally published in French in 1938) • 1941: Hubert Skidmore, a West Virginian, immortalized the tragic events from the common man's perspective in his book ''Hawk's Nest'' (originally published in 1941). This book followed the fictional accounts of several tunnel workers and their families. Skidmore wrote the book only a few years after the incident and likely used direct sources for his story development. • 1998: The tragedy was included in Saints and Villains, a 1998 novel by Denise Giardina. • 2001: Hawks Nest is also mentioned in a section entitled ''Dying for a Living: The Hawk's Nest Incident in the book Trust Us, We're Experts (2001) by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.'' • 2016: "The Book of the Dead," an essay by Catherine V. Moore with Photos by Lisa Elmaleh. • 2024: ''Appalachian Ghost: A Photographic Reimagining of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster'' by Raymond Thompson, Jr. • 2025: Gardiner Harris discusses Hawks Nest in his 2025 book No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson. • 2025: David Kelley's film, The Book of the Dead. ==See also==