RSS | 
Twitter
| 
Be a fan!
Longtime miner recounts Marianna disaster in new book
jstevens@observer-reporter.com
It was called a model mine, perhaps one of the best collieries in the country and the world.
No mine, someone said 75 years ago, was ever planned with better care and equipped with better facilities and improvements to avoid accidents.
Rate This Story:
1 the lowest - 5 the highest
Current rating:
The story of this mine disaster is the subject of longtime coal miner Lonnie Miller's latest book, "Marianna & Mine No. 58 - The Big Mine."
The Carmichaels author has written and published five other books about coal mines. Along with his wife, Rita, Miller wrote two books on the Robena Mine, one on the Warwick Coal Mines and another on the Cumberland Mine fire in 1987.
Preceding his account of the Marianna Mine disaster was a book he wrote and published in 2003 called, "Nemacolin Mine Fire, March 26, 1971 & Memories of: The Mine, The People."
Miller is a retired electrical inspector for the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, and he also worked in Robena and Dilworth mines during his 34-year career underground.
Miller said he doesn't write these books to get rich. "I am lucky if I break even," he said. "I just love to do the research and writing."
The Marianna Mine book, all 208 pages of it, is laid out in three sections and covers a period from 1903 to 1988.
The first parts deals with the explosion that killed the 154 miners; the second describes an explosion in 1957 that claimed six lives; and the third deals with an underground fire in 1988.
But it is that first section that is so compelling.
For weeks, Miller notes, the front pages of The Washington Reporter were filled with stories detailing rescue attempts, but, more to the point, the stories told of the gruesome recovery of the bodies.
Miraculously, two days after the explosion, one man was rescued alive from the mine.
Fred Elinger, a European immigrant, had escaped the disaster that had snuffed out the lives of so many others.
He was not expected to live, but he did recover and on Dec. 21, he left the hospital and awaited the arrival of his wife and four children who were making their way to the United States by boat.
Two days after the accident, 61 of the bodies had been recovered, and while rescue attempts frantically were under way, other attempts were being made to determine the cause of the explosion.
It was not until late in December during a coroner's inquest that the cause finally was known.
Expert witnesses, mostly mining inspectors from around the state, had been called to testify as to their findings after exploring the mine.
It was their conclusion that the explosion was the direct result of a "blown-out shot with a high air power ventilation making the air current of mine saturated with dust."
In 1908, all drilling was done by hand, and in order to loosen the coal, dynamite had to be embedded in the wall with the powder pushed tight into the manmade holes.
Apparently, what happened in 1908 was the triggering of an explosion of concentrated coal dust when one of the dynamite charges was ignited.
For more information, or to purchase Miller's book on the Marianna Mine, contact the author at 724-966-2469 or millerlr@alltel.net.
