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Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
Michael Punke
From the #1 international bestselling author of The Revenant – the book that inspired the award-winning movie – comes the remarkable true story of the worst mining disaster in American history.
In 1917, the lives of a company of miners changed forever when the underground labyrinth of tunnels in which they worked burst into flames. Within an hour, more than four hundred men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, one hundred and sixty-four of them would be dead.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
Michael Punke
Copyright (#ulink_289e804f-0138-5c40-97c6-10beb91ad4f5)
Published by The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by The Borough Press 2016
Originally published in 2006 by Hyperion Books
Source for diagram on here (#ud3cf2985-4c32-5af4-9850-c850648f1207):
Bureau of Mines, ‘Lessons from the Granite Mountain Shaft Fire, Butte’, 1922
Copyright © Michael Punke 2006
Michael Punke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © C. Owen Smithers Collection Butte-Silver Bow Public Archive (front); Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com) (fire and landscape)
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008189310
Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780008189327
Version: 2016-02-11
Dedication (#ulink_c8b93f69-a331-5b19-90f0-4ac6216be7b9)
Dedicated to the people of Butte, Montana
Epigraph (#ulink_ba03c132-dff2-585a-91ad-21062eb97d4f)
Tell her we done the best we could, but the cards were against us.
—J.D. MOORE,
JUNE 9, 1917
CONTENTS
Cover (#u403c9171-5b65-5889-84f7-5637fe7a4bb5)
Title Page (#u4ec84e2c-731d-57d1-94e5-7ef9cbc8b448)
Copyright (#uc40869a3-e03c-514a-bb6a-18a4f3cfa680)
Dedication (#ua167b9e0-cda2-5d4b-b4f8-7e636b12d622)
Epigraph (#u77f164c1-115a-5057-939e-084a6c2dc994)
One: “THERE IS A SIGN” (#u65d90193-6af9-5956-886b-c45496866ddd)
Two : “LIKE A GIGNTIC TORCH” (#u71fa4428-e6f1-5893-96c8-cf20ff900831)
Three: “THE RICHEST HILL ON EARTH” (#u58b799cd-5fd8-5278-89ca-2532824cbd5d)
Four: “WHAT MEN WILL DO” (#u6a1d01ec-29f6-5fb9-8f38-889ad6b71e6b)
Five: “SWEETENED CORRUPTION” (#u90570c5c-46e8-5971-8a4b-7df50a3b5e85)
Six: “HELMET MEN BRAVING DEATH” (#u51d2162e-0b36-5369-8ce1-49971397fc7e)
Seven: “STANDARD OIL COFFINS” (#u5ae0bb88-757e-51a5-b2f9-4c206f253d76)
Eight: “THEN WE MET DUGGAN” (#u44e65442-d468-5dc9-bc01-9f5d4a186742)
Nine: “HEY JACK, WHAT THE HELL” (#u39cf0516-cc9e-5ff1-9a39-936364c3f1ed)
Ten: “IF THE WORST COMES” (#uf59c0324-6ef4-5d47-8c97-62bbf2c3d2f9)
Eleven: “DREADING TO LOOK” (#u8ddb9735-de68-58ad-956e-6b2409bf41e0)
Twelve : “NOW IS THE TIME” (#ue8a44366-684c-5301-add7-c7799b59a271)
Thirteen: “MEN ALIVE!” (#u9eca2c90-96f6-55eb-a77d-11a905e8b055)
Fourteen: “BAMBOOZELING OR ABUSE” (#ue1a8595f-e39e-544e-af2c-55c1fad7c1fc)
Fifteen: “TOO GOOD MINERS” (#ue1ba53e5-d12b-500a-a15d-e57d57158269)
Sixteen: “ IN THE DARK” (#u3da32a9d-5201-5816-9e6c-d8b8c59b64b1)
Seventeen: “WE’RE DYING IN HERE” (#u36c9d1ff-01b1-59ef-aabe-8d974e7a9b0b)
Eighteen: “POINT OF ERUPTION” (#u9f1121e1-56c3-58a7-9154-3f6eb5a49cad)
Nineteen: “FOR YOU AND THE CHILD” (#uf0746bc2-f5e6-5377-9837-9f481c49c49a)
Twenty: “DUPES AND CATSPAWS” (#u89b650a8-3349-56bd-a4a6-130adf5f797b)
Twenty-one: “OTHERS TAKE NOTICE” (#u52378bbc-ac7d-54f9-b38c-5da05ae2106b)
Twenty-two: “SPY FEVER” (#uec7d0ce5-b5ce-553c-a67f-2295a36b9f2c)
Twenty-three: “WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM” (#udbbe76e0-2609-5df3-8e48-c466fb25f2c9)
Twenty-four: “SOME LITTLE BODY OF MEN” (#u3902df7d-9bd3-5060-b975-74d124362845)
Twenty-five: “DOWN DEEP” (#uf1bb278f-cd78-5013-8120-cc90d148916d)
Epilogue: “NORMAL FOR ITS TIME” (#u015e43d3-c3ef-5ac4-963e-5aa94d3e5919)
Notes (#ude6e28aa-b9ab-5cd9-8449-0f4ad8a097ad)
Index (#u6607c051-4d64-5772-a505-c4f59e40d662)
Acknowledgments (#u5e1bcfb9-ae6a-56ea-b9a8-72c07852e988)
Also by Michael Punke (#uc6b15a4b-9db1-5d01-aaf6-f19e484c2a33)
About the Author (#u1c505749-8b90-5a53-a568-46dab733c97d)
About the Publisher (#u0335b650-c649-5ac5-8a95-041cde507a5f)
One (#ulink_cc20ef33-ba00-5d5f-a2df-f18ec2a66c7b)
“THERE IS A SIGN” (#ulink_cc20ef33-ba00-5d5f-a2df-f18ec2a66c7b)
There is a sign that appears to point persistently to a terrible explosion underground.
—HOROSCOPE PRINTED IN THE ANACONDA STANDARD , JUNE 5, 1917
Butte, Montana, was still dark when the cable crew arrived at the Granite Mountain shaft in the early morning hours of Friday, June 8, 1917. The men could see their breath as they worked in the cold, open air beneath the headframe—a hulking, eight-story steel structure that supported the massive weight of the hoists. The miners called it a “gallows frame” because it looked like a gigantic industrial version of the Old West hangman’s platform. Gallows frames dotted the sprawling hillside like Butte’s version of trees.
The official accident report does not list the names of the men on the crew that morning, but it is a good bet they were a motley mix—the no smoking signs that hung around the mine shaft were printed in sixteen languages. The report does provide the men’s job titles, titles that reflect the task before them: “four electricians, three rope-men, two shaft-men, and one hoist-man.”
The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began, ironically, as an effort to improve the safety of the Granite Mountain shaft. Granite Mountain, along with its sister shaft, the Speculator, were owned by the North Butte Mining Company. The two mines were rarities—productive Butte properties not owned by the omnipotent Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Anaconda did own all of the properties that surrounded the North Butte holdings. Anaconda, indeed, owned most of the city and a sizable chunk of the state.
By the lax standards of the day, the North Butte Mining Company boasted a considerable reputation for safety. The cable crew’s work on the morning of June 8 was part of an effort to install a sprinkler system up and down Granite Mountain’s 3,700-foot shaft. The shaft was buttressed with chemically treated wooden timbers. In a fire, this highly flammable lining was the functional equivalent of a chimney made of wood. The new sprinkler system, though, was nearly complete. In a week or so, a shaft fire could be doused by simply turning a valve.
One of the few tasks remaining was to relocate a large electrical transformer at the 2,600-foot Station. “Stations” were cavernous openings at hundred-foot intervals and were the junctions between the main shaft and the hundreds of tunnels that branched out from it. The 2,600 Station, therefore, was 2,600 feet below the surface, or “collar,” of the shaft.
The transformer at the 2,600 Station stood only fifty feet from the wood-timbered shaft. Worried that an electrical fire could easily spread, mine officials had decided to move the transformer to a safer location—deeper inside the workings of the mine and well away from the main shaft. The electrical cable that connected it to the surface, however, was too short. The job assigned to the crew was to lower a long cable that could reach the transformer’s new location.
In the era before plastic, electrical wire was commonly insulated with oil-soaked cloth, usually cambric or jute. In industrial settings such as a mine, the cloth was then sheathed in lead for protection. The new 1,200-foot electrical cable being lowered into Granite Mountain was a full five inches in diameter and weighed five pounds per foot, putting its total mass at a staggering three tons.
The narrow five-by-sixteen-foot main shaft contained three hoists—side-by-side elevator cages that could be operated independently of one another. The cages were controlled by a “hoist-man” on the surface. Two of the hoists were dedicated to pulling up lodes of copper ore from the depths of the mine. The other cage, called a “chippy,” was used to transport men and materials. The men in the shaft’s various stations communicated with the hoist-man through a complicated system of electric-powered bell signals.
To lower the new cable into the Granite Mountain shaft, the crew planned to use the mechanical strength of the third hoist, the chippy. This necessitated the labor-intensive act of lashing the cable to the chippy’s lowering rope (the rope on which the cage itself was pulled up and down). As the first 500 feet of cable was lowered, the crew tied the cable and the lowering rope together with hemp lashes at ten-foot intervals. After the first 500 feet, the crew tied lashes every five feet to compensate for the ever-increasing weight.
By the time the entire cable was tied to the chippy’s rope, nearly 200 lashes were in place.
The crew had worked for sixteen straight hours before the lower end of the cable finally came even with the 2,600 Station. Sometime before 8:00 P.M., the men were about ready to begin threading the cable toward the site for the new transformer when they noticed a problem. The bottom 200 feet of cable appeared to be “coiled around the hoisting rope.” Before snaking the cable into the 2,600 Station, the crew decided to make an attempt at straightening out the kinks.
One of the men came up with the idea of removing some of the lower lashings. The hope was that the three-ton cable, if freed from its lower bindings to the hoisting rope, would untwist itself—the way kinks unwind from a tangled telephone cord.
The details of how the crew went about releasing the hemp ties are vague. It appears, however, that two or more of the men scaled the shaft walls and began cutting or untying the lashings. Adding to the precariousness of their task was the fact that the hoisting rope was smeared with lubricant to help it spool and unspool more easily.
Whether or not the kinks began to unwind is unclear. What is clear is that as the men of the cable crew worked around 8:00 P.M. on Friday night, they noticed that the three-ton cable suspended above them was slipping. Then, in a heart-sinking moment, they realized it was falling down.
The crew made a mad scramble for cover and “had scarcely reached the safety on the station before the cable fell.” As they huddled in the 2,600 Station—which opened directly to the shaft—the men heard and felt the thunderous roar of the falling cable. It bounced and scraped for hundreds of feet along the timbers of the narrow shaft, ripping every impediment in its path. Air hoses and water pipes were pulled off their brackets, adding the high-pitched scream of twisting metal. Finally the cable became caught in the shaft, piling up in a giant, tangled clump between the 2,400 and 2,800 levels—above, below, and beside the cringing cable crew at the 2,600 Station.
There must have been a palpable pause when the crashing finally stopped, one of those suddenly quiet, postcalamity moments in which accident victims take shocked inventory of themselves and their surroundings. Eventually the crew moved hesitantly toward the shaft, their lanterns barely able to penetrate the thick dust thrown up by the falling cable.
The cable was ruined. The violent fall had scraped away half of the lead sheathing, exposing large sections of the oil-soaked cloth insulation. After they inspected the snarled pile, it was obvious to the men that the giant wire could no longer carry an electrical current.
By then it was 10:00 P.M., and the crew had been working for eighteen straight hours. In no mood to begin the difficult task of removing the ruined cable, they headed for the surface.
Burton K. “B.K.” Wheeler, Butte’s thirty-five-year-old federal district attorney, was a man in an unenviable position. Wheeler’s job was to enforce federal law, and Butte, Montana, on the eve of the North Butte disaster was a volatile, messy jumble of antiwar protest, an abusive corporate master, seething labor unrest, divisive ethnic tension, and radicalism both left and right. It was a powder keg lacking only a spark, and in the days surrounding the disaster, multiple conflicts would converge and explode. B.K. Wheeler would ride through the center of this firestorm, then carry its legacy in the decades to follow.
Only two months earlier, in April 1917, the United States had waded into the bloody fray of World War I. For Butte, one immediate effect of the conflict was the widening of ethnic fissures. Butte was a microcosm of Europe, and Europe was at war. German immigrants opposed fighting against their recent homeland, where many of their families still lived. The English and the French, by contrast, cheered America’s alignment with their countrymen. The Irish, with historical animosity toward England, stood in bitter opposition to an American alliance with the British. The Finns, strongly socialist, saw the war as a scheme to “break the power of the people of Russia.”
War also led to an increase in immigration from eastern and southern Europe, and all of Butte’s then-current inhabitants resented the influx of Italians and Slavs, who as the newest wave of immigrants were willing to work for the lowest wages.
Leftists marched in opposition to the “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” and plotted the downfall of the capitalist system. Rightists launched a hunt for “Shadow Huns” and changed the names of German foods. In the approved parlance, hamburger became Salisbury steak, frankfurters became hot dogs, and sauerkraut became liberty cabbage.
An early flashpoint in Butte centered on registration for a new draft, with Registration Day falling on June 5, 1917—only three days before the North Butte disaster. Butte war opponents, led by the Finns and Irish, circulated handbills screaming “WAR IS HELL. WE DO NOT WANT IT” and “DO NOT REGISTER.” “[W]e are,” warned the handbills, “at the behest of the money powers, to be taken forcibly to kill and be killed.”
The draft even threatened to reignite problems with the Indians. Butte newspapers ran a wire story reporting that antiwar protesters included the Cheyenne, who were “holding war dances and threatening violences.”
The responsibility to enforce the draft law seemed an odd match for District Attorney B.K. Wheeler. As a Quaker, he had his own considerable misgivings about American involvement in the war and had established his young career by representing Butte’s working-class men—usually against “the money powers.” Yet as the federal district attorney, Wheeler took seriously his responsibility to enforce the law and issued a tough statement on the eve of Registration Day. “Any man within the draft age who is heard making the remark that he will not register will be warned during the day by the Attorney’s force. If he has not registered by nine P.M., he will be taken promptly to jail.”
Wheeler’s tough tone dissuaded some but not all. On Registration Day, a group of Finns and Irish led a protest march of as many as 2,500 people. Antiwar speeches were delivered in English and in Finnish before the Butte mayor addressed the crowd (from the top of a building), demanding it disperse. The order was met with jeering and boos that quickly degenerated into rioting, leading police and sheriff’s deputies to fire shots into the air and then wade into the crowd with clubs and long nightsticks. When the rioters still failed to disperse, the National Guard was called in. Forty soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets “came at a run” from an encampment on the edge of town. Finally the riot broke up, with twenty men and one woman arrested.
“The draft riots were forgotten three days later when fire broke out,” remembered Wheeler.
