The
Great Escape at Ironwood
In September 1926, a mine shaft at Ironwood, in the Upper Peninsula,
collapsed and imprisoned 46 men. Forty-three survived more than five
days underground in what still is considered one for the greatest
mine rescues. Here are excerpts from Kendrick Kimball's account of
the rescue that was published in The Detroit News on Sept. 30, 1926
IRONWOOD, Mich. --The 43 men who were entombed 129 hours in the
Pabst Iron Mine were sleeping peacefully in the Grandview Hospital
at daybreak today and by night most of them will be back with their
families with the long underground ordeal of suffering and privation
but a memory.
Grief has turned to joy over the rescue of the 43
men, the last of whom reached the surface at 11:22 o'clock last
night. Today this mining town is in the midst of a thanksgiving
celebration in which everyone is taking a part.
As soon as they appeared from below, the miners were taken to the
first aid car of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, where they were given
stimulants. Then they were speeded to the hospital, after they had
an opportunity to greet their families. Trewartha was the last to go
to the hospital and he went there to "be with his men" not
because he wanted more medical attention, he said.
Scenes of great confusion were enacted as the
miners came out of the cage. Wives, mothers and children leaped into
their arms. Sons and brothers rushed forward to shake hands. The
men, bearded and haggard, and wrapped in blankets, broke down with
emotion. One miner carried his year-old child to the rescue car and
would not part with her. Another would not leave the side of his
wife. A third, although he shivered from the cold, jerked himself
away from the men supporting him to kiss his mother.
"We knew it was only a matter of time before
we would be rescued," said Jacob Luoma. "We expected
rescue by Saturday. We could hear the drilling and blasting you
know, and we were conserving our strength to the last."
The miners devised various means of spending
their time, Luoma said. Sometimes they sang songs or popular tunes,
to impart cheer to the weaker men, whose courage had begun to desert
them, or to keep up their own. Sometimes they joined with Leonard
Uren, Salvation Army worker and a miner for many years, in hymns.
Sometimes they sat around in a circle and discussed politics and in
their solemn moments they talked of religion.
"Some of us prayed, too," said Luoma.
"It made us feel better to pray."
The men pooled their lunches, which had been
partially eaten before the cave-in of the shaft Friday noon, and
Trewartha rationed out the food in small bits, a square inch of
bread or cake at a time. But it lasted a little more than a day and
then the birch bark tea became the only food.
Several other miners said, "It wasn't bad,
you get sick from hunger after the first day or so and then it
doesn't bother you afterwards. You just get weaker, that's all. We
didn't dare think of food, however. Yes, we will be back at work in
a couple of days."
The rescue of the 43 men will live for years as
one of the heroic epics of the Gogebic Range. The rescue party
consisted of Oscar Olson, chief mining engineer; Harry W. Byrne,
mining captain; George Hawes, safety expert and Matt Wicklund, a
miner. Hawes was the first to reach them. Trewartha greeted him and
then shouted back into the passageway, "Yoho--boys--wake
up--they're here." There came exclamations of surprise, wild
yells of exaltation, as sleeping men, who had awakened with a start,
scrambled to their feet and made their way to the shaft station,
tottering from their weakness.
"What do you need the worst, boys?"
asked Olson.
"Tobacco," responded the miners, and
Hawes produced a cigar. He gave it to one of the men, who lit it
with a borrowed match. In a twinkling seven men were smoking the
cigar, passing it from one to another.
Ironwood went wild with joy when shortly after 2
p.m. it became known that the miners had been reached and were alive
and well. Half the population started for the mines. The Red Ore
road leading to H shaft was choked with automobiles and men and
women streamed over the open fields from every direction. Extra
police were called out to keep the crowds out of the roped area
round the
shaft. Women were predominant in the crowds, many
of them the mothers, sisters and wives of the entombed men. Some
wept, some laughed hysterically and some turned their faces upward
in thanksgiving. Others strove to shake the hands of Hawes, Byrne
and Wicklund.
D. G. Kerr, vice president of the U.S. Steel
Corporation, owners of the Oliver Iron Mining Co., and D. E.
Sutherland, superintendent of the mine, soon went to the shaft, both
grinning from ear to ear. Sutherland's eyes were damp and his mouth
quivered with emotion.
"You don't know how relieved I am that the
men are safe," he said. "I feel 10 years younger."
Perhaps the happiest man in Ironwood was Michael Collins, county
mining inspector for the last six years. Collins, whose duty it is
to inspect the shaft, was blamed for the disaster by relatives and
friends of the miners, and the old man took the censure very much to
heart. Dozens of persons came to his home to upbraid him and threats
of violence were made repeatedly. Police guarded the home from time
to time as the crowds became menacing, and Harry Collins, the
inspector's son and game warden for this district, spent his nights
on the front steps with a deer rifle in his hands.
Statements from the miners that the shaft had
been in poor condition for a year and that repairs had been
neglected, caused John B. Chapple, managing editor of the Ashland
Daily Press in Wisconsin to ask for a Federal investigation of the
cave in. He wrote:
"The Daily Press further declares that fatal
accidents in Gogebic County in the last 30 years have totaled more
than 500, or an average roughly of one life for every 250,000 to
300,000 tons of ore mined."
Old
Depot Museum
150 North Lowell
PO Box 45
Ironwood, MI. 49938
906/932-1122 (phone)
906/932-2756 (fax)
email: chamber@ironwoodmi.org
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