Mining Disasters of the Wyoming Valley

Bryan Glahn

feb 2016 · Arcadia Publishing

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Ten-year-old Willie Hatton was excited to visit his father at the Avondale Mine on the morning of September 6, 1869. Sadly, Willie would die in his father's arms that day, and so would 108 other miners, all victims of a horrific fire that tore through the shaft, trapping the men and boys and blocking the only exit. The communities of the Wyoming Valley know firsthand the human cost of the anthracite industry. From a cave-in at Twin Shaft to an explosion at the Baltimore Tunnel to the Susquehanna River crashing through the roof at Knox, thousands of miners left for work in the morning never to return. Sadly, few of the tragedies could be called accidents. Profits took precedence over safety, leaving workers to pay the price for negligence, corruption, and greed.

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Mining Disasters of the Wyoming Valley tells the tragic story of the workers on whose backs the anthracite industry was built. Drawing on a family history of coal mining and archival photographs from several historical societies, Bryan Glahn captures the daily struggle of the men and boys who ventured below the earth to find anthracite to power a nation.