On the 22nd of January, 1959, deep under the frozen Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania,
the roof of a tunnel in the River Slope Mine collapsed.
The results were catastrophic, not just for the workers that were underground at the time,
but also for the company which ran the mine, the township where workers lived, and the
whole of the mining industry in northern Pennsylvania.
Coal mining had been a big industry in Pennsylvania since anthracite coal was first discovered
there in the late 18th century.
The population in the area began to increase rapidly in the aftermath of the American Civil
War as the mining industry, coupled with the railroad industry, grew at an unprecedented
rate.
This population growth helped shape the culture of the area - immigrants from Britain, Ireland,
and all over Europe, poured into Pennsylvania to work in the mines.
In the early 20th century, the mining industry in Pennsylvania was responsible for around
180,000 jobs - the industry was booming.
Of course, this rapid growth was not without its downsides: many workers felt that they
were treated poorly and weren’t paid enough – indeed, the wives and children of many
miners often had to work in silk mills to supplement their income and make ends meet.
A successful strike in 1900 did go some way to addressing these issues, but the pay and
working conditions of miners remained contentious.
During the 1920s, as access to electricity became more common, demand for coal began
to decline.
This resulted in further strikes and national attention on the mining industry in Pennsylvania.
Wages had been stabilised with legislation, and so the decreasing price of coal meant
that mining companies were losing money.
They responded by closing mines.
Desperate miners, left without jobs, started “bootlegging” coal: they would work in
closed mines and sell the coal illegally.
Despite a brief increase in demand for coal during the Second World War, the decline of
the industry continued throughout the 1940s.
Coal was simply being used less and less to heat homes.
As mining companies became more and more desperate to survive, they looked to save money where
they could, often cutting corners when it came to the safety of workers.
The River Slope Mine was owned by the Pennsylvania Coal Company and was a part of an intricate
maze of mine shafts that were situated along the Susquehanna River.
The Knox Coal Company were contract miners, which essentially meant that they were independent
contractors working on behalf of the Pennsylvania Coal Company.
This muddied the waters even further with regards to who should be enforcing safe working
practises.
81 men arrived to work in the mine on the 22nd of January 1959.
It was slightly warmer than the day before, meaning the frozen Susquehanna River was beginning
to thaw.
The workers were split into two groups – 75 were sent to the May Shaft of the mine, while
the remaining six were stationed in the Pittson Vein.
Given that the mine was close to a river, there were some regulations in place to limit
where miners could dig.
“Stop lines” were initially drawn to ensure a clearance of at least 15 meters (or 50 feet)
between the bed of the river and any mining activity.
The Knox Coal Company, with the backing of a union of miners, had gained permission to
get a little closer – they were permitted to mine with 10.6 meters, or 35 feet of the
river.
However, even this was not close enough for them; miners from the Knox Coal Company had
followed the Pittson Vein far past the established stop lines.
It would later be discovered that, in fact, they were mining just 48 centimetres (or 19
inches) from the river bed.
At around 11:00am that morning, two of the six workers in the Pittson Vein reported to
their assistant foreman that they had heard a sharp “popping” sound.
The three men hurriedly left the mine, notifying their superintendent on the way.
The superintendent ordered an evacuation of the entire mine, but at the same time assured
everyone that it was just a precaution, and that the situation was not overly serious.
He was wrong.
Within 20 minutes, a roof prop had collapsed under the weight of the thawing river above,
and water began pouring in through the roof of the tunnel at a rate of more than eight
million litres, or two million gallons per second.
The sheer force of the water ripped away the wooden beams that were supporting the tunnels,
causing entire sections of the mine to collapse.
33 men were fortunate enough to outrun the rushing, icy water – a powerful flood which
many of them could hear filling up the tunnels behind them as they fled.
They caught the last lifts out of the mine via the May and Hoyt shafts, where they joined
the three men who had initially fled the Pittson Vein on the surface.
As word had spread around the town, people began to gather at the mine to find their
loved ones or wait anxiously for news.
Meanwhile, down in the mines, the men split into three groups: A group of seven men was
led by Joe Stella - a Pennsylvania Coal Company surveyor who knew the mines very well and
had a map which he was able to use to lead the group directly to an opening through which
they could escape.
A second group of men struggled to find an exit - they wandered around for hours looking
for a way to escape - before a man named Amedeo Pancotti managed to climb up an abandoned
air shaft and alert rescuers.
Pancotti was later awarded the Carnegie Medal for his heroism.
A third group of three men, who were part of the team at the Pittson Vein, may have
survived the initial flood, but did not manage to escape.
In total 12 men lost their lives in the disaster.
Their bodies were never recovered.
As the rescue effort wound down, there was still another serious danger to be dealt with.
The hole in the riverbed had to be plugged securely.
The need was so urgent, in fact, that a nearby railway line was broken up and diverted in
order to get supplies to the area faster.
Anything and everything was used to try to stop water from flowing into the mine: not
just rubble, but hay, boulders, spare mine carts… and even the train carriages themselves.
In total it took three days to plug the hole and stem the flow of water into the mine.
Then the process of pumping water out of the mines started - paid for by the Pennsylvania
Department of Mines and Mineral Industries.
It was hoped that, once the breach had been securely sealed with concrete, mining could
continue in the area.
By this point, the Knox Coal Company had declared bankruptcy and was therefore not liable to
pay anything towards the costs involved in this operation.
However, the people at the head of the company were indicted with charges ranging from violations
of mining laws to manslaughter.
An investigation revealed that federal inspections of the mines in 1958, less than six months
before the disaster, found that tunnels had been driven beyond stop lines - but no action
was taken.
The Knox Coal Company had continued to mine in areas where they did not have permission
to mine.
It was also found that August Lippi, a mine worker’s union leader, held shares in the
company.
This was illegal, but it did help to explain how the safety of the miners was ignored not
just by the mining company, but by the Union which represented them.
Despite significant evidence of negligence, and a guilty verdict from a grand jury, nobody
served any jail time as a result of the disaster: all convictions were overturned on appeal.
This lead to many accusations of corruption, none of which resulted in any further action.
Indeed, the widows of the twelve men that lost their lives in the disaster did not receive
any death benefit payments for over four years after the flood took place.
Three members of the Knox Coal Company board did eventually spend some time in jail, but
for tax evasion, rather than anything to do with the disaster.
The whole affair shone a spotlight on the Pennsylvania coal mining industry, revealing
a lack of workable safety regulations and some evidence of corruption.
In response to this the Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Mine Act was brought into force in 1965.
It defined much more clearly and unequivocally which areas could and could not be mined close
to bodies of water.
This change in regulation was too late for the River Slope Mine.
The damage done by the incident was compounded by the fact that a lot of equipment from the
area had been used to try and plug the hole in the riverbed.
The mine was closed permanently, along with several other mines nearby.
7,500 jobs were lost, something which had a long-lasting economic impact on the entire
area.
Coal mining in Pennsylvania would never return to its pre-disaster levels.
Coal is still mined in the state to this day, but on a much smaller scale.
The work is still difficult and demanding, but the workers in these modern-day mines
are, thanks to numerous changes made in intervening years, many times safer in their workplace
than they might have been in 1959.