The Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909:

The Rest of the Story as Told by GeorgeS. Rice

Mark Aldrich*

The Cherry disaster is important for another reason

as well, for its public recounting, both by
12:44 p.m., Monday. contemporaries and modern writers is sharply at
Our lives are going out. variance with the private recollections of George S.
I think this is our last. Rice, who was Chief Mining Engineer at the
We are getting weak. ... Technologic Branch of the United States Geologic
Survey (USGS) and head of the federal rescue team at
From the diary of an unknown miner Cherry. Before his arrival at the USGS in 1908, Rice
who perished in the Cherry, Illinois had been employed as a supervisor in an Illinois coal
mine fire, November 15, 1909. 1 mine and had briefly done consulting work for the
Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railroad, owner of
the Cherry mine. He went on to a distinguished
career as a mine safety expert at the U.S. Bureau of
The fire that broke out in St. Paul Coal Company Mines.
Mine No. 2 in Cherry, Illinois on November 13, Shortly after the disaster, Rice penned two articles
1909, took the lives of 259 men. The tragedy at recounting the events he witnessed, but they make
Cherry, along with the 1907 explosions at Monongah, tame reading compared to his private observations. A
West Virginia and Darr, Pennsylvania, reshaped the quarter century later, when Oscar Cartlidge described
course of mine safety in the United States. the fire at Cherry in an article for Explosives Engineer,
Collectively these disasters resulted in the Rice promptly sent Cartlidge his own version of
establishment in 1910 of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, events. Even then Rice felt the need to caution that
which was formed "to conduct scientific investigations he was writing simply "as a matter of internal record,
especially with a view to preventing the loss of life . but with no thought of your quoting directly."3
.. which now characterize[s] and bring[s] discredit That Rice felt the need to pull his public punches re-
upon American mining."2 The Cherry fire itself led to flected a flaw in the evolving federal-state system of
improvements in the Illinois mining code and to the mine regulation. While investigators at the Bureau of
passage of that state's workmen's compensation law. Mines were supposed to make and publicize scientific
And the dramatic rescue of twenty-one men, trapped investigations into the causes of mine disasters, they
by the fire long after anyone believed they could have had no regulatory authority and could not even enter
lived, both reinforced and reshaped emerging public a mine without the owner's permission. As a result,
and private mine rescue efforts. bureau personnel routinely tempered their public
pronouncements to avoid offending mine operators
and state regulators. While such care was necessary to
,. Mark Aldrich is Marilyn Carlson Nelson Professor of maintain the bureau's good relations with the mining
Economics at Smith College, Northampton, community, it also helped perpetuate the lax safety
Massachusetts. His writing on mine safety has appeared
in Technology and Culture and Pennsylvama History. He conditions that had led to disasters such as Cherry.
is the author of Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Many of the events of the Cherry mine tragedy are
Business in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870- uncontested and therefore must be recounted only to
1939 (Baltimore: johns Hopkins, 1997).
illustrate the matters of contention. Cherry was a
 Aldrich -The Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909 15

surface that the company worked

using room and pillar methods. The
miners also worked a third seam at
about 485 feet employing lon,gwall
mining techniques. The main haulage
shaft ended at the second seam (Fig.
1). Below it was an
escape shaft from the third vein. The
air shaft also included an escape
ladder that ascended from the third
vein to the surface and served as the
hoisting shaft from the third to the
second seam. A large, reversible fan
supplied ventilation by forcing air
down the air shaft and through the
hoisting shaft. On Saturday,
November 13, 1909, the electrical
system was out of order, as it had
been for a month, and so the company
used kerosene lights instead. 4
Just after noon that day, one of the
kerosene lanterns set fire to a cart of
hay on the second level, south and
west of the air shaft. After efforts to
put it out failed, two men dumped the
burning cart into the water-filled sump
of the air shaft, which extinguished
the hay fire, but not before it ignited
the timbers in the passage between the
main and air shafts. Forty-five
minutes after the fire began the cry
went out to abandon the mine. At this
point events moved rapidly. Ten or
twelve cage loads of men went up the
haulage shaft, while others scrambled
up the air shaft to safety. About 2:00
p.m., someone decided to reverse the
fan, apparently in an effort to keep
the main shaft open, but it was too
late. This action worsened matters,
turning both shafts into surging walls
of flames and cutting off escape from
the third vein via its hoisting shaft.
. . . . When a cage of rescue workers was
F1gure 1 Map of the workings at the Cherry Mine. Escape from the th1rd level was by ladder, .
165 feet up the air shaft to the cage on level two, or by the cage slung from the main cage in the lost, the company dec1ded to seal the
hoisting shaft. haulage sh~ft in an effort to smother
the fire. It was 4:00 p.m.
shaft mine in Bureau County, Illinois, operated by the Robert Y. Williams of the USGS headed the rescue
St. Paul Coal Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of operations which began the next day, Sunday,
the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railroad to which November 14, with a team of men using German
it supplied coal. The mine, which normally employed Draeger self-contained oxygen helmets. American
about 535 workers, descended through one unworked mine rescue efforts at that time were still in their
coal seam to a second seam, 323 feet below the infancy. Survey personnel were familiar with the work
 16 1997 Mining History Journal

of the British physiologist J.S. Haldane who had number of bodies at the bottom of the air shaft.
proven that asphyxiation rather than fire or explosion Finally, on Saturday the 20th--a week after the fire
accounted for many of the deaths from mine had started -- rescuers found alive twenty-one men
disasters. Haldane's findings underlined both the who had barricaded themselves in a room off the
potential of rescue work and the need for speed, and second south west entry. The official death toll from
other accidents bore out this latter fact. In December the fire was 25 9. s
1907, a USGS rescue team had entered the Monongah, Immediately after the tragedy Illinois Coal Mine
West Virginia mine aher it exploded, but found no Inspector Thomas Hudson claimed that "the mine was
one alive. Three hundred and sixty-two men died in equipped with all modern safety devices and was well
that tragedy. In spite of this failure, rescue work planned. . .. Blame rests directly upon the shoulders
began to spread. That same year Anaconda Copper of the men themselves." More recently, historian Steve
became the first private company to purchase rescue Stoat concluded that "it was not the physical plant that
equipment. To encourage additional purchases, the was ultimately responsible for the disaster, but the
USGS began to demonstrate proper rescue techniques. questionable acts of the men in charge." He also
By 1909 a few coal companies had established their quoted a survivor who claimed the fire resulted from
own rescue teams, but so far none of these efforts had "the biggest bun'ch of carelessness I have ever seen. "6
had a chance to prove their worth. These assessments are misleading, because the mine
On Sunday, November 14, when rescue chief itself was highly unsafe. Both its methods of operation
Williams arrived at Cherry, he made several attempts and layout contributed to the magnitude of the
to enter the mine. The next day Rice arrived from disaster. Right after the fire, in fact, an Engineering
Pittsburgh to take charge. Rescue efforts continued and Mining Journal reporter criticized the inadequate
throughout the week, but with no more success, fire-fighting equipment at the mine. George Rice
although on Friday, the 19th, the teams recovered a himself refrained from publicly criticizing the mine

Figure 2 The empty chai.r belongs to one of the men who died at Cherry. His family numbered among the 607 widows and orphans left by the
disaster. Courtesy of National Archives.
 Aldrich- The Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909 17

management or the Illinoi:s officials, but did describe rescuing survivors who might have retreated to the
certain "lessons" to be draw:n from the disaster. These work faces, places that 1had not filled with smoke and
included, 1) "the menace of having the approaches and gasses before the fan was disabled. On Wednesday,
exits themselves of combus:tible material," and 2) that the 17th, Earling called a meeting of the inspectors
exits suitable for shallow mines employing 100 or present, and presented Rice's views. He then asked for
fewer men were inade.quate for deeper mines each inspector's opinions. Rice later claimed that they
employing 500 to 600 men. To solve these problems, were practically unanimous that "there had been
Rice suggested the sinking of an additional shaft that enough men lost already in attempted rescue work,"
was not part of the ventilation system and was lined and that rescue efforts should be halted. When Rice
with non-combustible mate:rial. Finally, he urged the tried to persuade them that there might still be men
company to construct und•erground rescue shelters, a alive, Inspector James Taylor said "I vote the
safety measure found i1n some German mines. geological fellows [members of the USGS rescue team]
Furthermore, he claimed that fireproof shaft linings make the investigation."10
and bottom archways were universally used in Europe That same day, Rice attempted to enter the mine in
although "they are not used in this country."7 a bucket, with R. Y. Williams. Rice's large stature,
The official report, whic:h Rice privately termed a however, caused the bucket to tip, and so a smaller
"whitewash," noted the poor design of the escape route man went in his place. No bodies were discovered on
from the third to the second level, but it refrained this first descent, but the men reported that the air
from criticizing the St. Paul Coal Company. Privately was clearing. That night Rice and others built a cage
Rice described the mine's safety in scathing terms: and on Thursday, Rice, Williams, and James W. Paul
descended the air shaft and discovered the air free of
The escapeways . . . were the most absurd noxious fumes. State inspectors now agreed to enter
arrangements that were •ever conceived as far as the mine to begin removing the bodies. On Saturday,
concerns the third or lo·wer vein. There was a November 20, Rice later recounted, "no one . . .
single cage to run between the third and second responsible [was in] charge, Mr. Newsome [Head of
or middle vein ... and in order for men to escape the State Mining Board]left to go home for the week-
who might be cut off frctm the air shaft ... this end and the various inspectors all slipped off one by
cage had to be slung by chains and rope to one of one," as had most other members of the Survey. Rice
the bottom of the main cages.... Then when the stayed because "I felt there was still some chance of
men in the lower vein were to be hoisted they the men being alive." 11
could be taken up only t•o the middle vein where Shortly after noon that day, a rescue party found
they got off. Meantime 1the main cages were out eight survivors who reported that bad air had trapped
of commission. . . . So far as I could learn there another twelve men a half mile deeper in the mine,
never had been a trial of the arrangement and and "a call went out for rescue workers." Rice was the
when practically tried, the emergency cages stuck. 8 only one present who knew about the rescue apparatus
so he "trained" a number of volunteers on the spot.
No aspect of the Cherry fire has been recounted He and R.Y. Williams then led a rescue party into the
more often than the dramatic rescue of the twenty- mine and brought the men to safety. 12
one men (one of whom later died) trapped for a week Rice's private recollections offer three new insights
after the fire. The official report stated that several about the Cherry Mine disaster. First, far from being
days prior to the rescue, sorne officials had advocated "the safest mine in the world," as one scholar has
sealing the mine, and that document merely notes that termed it, the mine itself--and especially the third
"on Saturday, some practical miners took charge of the level--was a deathtrap. Had the company provided
rescue work ... and at 1:00 o'clock some men were adequate fire fighting equipment, non-flammable
discovered alive and twentty-one taken out." One shafts, a third shaft, or a workable escape route for
modem writer, relying on the official report, described the third level, the "carelessness" and the "questionable
the rescue as the work tOf dean-up crews. Rice, acts of the men in charge" would not have had such
however, described a differ·~nt version of events. 9 disastrous repercussions. 13
Rice was a .personal friend of A J. Earling, President Second, the twenty men who were successfully
of the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railroad, who rescued on November 20 owed their lives not to "some
had arrived on the scene Monday or Tuesday (the practical miners," and certainly not to the Illinois
15th or 16th) to direct the operations. Rice told inspectors, but to Rice's persistence--both in beginning
Earling that he thought there was a possibility of to search for survivors on the 17th, and in remaining
 18 1997 Mining History Journal

Figure 3 A U.S. Bureau of Mines rescue team enters a mine during a training exercise at the Bureau's experimental
mine in Bruceton, Pennsylvania, ca. 1915. Courtesy of National Arcfiives.

available over the weekend to train the party that recommended that miners build barricades and wait
ultimately rescued the men. for rescuers, rather than attempting to get out through
Third, the lessons of the Cherry Mine disaster led to shafts filled with poisonous gas. This tactic saved
important modifications in federal and state mine many lives. At the Briceville, Tennessee explosion on
safety practice. lllinois modified its mine laws to December 9, 1911, five miners saved themselves from
require fireproofing parts of mines and improved fire "afterdamp" (carbon monoxide poisoning) by following
fighting capabilities. It also established state fire the bureau's advice. The first large-scale payoff came
fighting and rescue stations. The Cherry incident also in March 1915, when the Layland, West Virginia mine
reshaped the rescue work of the USGS and the U.S. exploded. The disaster killed 115 men, but forty-
Bureau of Mines, which took over federal mine safety seven miners were saved when they followed bureau
work from the survey in 1910. The Cherry rescue was recommendations and barricaded themselves in. These
the first successful large-scale rescue effort. The men, and others who would follow similar procedures
experience elevated the importance of rescue work in future disasters, owed their lives to the lessons
because it demonstrated that men could survive for up learned at Cherry. 15
to a week while trapped in a mine. Realizing the If the tragedy at Cherry led to improvements in
potential for saving lives, the bureau increased the mine safety, it also revealed some of the limitations of
number of rescue stations and began rescue training. the federal-state partnership that emerged in the early
Hereafter, bureau rescue teams, outfitted in masks and years of this century. Writing in 1907, Joseph A.
helmets, became regular features of every mine Holmes, who directed the mine safety work of the
disaster. Such work garnered the bureau much USGS and became the first director of the Bureau of
prestige and favorable publicity. 14 Mines, had stressed the need for "information obtained
The bureau also changed rescue procedures as a through comprehensive and impartial investigations."
result of the lessons taught by the Cherry fire. It now Herbert M. Wilson, a bureau engineer, expounded a
 Aldrich- The Cherry Mine Disaster of 1909 19

similar vision to the Coal Mining Institute of America NOTES

shortly after the bureau was founded. ''That the bureau
1. Floyd Parsons, "Cherry Miner's Last Message," Engineering and
will have no authority to enforce the adoption of its Mining journal 88 (December 11, 1909): 1173.
recommendations is not a matter of concern," Wilson 2. The purpose of the bureau is noted in Congressional Record,
explained. It was even a virtue: "such authority 61st Cong., 2d sess., May 9, 1910, 45, pt. 6: 5955. The
would jeopardize its chief purpose--the making of standard work on the formation of the Bureau of Mines is
William Graebner, Coal Mining Safety in the Progressive Period
impartial investigations." "The largest influence [of
(Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1976). For a discussion
the bureau]," Wilson continued, "can only be through of the bureau's safety work down to World War n, see Mark
the acquisition and publication of impartial data Aldrich, Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business in the
which should appeal to. . . the industry and to an Building ofAmerican Work Safety, 1870-1939 (Baltimore: Johns
intelligent public opinion." 16 Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997).
3. For Rice's career, see National Cyclopedia of American
The fire at Cherry revealed the flaw in this vision, Biography 38, p. 52; and Dictionary of American Biography
for the need to keep in the good graces of both the Supplement 4, pp. 690-691; also, see George Rice, "Mine
operators and state regulators prevented the bureau Accident Investigations of the United States Geological Survey,"
from simply publishing the results of its investigations. Western Society of Engineers ]ourna/14 (December 1909): 784-
As Rice's private assessment of Cherry revealed, such 814; and George Rice, "The Cherry Mine Disaster," Coal
mitung Institute ofAmerica Proceedings (1909): 221-266. Also,
findings could be damning and the operators see Oscar Cartlidge, "Fifty Years of Coal Mining -- Part 7,"
understood the danger of stirring up public opinion. Explosives Engineer 10 (April1932): 122-126; George Rice to
In fact, Cherry seems to have inaugurated a long Oscar Cartlidge, January 27, 1932, box 1587, General
tradition in which federal investigators muted their Classified Files, Bureau of Mines, Record Group 70, National
Archives (hereafter GCF); Rice's lifelong interest in safety began
criticisms of mine safety. The unpublished records of when the Dlinois mine of which he was superintendent
the bureau reveal far more candid assessments of exploded, killing five men. "This incident so impressed me that
unsafe mines than were ever made public. "It is I especially studied the prevention of explosions which
unfortunate," remarked Dan Harrington, the Bureau's ultimately led to my taking up work with the Bureau of Mines,"
Chief of Health and Safety, "that the public is not he later recalled; George Rice to 0. P. Hood, June 6, 1929,
box 969, GCF.
given the information which we have concerning the 4. The mine is described in Dlinois Bureau of Labor Statistics,
conditions in mines which are bound [to cause Report on the Cherry Mine Disaster (Springfield: lllinois Bureau
explosions]." As late as 1936, the bureau even refused of Labor Statistics, 1910).
a request from Pennsylvania's attorney general for a 5. This sequence is derived from the following sources: lllinois
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on the Cherry Mine Disaster;
copy of its report on a mine accident that had killed Floyd Parsons, 'The Story of the St. Paul Mine Fire,"
five men. Another bureau official privately described Engineering and Mining Journal 88 (December 4, 1909): 1119-
the effect of this policy of silence on mine safety, in 1124; Rice, 'The Cherry Mine Disaster," 221-266, and ''The
the process providing an epitaph not only for the men Cherry Mine Disaster," Mines and Minerals 30 (February 1910):
who died at Cherry, but for the many others who 423-428. For discussions of early rescue work, see Rice, "Mine
Accident Investigations of the United States Geological Survey,"
were to fall victim to inadequate safety precautions. 784-814; "Coal Companies Establish Rescue Stations,"
The bureau, he observed, "has in effect afforded Engineering and Mining ]ournal87 (May 8, 1909): 951; and J.
protection to the criminal carelessness [of the J. Forbes, "Advanced Mine-Rescue Training Course of the
operators]." 17 United States Bureau of Mines," Yearbook of Coal Mine
This policy of secrecy finally ended in 1940 when Mechanization (Washington: American Mining Congress,
1937): 326-333.
Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes ordered the 6. Hudson is quoted in "Greatest Disaster in American Mining
bureau to makes its reports public. The United Mine history," United Mine Workers ]011rnal (November 18, 1909), 3;
Workers journal promptly responded with the headline Steve Stout, "Tragedy in November: The Cherry Mine Disaster,"
"Secrecy of Bureau of Mines Broken at Last." In Illinois State Historical Society journal 72 (February 1979): 57-
69.
1941, when the bureau gained the power to inspect 7. Parsons, "The Story of the St. Paul Mine Fire," 1119-1124;
mines, it published the reports. As one bureau official George Rice, "Mine Accident Investigations of the United States
dryly observed, "the publicity given to inspection Geological Survey," 784-814; Rice presented similar lessons in
reports usually has considerable influence in obtaining "The Cherry Mine Disaster," 221-266.
compliance with the reconunendations." One can only 8. Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on the Cherry Mine
Disaster, 20; "whitewash" is from George Rice to Theodore
wonder how many lives might have been saved if this Marvin, April 18, 1932; the block quotation is from Rice to
policy had been inaugurated before November 13, Oscar Cartlidge, January 27, 1932, both in box 1587, GCF.
. 1909. 18 9. Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on the Cherry Mine
Disaster, 34.
20 1997 Mining History Journal

10. This description of events is from Rice to Oscar Cartlidge, 1911}: 200-01; "How Uncle Sam Protects His Miners," Cu"ent
January 27, 1932, box 1587, GCF; the time of the meeting is Literature 52 (May 1912): 535-37; and Graham Taylor,
from Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on the Cherry "Underground America," The Survey 35 (February 5, 1916):
Mine Disaster, 48. 547-553.
11. Rice to Oscar Cartlidge, January 27, 1932, box 1587, GCF. 15. On the Briceville and Leyland mine disasters, see H.B.
Dlinois inspector Thomas Hudson claimed that the three Illinois Humphrey, "Historical Summary of Coal Mine Explosions in
inspectors who bad been present early Saturday morning left the United States--1810-1958," United States Bureau of Mines
because of "urgent business" that included a small mine Bulletin 586 (Washington: GPO, 1960).
explosion in one of the inspector's districts, see lllinois Bureau 16. Holmes's remarks are in Clarence Hall and Walter Snelling,
of Labor Statistics, Report on the Cherry Mine Disaster, 48. "Coal Mine Accidents: Their Causes and Prevention," USGS
12. Rice to Oscar Cartlidge, January 27, 1932, box 1587, GCF; Bulletin 323 (Washington: GPO, 1907), 4; Herbert Wilson,
that Rice was on the rescue team that entered the mine is from 'The United States Bureau of Mines," Coal Mining Institute of
"The Cherry Mine Disaster," Mines and Minerals 30 (February America Proceedings (1910): 231-33.
1910): 423-428. 17. "It is unfortunate" from Dan Harrington to Arthur Murray,
13. "Safest mine" is from the consulting engineer who designed the March 29, 1930, box 1185, GCF; John R. Reap [Deputy
tipple and is quoted favorably in Stout, 'Tragedy in November," Attorney General, State of Pennsylvania) to Bureau of Mines,
58. May 21, 1936, box 2205, GCF; "criminal carelessness" is from
14. Modifications in the Dlinois mining laws are from Earl Beckner, Francis Feehan to Scott Turner (n. d., ca. February 28, 1929),
A History of Labor Legislation in Illinois (Chicago: Univ. box 969, GCF.
Chicago Press), 346-347; on the importance of Cherry, see 18. "Secrecy of Bureau of Mines Broken at Last,• United Mine
Rice, "Mine Accident Investigations of the United States Workers Journal 51 (March 15, 1940): 3; Dan Harrington,
Geological Survey," 784-814; for examples of the publicity, see "Activities of the Health and Safety Division, Bureau of Mines
M. M. Hunting, "Uncle Sam's Mine Rescue Cars, Scientific United States Department of the Interior During the War Years,
American 104 (January 7, 1911): 8; Hamilton Talbot, "Fighting 1941-45," Bureau of Mines Infonnation Circular 7487
Death in the Mines," Scientific American 104 (February 25, (Washington: GPO, 1949), 18-19.