From Part 1: September 9th was the anniversary of the worst mining accident in Golden’s history: The White Ash Mine disaster.
Part 2. Disaster Strikes
On 9 September 1889, at about 4:00 p.m. after the evening shift had gone down to work in the active level (720 feet) of the White Ash Mine, Charles Hoagland, mine engineer, reported:
The men below sent up a signal to send down the cage. It was at once lowered. It went to within about 6 feet of the bottom of the [vertical] shaft and then struck something…We worked with the cage for a few minutes, and finally something below broke. Since then we have heard nothing…[The foreman, Evan Jones] went down on a ladder to the 280-foot level and came back…the air was so bad he had to ascend…[The men] went over to the old [abandoned Loveland] mine [located 1960 feet to the north across Clear Creek] at 6 [p.m.] and found that shaft to be perfectly dry. [It was always filled with water, used at the Golden Brick Co.].
People gathered at the mine throughout the evening and night, crazy with grief. Inspector McNeil was called at 9 p.m. When McNeil arrived at midnight, the shaft was full of carbon dioxide and the top of water was 100 feet above the bottom of the shaft. By 8:00 a.m. McNeil and mine foreman Evan Jones were able to go down the shaft in a bucket to the 480-ft level [those two gentlemen had guts], where they could hear water running. On the way they also encountered intense heat and could see timbers on fire at the 280-ft level. Within days, the mine workings completely filled with water that could not be pumped out. All was lost.
Inspector McNeil formally determined that the rock and coal pillar separating the Old Loveland and White Ash mines, probably weakened by a coal fire, broke, allowing water to burst through the 280-ft tunnel of the White Ash Mine. The water flowed quickly across the tunnel to reach the vertical shaft and then to the very lowest 720-foot level of the White Ash Mine, drowning the miners.
Thereafter, the White Ash mine was abandoned and at one point in time was considered a cemetery. Every year on the anniversary of the disaster, Goldenites placed flowers and held a memorial at the former mine site. On 9 September 1936, in commemoration of the lives lost in the tragedy, a monument was placed at the west end of the Mines football field above the mine tunnels. The ceremony, attended by 1000 Goldenites, was led by Mayor Bert Jones, the son of former mine foreman Evan Jones, who sought to rescue the trapped miners 47 years earlier. A new memorial, at the site of the former mine entrance on 12th Street, was dedicated by Mayor Marv Kay on 29 October 2016.
Sources: Colorado Transcript 10 Sept 1936
Foothills Genealogical Association of Colorado, 1993, WPA history of Golden, p. 474-476 has the full account from the Golden Weekly Globe. Issues recounting the disaster in the Colorado Transcript and Golden Weekly Globe are lacking in the collections of Colorado Historical Newspapers.
McNeil, 1890, 4th Biennial Report of the State Inspector of Coal Mines of the State of Colorado.
This was an excerpt from Golden Rocks: The Geology and Mining History of Golden, Colorado by Donna Anderson and Paul Haseman.
The authors have granted me permission to reprint excerpts, but I recommend that you read the whole book. You can buy a copy from the Lulu website, borrow one from the library (there’s a waiting list!), or read it online for free, courtesy of the School of Mines library.
