|
THE RED JACKET MINE EXPLOSION
|
To view pictures taken after the explosion 
The following is the list of
the victims of the Keen Mountain disaster as identified by the payroll
clerk of the Red Jacket Coal Corporation at Hanger, Virginia.
Smith
Arrington - [My Grandfather]
Click
here to view a picture of Smith Arrington
J.
L. BLEVINS
ED
BOYD
ERNEST
BOYD
F.
T. BUCKLIN
ORVILLE
COLLINS
J.
W. COMBS
CARL
C. COMPTON
D.
ESTEL COMPTON
FLOYD
AUBREY COMPTON
JOHN
C. COMPTON
RODNEY
CRIGGER
CLAUDE
DOLLAR
R.
H. GENTRY
EDWARD
GILLEY
GRANVILLE
GOINS
W.
H. GRANT
L.
B. HAGY
O.
C. HITCHCOCK
DREW
HOWARD
CHARLES
KEEN
HARVEY
KEEN
HARPER
LESTER
LEE
MARSHALL
C.
S. MATNEY
LONNIE
MAY
TOM
MAY
CHAS
MILLER
AUVILLE
NORRIS
ANCIL
OWENS
KILMER
PATRICK
FRANK
H. RATLIFF
GLENN
RATLIFF
TOM
RATLIFF
COY
REED
JOHN
ROWE
E.
H. SISK
LUTHER
SIZEMORE
ORVILLE
STREET
CEDRIC
SUTHERLAND
WALKER
SUTHERLAND
Click
here to view a picture of Walker Sutherland
MARCUS
THACKER
HOWARD
VARNEY
ROBERT
WATSON
W.
E. WILLIS
April 22, 1938 is the date of
the mine explosion at the Keen Mountain Mine of Red Jacket Coal Corp.,
which claimed the lives of 45 miners.
J. W. (Slim) Elam, the only
man inside the mine who escaped death from the blast, has saved a copy
of the Bluefield Telegraph, dated April 24, 1938.
The major part of the article
describing the blast has been salvaged by Mr. Elam and that is what follows:
With all of the forty-five victims
of Friday's mine blast removed from the Keen Mountain operation of the
Red Jacket Coal corporation, sorrowing relatives in the town of Hanger,
Va., awaited today the return of the bodies of their loved ones.
The last of the bodies was recovered
from the mine at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Upon identification the bodies
were taken to Richlands and placed in improvised morgues in that town along
with others recovered from the ill-fated mine early in the day.
A crew of embalmers, who had
been summoned by the regular morticians of Richlands, worked diligently
all day Saturday and throughout last night preparing the bodies for burial.
The bodies will be moved into
Hanger early today. No definite plans had been arranged for the burial
of the victims, most of whom are natives of Hanger and immediate section
of Buchanan county.
Reports circulated late yesterday
to the effect that one man in the mine had escaped the horrible fate of
fellow workers were branded as false by officials of the Red Jacket Company
last night, who said:
"No one who was in the mine
at the time of the blast escaped."
Sweating sooty-faced members
of the mine rescue squads worked in thirty-minute relays in the furnace-like
atmosphere until they had explored every avenue of the big mine. Two members
were overcome by bad air which had to be blown out before the final group
of bodies could be removed.
For many hours the crews worked
grimly, without hope of finding life among the victims trapped by the blast,
but unwilling to cease their efforts until every miner had been accounted
for.
State mining officials had set
no definite date for the official inquest last night.
Physicians at Mattie Williams
hospital, Richlands, were more hopeful yesterday for the recovery of Clarence
Combs and K.W. Elams, the two men who were injured by the blast. They with
Ed Harris are the only living survivors of the night crew. Harris, who
was not so seriously injured, was removed to his home in Hanger.
From his hospital cot Combs
offered a feeble smile and vacuous idea as to what hapened.
"I was standing near the main
entry and the next thing I knew I woke up under a motor. It was terribly
hot," he said.
Among the dead are several relatives.
Tom May and Lonnie May were twin brothers. There were two Ratliff brothers
and a father and a son, by the name of Ratliff, listed among the victims.
This was the first major disaster
to strike the newly-developed field in Buchanan county and was a nation's
major disaster of 1938.
The tremendous crowd that had
gathered in Hanger on the evening of the explosion dwindled fast and when
the last of the victims was removed yesterday afternoon, there were only
a few hundred persons in the community.
Don Shilds, tipple employee,
who was down in the tipple dropping cars when the detonation rocked the
community, gave this version of the blast:
"I just happened to be looking
up in that direction just in time to see John Blevins and Coy Reed come
hurtling down the hillside a half mile away."
Officials estimated that Blevins
and Reed, both decapitated, were employed respectively as a motorman and
brakeman and were priming their electric locomotives to take a final "man
trip" into the mine.
A four-car train of similar
cargo had vanished into the yawning entrance ten minutes before. It bore
some forty men into the cavernous workings to begin the night shift.
A slightly less number would
have met the same fate of their predecessors except for the policy of changing
shifts at slight intervals to allow the miners leaving shifts in more distant
areas to reach the surface.
While Blevins and Reed, who
were to be hurled into eternity the next minute, manipulated their oil
cans, the men to be carried in on the second trip made final preparations
at the lamp house.
Far below in the valley through
which courses the babbling Levisa river, loiterers at store fronts witnessed
the tragic spectacle from beginning to end.
They saw a sudden gust of black,
enveloping clouds spurt out of "B" entry, as if a 16 - inch gun had been
discharged beyond the yawning entry.
There was a jarring roar, "unlike
anything I ever heard," said one witness. It was followed almost instantly
by a flash of flame from the main entry, several hundred yards around a
bend in the tramroad.
There was a second awesome tremor
that seemed as though the entire earth was aquiver.
Simultaneously, Don Shields,
down on the tipple, and perhaps others unnamed, watched horrified as the
bodies of Blevins and Reed came hurtling toward them.
The first blast, caused by an
accumulation of combustible coal dust that was set off by some unknown
fateful spark, occurred in what is known as the "barrier" section. It gathered
explosive force as it spread with lightning swiftness to the main entry
area, which accounted for the second blast.
Copyright© 2000/2001
All rights reserved
Get your own FREE page at 
Return
to Wilma's Homepage