The Benwood Mine Disaster of April 28, 1924
One hundred years ago today, on the rainy morning of Monday, April 28, 1924, an explosion at the coal mine operated by the Wheeling Steel & Iron Corporation in Benwood took the lives of 119 men, most of them recent immigrants. There were no survivors. It remains the third worst mining disaster in the history of West Virginia, a state plagued by numerous coal mining accidents.
Actually there were two explosions. The first occurred in a pocket of methane gas at approximately 7:05 AM – about 25 minutes after the men had entered the mine. The second explosion –the one that probably killed most of the miners – was the result of coal dust being ignited by the methane explosion.
But let’s take a step bask before examining the disaster in detail.
“I remember…at nights, the flame that hurtled skyward from now cold furnaces of Wheeling Steel’s Benwood plant…Here dwell the peoples of lasting metal whose steel is the alloy of the hundred cultures and tribes of a vanished Europe. Serb, Croat, Greek, Slovene, Czech, Slovak and Montenegrin and Pole. Their singing tongues lilt and ring in myriad babble on the bus to Benwood: voices rise in ‘sprechtgesang’; ―words made music – frail as eggshell, speech as sweet as Bartok folksongs from arid Bohemian plain.” – Davis Grubb, “The Valley of the Ohio,” published in Holiday Magazine, July, 1960.
“It breathed not smoke, but dust – a roof fall, the mouth of the mountain clamped shut, eating its children…” –from Kettle Bottom by Diane Gilliam Fisher
April 1924 Zeitgeist
Just to set the tone historically— the zeitgeist, if you will– in April, 1924:
• Adolf Hitler was found guilty of treason in the Beer Hall Putsch and sentenced to five years in prison…
• Frank Capone, age 28, Chicago mobster and older brother of Al Capone, was shot and killed by police…
• The first book of crossword puzzles was published…
• The Dawes Plan to reorganize the German economy and restructure reparation payments was initiated…
• A series of tornados killed 110 people across the southern US…
• Actor Marlon Brando (3rd); baseball all star Gil Hodges (4th); and musician Henry Mancini (16th) were all born…
• Calvin Coolidge was the US President…
• And Pius XI was Pope…
By April 1924, Wheeling Steel Corporation was the biggest employer in the Upper Ohio Valley largely due to a massive merger (in 1920) of several companies, including nail works, corrugating, blast furnaces, open-hearth works, tinplate mills, tube works, skelp mills, sheet and fabricating mills, nail mills, and, of course, coal mines to fuel everything.
Meanwhile, three years prior In the southern West Virginia Coal Fields, the largest labor uprising in American history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War, the Battle of Blair Mountain, had ended in defeat for coal miners and the United Mine Workers of America in September, 1921. The United Mine Workers union was badly weakened, even in the northern panhandle where it had been prospering in Benwood in 1920. But as we’ll see, there’s little to no mention of the union during the disaster.
Coal Mining in 1924
What did coal mining look like in early 1920s America?
The images below from Wheeling Steel’s corporate promotional publication, “From Mine to Market (1926): the facilities and scope of steel manufacture of the Wheeling steel corporation of Wheeling – West Virginia” provide some insights.
Here we see the motorized tracks and cars used to get miners to their work stations miles under the earth.
And here, a miner is at work on a wall of coal. In Benwood, this would have meant the Pittsburgh number 8 seam.
Below, two miners are drilling the wall for blasting in a Steubenville, Ohio mine. In Benwood, the “diggers” used black powder for “shooting” the coal face then sprinkled water from a water car during coal extraction. (as we’ll see, black powder was not the safest explosive).
Though it’s from 1964, the map below accurately conveys the scale of the mining operation near Benwood. The entrance to the Benwood mine is in the far righthand corner (see arrow).
Below is a closeup of that entrance.
And here’s an overview of the entire Wheeling Steel & Iron Co Coal Mine. The arrow shows you the 8 North section near where the major explosion would occur and where most of the men were trapped.
Here’s a closeup of 8 North.
Here’s a map showing the rooms taken from “COAL-MINING INVESTIGATIONS Under Auspices of CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, U. S. BUREAU OF MINES, AND ADVISORY BOARD OF COAL-MINE OPERATORS AND ENGINEERS,” 1923.
Monday, April 28, 1924 in Wheeling & Benwood, West Virginia
April 28, 1924 was a Monday. It was pouring rain in Benwood, West Virginia.
The newspaper was full of stories on the upcoming election – for national, state, and district offices. Eighty-two-year old Albert Fortney, one of Wheeling’s last working blacksmiths, was run down and killed by an automobile. The Pittsburgh Pirates, with future hall-of-famer Pie Traynor anchoring third base, were playing a series against the Chicago Cubs. Members of the KKK attended church services in Elm Grove. In Benwood, 22 year old Joseph Donovan died of appendicitis. Steel production was on the decline, as was coal.
Explosion in an Underground City
At 6:30 AM – the Monday morning shift started at the coal mine operated by the Wheeling Steel & Iron Corporation in Benwood, a 60 year old, 3-entry, room and pillar mine, newly mechanized with nine electric mining machines. Men rode to their work stations on electric mining cars, taken miles underground on tracks.
As the federal mine bureau would later describe it, “The interior of the mine is really a big city, it is laid out with main streets and avenues and the cross streets running off the avenues… Running…the same direction as the main avenues, will be found the alleys and off these alleys will be found the working rooms in which many of the men were employed digging coal. The miniature railroad tracks run down these streets and avenues and back the cross streets.” (Intelligencer, May 2).
But the mine had a questionable safety record. There had been a gas explosion a year prior that killed three people. An air shaft was added (a third entry at Brown’s Run—important to the story later). But ventilation remained an ongoing issue. The roof was known to be “weak and treacherous” with support timbers needed every two feet. As methane was thought to be low, the company still used open safety lamps, meaning that even a small fall of slate could trigger a methane explosion.
Two fire bosses had supposedly checked each room at 3 am and “reported no gas in any section of the mine.” (see State mine inspector R.M. Lambie’s report). The Intelligencer reported that the fire boss bulletin board had been found near the entrance, marked “April 4-28-24 SAFE.” Signed JT Pyle (more about him later).
Some of the miners had not gone through the proper check-in procedure. The miners were just getting their work sites, preparing to do their jobs, putting on overalls, etc. Some were still climbing out of the mine cars that brought them there.
04-28-1924 at 7:05 AM
At 7:05 AM, about 35 minutes after the morning shift had entered the mine, a pocket of methane gas exploded near the 8 North section. The force of the explosion dislodged timber supports and caused numerous roof collapses. People felt the thud of the blast three blocks away and witnesses say white smoke and a “sheet of flame” shot from the mine entry (Intell).
One miner’s watch was stopped at 7:04. The amazing diagram below is from “HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF COAL-MINE EXPLOSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES,” BY H. B. HUMPHREY, 1959. It shows where some of the bodies were found, including the miner wearing the stopped watch.
Coal dust trapped inside the mine was ignited, triggering a second, more devastating explosion, forcing a wall of fire through the shafts of the entire, poorly ventilated mine. The heavy mine timbers were shattered into splinters, allowing roof collapses everywhere. The fire permeated the entire poorly ventilated mine. Many of the miners who weren’t crushed by falling rock and debris from the force of the violent explosion were burned to death. But most were probably killed by “afterdamp,” a deadly cocktail of toxic gases, primarily carbon monoxide, caused by the fire. A large number of dead miners were found with articles of clothing wrapped around their heads in failed attempts to block the afterdamp. The mine inspector later speculated that some might have survived had they been equipped even with simple gas masks.
The Rescue Effort
The rescue effort was slowed by a collapsed roof and fallen rock and debris as well as the presence of afterdamp. Blockage near the main entrance forced the rescuers to shift their focus to the air shaft at Browns Run. Rescuers from the Hitchman Mine (Benwood), Glen Dale, Bellaire, Bridgeport, Steubenville, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Williamson, W.Va. worked in relay teams. Nurses from the Wheeling Chapter of American Red Cross and a number of Wheeling physicians were on hand hoping, and waiting to treat rescued miners.
Here again you see the overview of the whole mine. The top arrow shows the air shaft. And the bottom arrow conveys the distance to Section 8 North. It’s easy to see why it took several days for rescue teams to dig through the rubble and reach Section 8.
Here’s a closer view of the air shaft on the map.
A spiral staircase repaired by carpenters allowed entry for rescuers. (Intell) The staircase is visible in this diagram.
Above the air shaft, a makeshift rope and pulley system was constructed to lower supplies and hopefully, retrieve living victims. In the end, it only pulled up the dead bodies.
The News-Register reported a LaBelle mine rescue team on site. “They were accompanied by John P. Wilson, superintendent of the LaBelle mine.”
The rain and mud made the 3 mile dirt road to Brown’s Run shaft impossible for trucks. Numerous automobiles that could no longer move, slid and blocked one side of the 3 mile road, making progress more difficult. Rescuers had to use tractors and “old country” sleds drawn by horses. One such horse drawn wagon can be seen in these two images from the Baranowski family.
Rescuers worked in relay teams every 750 feet to pull stretchers over fallen rock, shattered mine timbers, twisted steel track, and through other impossibly tight spaces. At least 50 Burrell All Service gas masks (see image, below left) were used “and about 90 per cent of the work was done by men wearing them.” “Self-contained oxygen breathing apparatus was used to explore places where it was thought the percentage of oxygen in the air was not sufficient to support life…Men wearing the gas mask penetrated distances as great as 125 feet beyond points at which the carbon monoxide content of the air killed canaries.” (Lambie) Canaries were taken into the mine to test for gas. Several died. An old miner told the paper miners welcome rats because they will not live in a mine that is full of methane. (Intelligencer)
As the Wheeling Register reported: “There’s no hope, I fear.” Andy Wilson, captain of the LaBelle team gasped as he reached the top of the long winding stairway up the (Brown’s Run) shaft. During the first few days, there was hope that some of the men who had not been burned to death or crushed by the explosion had barricaded themselves into old workings to escape the afterdamp. But this would prove untrue. (Dillon): “It took 8 mean to carry one body,” obviously indicating that the bodies were in parts. Hundreds of miners volunteered to help remove bodies, but only 35 were selected. (Intell)
“From the position of the bodies,” The Register reported, “it appeared that most of the men had been stricken at the spot where they worked, first stunned by the terrific concussion of the explosion, and then suffocated by the after-damp.”
According to Lacy Dillon, author of They Died in the Darkness: “one motorman had been found sitting at his controls on the motor, buried under an avalanche of slate.”
Looking again at the diagram, we can see the various spots where bodies were found.
The Vigil
The scene outside the mine was one of wrenching grief and confusion. Women and children rushed to the site, hysterically screaming and sobbing, asking for word of their husbands, fathers, brothers, or uncles trapped in the mine. Wives of the miners tried to bypass the barricades, and some searched for alternative ways into the mine. Many simply wandered the streets of Benwood, sobbing. According to one account, a grieving widow tried to drown herself in the Ohio River after learning of her husband’s death. Onlookers rescued her.
According to another report, nuns canvassed the neighborhood after the disaster found a pregnant young “foreign” woman in bed who had recently married one of the lost miners. She was unaware of the explosion and wondering where her husband was. They got a doctor and nurse for her and vowed to keep her unaware until the baby was born.
Meanwhile, relatives and friends kept a constant vigil outside the main entrance and air shaft despite a heavy, drenching rain.
In addition to the bereaved, crowds of curious onlookers and news reporters descended upon Benwood, standing behind hastily constructed barricades. One hundred rescuer outfits were reportedly stolen by unscrupulous people posing as helpers. On April 30, 68 year old Mrs. Caroline (Olinski) Melcher of Jacob Street, was struck and killed by a speeding truck rushing supplies to the rescue teams.
Two men were found alive in the air shaft, but, despite efforts to revive them, both died before being brought to the surface.
During the first few days, there was hope that some additional the men who had not been burned to death or crushed by the explosion had barricaded themselves into old workings to escape the afterdamp. This early optimism soon waned, as one dead body after another was carried from the mine.
After a few days, the odor of decaying bodies became overwhelming.
At Browns Run, people sat around fires, waiting for word. When it was learned that men had suffocated by afterdamp the grief intensified, causing “a moaning sound that could be heard for a considerable distance.” These images from the Baranowski family show some of the encampments at Browns Run.
Doctors sprayed disinfectant on corpses before they were removed. (Dillon) “The conditions of the dead bodies were appalling…” The after damp was believed to accelerate decomposition (Intell). Bodies were “too gruesome to describe.” Yet the newspaper said one man was “practically baked. He was swollen to almost twice his normal size.”
Temporary morgues were set up in the fields surrounding the air shaft at Browns Run. A morgue was set up in a man’s wash room, at the Cooey-Bentz Building in Benwood, which then provided funeral services in addition to selling furniture, and at Blue Ribbon Hall in Benwood. Each corpse received a tag marked with the location in the mine where the body was found. Identification was a slow, emotionally draining process. Immigrant groups interacted at these locations during this excruciating grieving process. They spoke to each other, one reporter noted, “not by the tongue, but by the language of the heart.”
The last of the bodies was removed by mid May.
“You can always hire new men.”
Among the dead were three pairs of fathers and sons, as well as five pairs of brothers, and three pairs of cousins.
In one pit, two Italian brothers, Rocco and Michele Capobianco, “were found clasped together in their last moments.” Rocco had been working at OVGH and was new to mining. They tried to reach the entrance together, hands clasped, but were cut down by the after damp. 1500 feet from their dinner buckets. Intell. They were said to have heart beats when found, but, despite efforts to revive them, both died before being brought to the surface.
One of the Ohio rescuers, a James Forgie, found a body that he identified by lantern light as that of Walter Sneddon, Forgie’s uncle, who had been more like a father to him. Forgie was not aware that his uncle had been in the mine. Walter’s son and Forgie’s cousin Alexander Sneddon was also among the dead.
John Frank Jr was to be married a week after the explosion. His father, John Frank Sr. was also killed.
Raffaello Vitiello was in a mine for the first time in his life, having been persuaded by his father Samuel Vitiello to accept a job at the mine. Both were killed.
A letter home was found in the boardinghouse room of deceased Italian immigrant miner Domenico Cognitti at Boggs Run. The letter read:
“My Dear Wife and Daughters: I have the home completed and will have it furnished so that when you come to this place, you will have everything just like a queen in Italy. We will have a little garden and we already have planted something that will be fine when it grows and you get to this country. I have been working extra and will have money to send you next pay day. I am lonesome for you and the sooner we can make arrangements that you come, the better I be pleased.”
The letter was folded and set aside incomplete. The Cognitti family in Florence was expecting to travel to Benwood in June.
A Man of Mystery & Men of Good Fortune
One of the lost miners, J.J. Boyle (known in pool halls as JT Poyle or Pyles) was said to be an undercover agent of the Secret Service, was not a real Fire Boss, and did not (and could not have) conducted a real inspection. He reportedly never left his boarding house Sunday night. He was actually Matthew V. Herron of Monongahela PA, who left Pittsburgh by train that weekend before, saying he did not want to go back to Benwood.
Records later showed that he was an “expert auditor and bookkeeper.” (Intell, May 5) “he could add a column of numbers quicker than any other man with whom he loafed.” According to Joey Tellitocci: Jerome T. Pyles (reported as another alias for Herron) was one of the fire bosses who declared mine conditions safe on the morning of the explosion. But he did not die in the explosion. Pyles was killed in a coal mine explosion on April 30, 1927 in Everettville, West Virginia where 111 miners were killed.
Cheating Death
Reports surfaced of other miners escaping death at Benwood through various turns of good fortune. Dan Dubic of Benwood, for example, was initially counted among the dead as he had failed to remove his check from the mine entry board on a previous shift.
A man named Andy Boyce of Moundsville, was supposed to be in the mine, but overslept because he played poker Sunday night until early morning. “Boyce stated that he would feel obliged to defend the game against all criticism hereafter since it had proved his salvation,” the Intell said.
Another man, Walter Snyder, who had been working at the mine, allegedly quit two weeks before the explosion when his pastor warned him about a vision that the man would be killed in a mine in a big gas explosion (Intell).
A Shameful Act
A relief fund was established for the widows and children of the miners at the Bank of Benwood. Local ethnic societies made contributions. Though some money did make it to the families, two bank employees, William Leach and Joseph Ward, embezzled a lot of money, which was never recovered. The embezzlers were caught and convicted, receiving ten year sentences in the West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville in June 1925. Damaged by the scandal, the Bank of Benwood closed that same year.
On a more positive note, the city of Wheeling sent relief money (raised at “picture shows”), as did the Italian government. Prisoners at the Ohio County Jail collected $13 (about $200 in 2020)—“the last penny they had,” according to the Intell. Steelworkers from Wheeling Corrugating and Martins Ferry made donations of over $500 ($7500 in 2020 dollars). The Red Cross, which had worked with the Polish community during WWI, helped during and after the mine disaster as well.
Of course, many families were left without a breadwinner. There were 32 widowed women on a single block in Benwood, and fifty to sixty more in a two block area of South Wheeling. “Crying women and weeping children …on every doorstep.” By 1924, West Virginia had a worker’s compensation law that ensured each widow $30 per month for life. That’s about $445 in 2020 dollars, and $5 a year for each fatherless child until they turned 16, about $75 now. Seventy-five dollars per year, per child was not much. Wheeling Steel paid each widow a lump sum of $500 ($7500) and $150 ($2200) for funeral expenses–less than $10,000 for each human life.
This made it all the more jarring to find, ensconced amid all of these reports about the horror of this disaster, this little article about Wheeling Steel Corporation’s healthy profits for the quarter.
Net profits were $942,000. Roughly 14 million in 2020 dollars. In the end, it seems the 119 men were viewed as expendable. Had money been spent on safety, this disaster might have been avoided. But proper safety equipment would have cut into those profits. It was easier and cheaper to go to New York and recruit new labor from Ellis Island.
As Davis Grubb wrote in his short story “Anton Jacob Hellerin” in Voices of Glory: “For mine is property, And you can always hire new men” (see full passage below).
The day after their profits were reported, Wheeling Steel Corporation issued this expression of sympathy regarding the disaster.
But what about the would-be rescuers?
The physically and emotionally difficult labor in foul air left most rescuers sick and exhausted. One man accidentally drank disinfectant instead of coffee and had to be hospitalized. Members of the US Mine rescue team reported that it was the “worst wrecked mine” they had ever seen. “Bodies were hurled into the air and blown with the force of a cannon against the roof or walls.” Rescuers often had to reach and grope in complete darkness for dead bodies. Stretcher bearers had to carry bodies as far as two miles to the shaft, often crawling to get over obstructions, dragging the bodies through tight spaces.
It was harrowing. And they did their utmost.
And for their extraordinary but sadly hopeless recovery efforts, the rescuers were given this medal and fob . The Front reads: “Benwood Mine Explosion, April 28, 1924.” The Back reads: “For exceptional service rendered to humanity, Wheeling Steel Corporation.”
Despite these efforts, no one who went to work in the mine that fateful morning survived. In the end, 119 were killed.
There is also this caveat: “Miners who were hired on as hand-loaders were assigned a place in the mine, and very often shared it with a friend. They got paid by the weight. The two loaders would remove the broken coal to mine cars. Miners were issued tags to identify a filled coal car as his work so that he could be paid based on the weight. In theory, then, all one had to do in the event of disaster was look at the tag board and see who was in the mine and who wasn’t. In practice, this didn’t work as well as it should have. Miners were free to take anyone into the mine with them in order to load more coal, and companies turned a blind eye to most restrictions that were on the books. Teenaged sons, smaller children, and newly immigrated brothers often accompanied miners. To get a day off, miners would swap tags with relatives. These helpers weren’t employed by the mine and probably weren’t reported as missing. Such conditions rendered an accurate head count all but impossible. The actual number of men and boys who died in the Benwood Disaster of 1924, therefore, may never be known.” (source: adapted from email comments from Becky Morgan and Jeff Phillips.)
Benwood is still the third worst mining disaster in West Virginia’s sad history.
1-Monongah (Fairmont Coal Co.) 1907 362 dead (171 Italian immigrants) Worst in US History
2-Eccles (near Beckley) 1914 174 (180?) dead
3-Benwood 1924 119 dead
4-Everettville (Monongalia County) 1927 111 dead
5-Bartley (near Bluefield) 1940 91 dead
6-Farmington 1968 78 dead
Regional note: Willow Grove No. 10 in St. Clairsville 1940 72 dead
A Safety Epilogue
State mine inspector R.M. Lambie found that in gaseous mines like Benwood’s, only approved electric cap lamps (not open lamps), explosion proof motors, and permissible explosives (not black powder) should have been used. Better rock dusting should have been done. The regulations were weak and companies routinely abused them, taking advantage of loopholes to increase profits. Lambie informed the governor of a rumor that the Benwood mine had not been properly inspected.
If any good came from this tragedy, it led to better rock dusting practices and miners being equipped with gas masks.
Again, a little effort and expense could have saved lives.
In Memoriam: 100 Years – 119 Souls
An overwhelming number of the dead miners were recent immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. The largest numbers were from Poland, followed by Italy and Greece. Others hailed from Hungary, Russia, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine. Among the dead were three pairs of fathers and sons, as well as five pairs of brothers, and three pairs of cousins.
Numbers by Nationality
Poland 39
Italy 30
Greece 15
Austria 4
Scotland 4
Croatia 3
Hungary 3
Russia 3
Serbia 3
England 2
Lithuania 2
Ukraine 1
Wales 1
9 were “American”
75, the most by far, were “low-skill” workers, “loaders.”
Benwood and South Wheeling saw funeral after funeral for many days.
Many of the deceased were Catholics who belonged to St. John Church in Benwood. On May 5, 1924, 22 of the deceased coal miners were buried side by side at Mt. Calvary, Wheeling’s primary Catholic cemetery. It was the largest mass burial Wheeling had ever experienced. The service was conducted in English, Polish, and Italian. The names on the tombstones included Kuprewicz, DiGiorgio, Ferri, Piechowicz, Pirrera, Dupla, Dlugoborski, Malyska, Kazemka, Rea, Shalayka, Staszewski, and Kopetz.
The site as it looks today.
The bodies were placed under tents before being buried. The Intell on May 6 reported: “Two bodies were placed in each grave as they worked in the mine side by side.” One mother reportedly collapsed upon seeing her son lowered into the ground crying, “My boy! My boy!” In Polish.
Miners who were burned beyond recognition were buried in a mass grave at Greenwood. Those Catholics later identified, largely by process of elimination, were moved to Mt. Calvary. Many, like the Greek miners, remained buried at Greenwood. Others are buried at local cemeteries around the Ohio Valley.
The three Hungarians killed included 36 year-old immigrant Istvan (Stephen) Vargo, Joey Tellitocci’s great-grandfather. Istvan was buried between his two Hungarian friends, Ignac Orban and Sandor Horvath, also at Mt Calvary, but in a different area than the well-known mass burial.
The Benwood Mine Disaster Memorial
Joseph Tellitocci’s extensive research to compile an accurate and complete list of the names of the Benwood Mine Disaster victims sparked a project to honor the lost coal miners with a permanent memorial. The monuments that now stand at the Boggs Run Road site are the result, thanks to the dedication, hard work, and generosity of numerous individuals and organizations.
View a slideshow of the miners for whom we have images.
The Benwood Mine Disaster Memorial (3 large stones) commemorates the 119 coal miners killed in the April 28, 1924 explosion. The small stone off from the main monument commemorates the 5 coal miners killed in an explosion 18 years later on May 18, 1942 at the Hitchman Mine, also located in Benwood. The memorials were formally dedicated on Saturday, September 27, 2014.
The Benwood Mine Disaster Memorial Committee: Joey Tellitocci (co-chairperson and treasurer); his father, Joseph Tellitocci, Jr. (project coordinator); Susan Reilly (co-chairperson), Catherine Feryok (designer of the memorials); Ed Sherman; Gladys “Betty” Key; John D. Mercer; and JR Cross.
Watch a video of a 2020 program on the disaster hosted by Cockayne House’s Hungry for History and presented by Sean Duffy.
See the program slideshow as a PDF.
“Search for my home in Potter’s field among the hanged, the disinherited and those so poor their name is but a number. I am not there. Look for my name among those graven on the stones on Glory Hill; you will not find it. Yet my eternal home is in the earth; deep, deep within the earth. I am too deep to even feed the grass. I am so deep I listen in the nights to the eternal rustle and the creak of rippling rock seams old as earth itself. Sometimes I think I even feel the heat of the molten stone at the world’s center, in its fiery core. There’s purity down here; nothing decays. I lie beside the four who died with me four hundred feet beneath the Benwood tipple.
We share a little room carved out of coal … No fire touched us, we didn’t even hear the explosion. We knew when it happened though; a silent blast of air raced quickly past us, then came sucking back, and instantly our safety lamps went out. The rats screamed in the blackness. Some men cried. A mine mule bucked and whinnied in the dark … Four hundred feet above me sirens wailed and ambulances came clanging from every town all the way from Glory up to Wheeling. I didn’t hear them though. I didn’t care. I didn’t scream and fight and break my fingernails against the six million tons of coal and slate and earth that lay between me and the Benwood sun. I felt ashamed for some of the men who did. I thought: What’s the sense of all that? Death must come for all someday, someway, and this way seemed so clean: here in this dry, black room that we had carved out of the bowled, bituminous darkness of the earth …
The fire was soon over and so were we. We simply fell asleep – simple as that. And up above us four hundred feet the company officials breathed relief. For mine is property. And you can always hire new men.
There’s seldom a sound down here. Of course, there’s always the rippling earth; the great seams hunch and whisper like the surf of some vast sea of stone. The old earth nudges and shudders in her sleep, restless with a billion years of dreams. And sometimes, when there’s stillness I can hear, far above me, steamboat paddles a quarter mile away, churning the waterways of the Ohio.”
From “Anton Jacob Heller,” Voices of Glory, by Davis Grubb, 1962.
Sources
[The above text is adapted from The Wheeling Family Volume 2: More Immigrants, Migrants, and Neighborhoods. It is based on an April 26, 2011 presentation by Joey Tellitocci at the Ohio County Public Library’s Lunch With Books program, among other sources. Additional information about early twentieth-century coal mining techniques was provided by Becky Morgan and Jeff Phillips. Additional charts, maps, and images were added in April of 2024.]
Dillon, L. They Died in the Darkness. 1976
Humphrey, H.B. “HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF COAL-MINE EXPLOSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES,” 1959.
Lambie, R.M. “Report of the West Virginia Mine Inspector.” 1924.
Wheeling Intelligencer. April 24-May 14, 1924.
Wheeling Register. April 24-May 14, 2914.
Wheeling Steel Corporation. “From Mine to Market.” 1926.
Thanks to Erin Rothenbuehler for research assistance.
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Thank you for the work you do keeping the stories like this one alive. My great-grandfather was killed in the explosion and we do not know much about him because his children were so young when he died.
My grandfather was one of the miners in this disaster. Thank you for remembering them, God blessed their souls
Here are two Facebook comments that I repost here with permission:
Gigi Piehowicz Zaccagnini The photo is of my Great Uncle, Jan Piechowicz (John Piehowicz) He was 16 yrs. old when he died in the mine explosion. He came from Poland as an infant with his Mother.
Gigi Piehowicz Zaccagnini Sean, thank you for this article. I have tried to research as much as possible (I am a genealogy nut!) the newspaper articles, etc. at Ohio County Library regarding the explosion and attended the talk at the library. Your pictures were wonderful. I had not seen a few pf them before. Jan was left out of the book “They Died in Darkness”.. I am so grateful that you honoured his memory today. His father, Lukasz, passed away just weeks before Jan was killed. (April 9th, 1924) I often wondered if Jan went to work in the mine due to that. The family has passed down that Jan was not scheduled to work that day, but was asked to by another miner, so that he could have the day off.
My grandfather was also one of those 119 men. My father was 6 months in the woom when his father, whom he would never get a chance to meet, was killed. Still trying to figure out how my grandmother kept the family of seven children together during the depression without ever re-marrying. Was there a settlement package paid to the widows?
So far, we only know about the money embezzled from the bank as referenced above. We’re looking into the existence of a widow’s fund. I assume your grandfather was Feliks (Felix) Lisak? Do you have a photo of him that you would be willing to share for our ongoing effort to honor these men? Thanks for your comment and question.
Through my research I have found that my grandfather wasn’t even a miner. He was a baker and at night worked for the Court Magistrate as an interpretor/liason for new immigrant arrivals. He was said to own the one of the few automobiles on his block and thus when the morning broke that day (it had been raining all the night before) his friends were knocking on his door asking for a ride to the mine. Felix, thinking the day would be a washout of a day knew that the mine would provide a days wages. The rest is history.
Sean…I would like to know exactly where the mine was…There is a closed mine at 2nd Street in McMechen…Would that be another entrance to the Benwood mine?
According to Joey Tellitocci, the man mentioned in the story who got the monument built, the main entrance was at the Wheeling Steel mill in Center Benwood. The alternate entrance was at Browns Run (flows into Boggs Run).
Great article Joe! The history of Benwood was amazing hard to believe this disaster happen in our back yards
Thanks for this very interesting article. Although I don’t think any of my family members were there at this horrible event, I was told as a child that my Great grandfather was a mine ‘cop’ at one of the local mines. Are there any listings anywhere that name the miners or the mines they worked in? He would have been employed probably during the 1920’s or 30’s. Here in PA we have a site that has been established naming the mines, the addresses, and many of their employees. Again, thanks for the article.
Charlie Rose was one of the miners. He was my husband’s grandfather. May they all Rest in Peace!
Thanks for the excellent article. My father Antonia Cistone also known as Tony, was working at the wheeling steel Mining in Benwood West Virginia at that time. This was nine years before I was born. I recall my father had a pocket watch with a strap and a medal on the end of it. My mother told us that our father Tony got it for his rescue efforts and trying to save some of the miners down below. We were always proud to know that. I never knew the real details until many years after my father had passed away. I saw this medal in his dresser drawer. The back of the metal described why it was given to him. The opposite side identified the Benwood mine and the year of the explosion. I looked it up on the computer and after all those years I found out why my father Tony was sort of a hero. Thank you again for this wonderful summary of what has happened!
My great grandfather too. My Nana, his daughter, said that he told his wife that day he didn’t feel well. She told him to stay home. He said “I can’t I have 7 children to feed”. As soon as he got to work and went in the mine it blew up.
Hi, Sean. I can’t tell you how moved I by your piece. My grandfather, Joseph J Krupinski, and his brother, Andrew Krupinski, were two of the rescuers. I carry a medal with me always. I have an audio recording on 80s ear cassette tape of my grandfather reflecting on his recovery efforts if you are interested. I continue to be moved by the stoicism and brotherhood it reflects. Please let me know if you are interested.
Dear Jeannine, I’m sorry for the delayed response. Yes, I would be very interested in hearing your recording. Perhaps we can help you digititize it so that you have a backup, if you haven’t done so already.
My grandmother’s husband and brother and brother in law all died in this coal mining accident. Their names were Stanley Rudiewiec, Lorenz (Lawrence) Wiardrowski and Mikolaj Malecki. My grandmother remarried after the tragedy since she had a newborn (my aunt) to raise. My grandmother had many nightmares and could not handle crying or loud noises. Her father and brother had been killed by soldiers before she came to the US from Poland. I do have some information from the papers she had saved.
I never knew of this til my daughters father showed me the metal that his father received by helping to retrieve the miners. Paul Newman was his name. He worked at the Steel Mill if my memory is correct what was told to me. Sad day for a lot of families who loss several members of family and friends. R.lP. 😞
Thank you..my mom had 2 brothers and my dad’s father all died in that explosion…Shirley conti trull..florida…813 763 1020
Very informative. I grew up in Moundsville and graduated from Linsly Military in Wheeling where I met John Jelacic the grandson for the John Jelacic killed in the disaster. John and I have remained lifelong friends. He is a retired employee of the US Commerce Dept and has a PHD. His grandfather would have been proud of his accomplishments. Only in America!!
Brad Knapp, Lebanon, Ohio
Hi Sean: Greatly enjoyed your article on the Benwood mining explosion. Its a very sad story. I see that some rescuers were given a watch fob medal for their efforts for putting their own lives in danger to try & save others. Truly a heroic deed. Have you ever seen a gold watch given to any rescuers? I have one given to C.W. Stuart that has the same wording that’s on the back of the medal, but is engraved on the dust cover. I have also seen one other. Do you know anything about who this man was and what he did to receive such an award from Wheeling Steel Corporation?
Glad you enjoyed the article. I have never seen a gold watch. Any chance you could email me a photo? I don’t know Stuart but I’ll see what I can find.