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Old newspapers, pinned to the places they wrote about — the streets you can still walk today.
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A coroner's jury found that someone deliberately set the fire that suffocated 37 workers in the Franklin mine. The only survivor described how one opened door and one stopped fan turned the gangway into a death trap.
“I have an idea who set the breast on fire, but I won't say. ... 'Cause the man I suspect is dead. He was smothered in the level.”
A fire in breast sixty-two traps miners between flame and return airway; bodies are laid in rows as Seattle sends a special train.
“Thirty-seven men without a scratch on them. All dead.”
An 1894 coroner's jury in Franklin, Washington, heard how a small fire in the Oregon Improvement Company's coal mine became a wall of smoke — and why the men who could have escaped stayed to fight it.
“I tramped on something. I turned and said to Todd: 'Charley, there's a piece of canvas.' We stopped, but found the canvas was a man, and he was dead.”
After a mine fire killed 37 men, the coal town of Franklin held a day of funerals—five graves at Black Diamond, three Italian miners on a hillside, and widows whose grief doctors feared would kill them.
“Adieu, Italy. Adieu, dear ones. Adieu, America, the land of our hopes!”
A relief fund grows by small donations, Black Seattleites organize their own drive, and officials seal the burning mine to starve the fire.
“The 50 cents given by the poor woman or man often involves a greater sacrifice than $50 donated by those who are in affluent circumstances.”
A trial over a labor-related shooting in Franklin reveals a harrowing account of guards targeting women from a moving train.
“Hello, there's Polly Law; let's take a shot at her.”
A mob of armed, masked men forces Chinese laborers to flee their camp, marking a sharp escalation in regional anti-Chinese hostility.
“A number of masked men, armed with guns, approached the headquarters, frightened off the Chinamen and looted their camps.”
A blaze in the Franklin coal mine sent smoke through the gangways on Aug. 24, 1894, killing 37 men and boys who thought they had time to escape.
“Had the miners not lingered so long at the fire trying to put it out, they would have all been saved, but the smoke surrounded them, and before they were aware of it they were overpowered and smothered.”
The Post-Intelligencer opens a relief fund for the widows and orphans left by the Franklin mine disaster, one of Washington's worst.
“There are many more widows and orphans in the hamlet of Franklin today than there were early yesterday morning.”
In a courtroom packed with spectators, a Black miner defends his decision to open fire during a violent anti-Black labor riot at the Franklin coal mines.
“I didn't care if they killed me if my wife got away with the children while I covered their retreat.”
A fugitive flees into the wilderness after a violent altercation at a coal mine leaves a local constable fighting for his life.
“The colored population at Franklin is very bitter towards the white miners of Cumberland and a collision might have serious results.”
In the Franklin mine disaster, young Joseph Dawson chose to save his fellows and lost his own life—an editorial page's portrait of ordinary courage.
“A genuine hero does what he must; he does the heroic thing at the right time and place, not because of vanity seeking praise, but spontaneously, because he cannot do otherwise.”
After 37 men died in the Franklin mine explosion, 152 miners signed resolutions defending the coroner's verdict and accusing outside agitators of exploiting their grief.
“We believe that this agitation is kept up by the papers and labor organizations purely for selfish aims and sinister motives.”
Election officials warn of a sinister scheme to disrupt the vote at the coal mines, prompting calls for citizens to guard the ballot box.
“Let there be no hesitation about challenging the voters who present themselves at the polls.”
A high stump falls through a miners' cabin, taking three lives and leaving families in mourning in South Seattle.
“The accident cast a gloom over the entire settlement at Franklin, and was totally unexpected, as the miners had taken particular pains to cut down all the heavy trees in the vicinity of the cabins.”
A group of Newcastle miners trekked across the territory to convince Franklin workers to shut down the pits in a labor dispute.
“The pressure was too great, and the Franklin men not only agreed not to work, but promised to hold out until the Newcastle mine should start up again.”
A murder trial in Franklin uncovers the bitter reality of 'dead lines' and armed guards during a violent labor dispute.
“The dead lines were marked by barbed wire fences around all the mine openings except one at the river. The dead lines were established about May 17, on the day that the negro miners were brought in.”
A murder trial reveals the raw nerves of a violent labor conflict between striking miners and those who replaced them.
“They answered that they were guarding their hall; that the company was going to burn it.”
A woman permanently disabled by gunfire during a strike-breaking confrontation at Franklin mines sues the Oregon Improvement Company for $25,000.
“The 400 men collected by the defendants were irresponsible, dissipated, vacant, illiterate, vicious and unlearned, and totally unfit and incapable of having the use and control of the guns and ammunition furnished by the defendants.”
A quarrel between roommates at the Franklin coal camp ends in a point-blank execution, leaving the community reeling and the assailant in custody.
“As the .38-caliber bullet crashed through his skull and into his brain Russell fell forward like a log upon Holmes.”
A young miner stands accused of killing a coworker in Franklin, revealing a community torn between justice and sympathy for the accused.
“Russell threw his head down and started for Holmes 'like an old ram,' as a negro spectator explained.”
A relief fund swells with donations from Eddyville millmen and Seattle readers as surviving miners reopen the levels that did not burn.
“The 'boys' showed by their acts that their hearts were in the right place.”
A coal miner's miraculous survival after a terrifying fall through a trestle near Palmer highlights the dangers of early industrial work.
“He hung with the aid of teeth, hands and arms until exhausted and then let go his hold, falling to the bottom of the ravine.”
In the summer of 1891 the Green River coal towns of Franklin and Gilman armed themselves into rival companies. When the shooting started, a deputy sheriff wired Seattle for troops — and the colonel marched before he had orders.
“Several persons have been shot. I have ordered a company there, and will accompany them. I have no specified orders from you except from Gilman. If my action is not approved, wire me at Franklin.”
Citizens in Franklin and Newcastle rally to condemn strikers in Idaho and Pennsylvania, pledging support for those who continue to work.
“Resolved, That we condemn the action of the striking miners in the Coeur d'Alene district... as being unworthy of American citizens, and worthy only of the anarchist and the lawless ruffian.”
A man working at the Oregon Improvement Company’s stables in Franklin is revealed as a wanted fugitive for a fatal land dispute in Indian Territory.
“I killed Scott, but I am willing to go back now and always have been, provided I can have a fair trial.”
A local clergyman takes a fiery stand against a saloon and dance hall he claims is corrupting the village.
“We need not cross the river of death to find hell and heaven. We have simply to go to the prairie saloon at Black Diamond.”
A Franklin constable survives a gunshot wound to the head and returns to the beat, only to find the man who escaped his custody.
“He has not lost any of his determination to discharge his duties.”
A local labor assembly ordered a halt to production at the Black Diamond coal mine after a miner was paid as a laborer despite working underground. Company agents claim ignorance of the cause, but the men stand firm.
A superintendent at the Stetson & Post Mill dies in a horrific workplace accident involving a runaway freight car.
“Boys, I guess this is enough.”
When an informal poker game at a remote sawmill camp turned into a violent robbery, the patrons initially thought it was all just a practical joke.
“The men at the table paid no attention to them, supposing a practical joke was being perpetrated upon them.”
A quiet citizen driven to suicide by the relentless taunts and cruel pranks of his social circle.
“It was that dangerous practice of picking, which is thought by some to be evidence of manliness, which drove Martin Ware to death.”
A quiet young man loses his life while attempting to swim in the local coal mining town.
“Llewellyn was a quiet, unassuming young man, and was admired and loved by all who knew him.”
A look back at the private, armed detective agencies hired by corporations to break strikes and terrorize workers in Washington mining towns.
“For corporations to arm and equip a standing army to settle the difficulties with laborers by war is reducing the government to anarchy and the wage earner to a condition of serfdom.”
A boiler explosion in the works at Black Diamond Landing resulted in one death and multiple fatal injuries.
“The boilers were torn into shreds, and the boiler house completely demolished.”
Roslyn miners pledged their September pay while Franklin’s relief committee set monthly sums for widows and orphans—and the veteran mine superintendent broke down.
“Being an old man, he was simply overcome, and when the reaction set in was unable to perform his duties.”
A thwarted nighttime break-in at a mining camp saloon ends in a fatal shooting, prompting a coroner's verdict of justifiable homicide.
“He said he had provided himself with chloroform, laudanum, a chisel and a revolver, and that he would have the money and a dead man, too, if any fuss was made about it.”
A high-stakes prize fight between Billy Lynn and Daws ended in a bitter, disputed referee decision after four hours of grueling combat in the mining camp.
“The Black Diamond men, who backed Lynn, claim that Daws struck their man while he was hanging on the ropes with his feet off the ground, and that the referee acted justly in declaring Lynn the winner.”
After an argument over a 75-cent pot, a dispute between miners at a company saloon ends in a shooting and a stabbing.
“Within half an hour the blood had been cleaned away from the saloon and another crap game was in full blast.”
A prosecutor declines to charge a local constable for a shooting deemed accidental.
“The shooting was accidental, and a conviction, therefore, impossible.”
Coal miners and their families in Black Diamond held a 'Hard Times' social, where the most bedraggled costumes were awarded prizes, offering a brief moment of levity during a period of economic strain.
“Notice was given that the 'regalia' of the occasion would be 'old rags and battered hats.'”
Citizens of the coal town band together to shut down a notorious saloon accused of illicit liquor sales and illegal operations.
“Greene, Bartlett and their bartender are now under eleven charges of illegal liquor selling and one of keeping a disorderly house.”
After the mine disaster, Oscar Martin stopped a trespassing engineer with a gun. A justice ruled he was doing his job.
“Healy replied that it was none of his damned business.”
John Pritchard Sr., superintendent of the Denny Clay Company mine, died instantly when he was caught between a car and a chute underground.
“He had the reputation of keeping his mine in the best possible condition at all times.”
An 1885 dispatch from the Black Diamond coal fields details civic improvements, the formation of a local militia company, and a comical, if ill-fated, experiment involving a captive skunk.
“Nearly every one who has seen much of mining towns is agreeably disappointed with this one.”
A wedding in the company town of Black Diamond turns into a spectacle when local miners gatecrash the festivities in full gear.
“A sensation was produced in the middle of the evening by the noise of tramping feet and the appearance of Superintendent Morgans at the door leading in a dozen coal blackened miners in full mining suits, caps and lighted pit lamps.”
A quiet, illicit prize fight in a local hall ended with a forced surrender as seventy-five spectators watched a miner beat a man from Franklin.
“seventy-five persons paying $1 each to see the negro lie down before the hard hitter.”
A cabin collapse at the mining camp near the Black Diamond coal mines leaves three men dead.
“Three men were killed. The bodies were recovered today.”
Washington’s Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the Thornburn family’s damages suit after violence between striking miners and Black strikebreakers at the Franklin and Newcastle coal mines.
“The officers of the company did all in their power to prevent an outbreak, short of ceasing to operate the mines.”
A man is acquitted of murder in the second degree after a street game of craps turned into a deadly knife and gun fight.
“The defense showed that while he had his gun out Armstrong seized hold of him and then Brent commenced carving him with a knife, whereupon he broke loose from Armstrong and commenced shooting at Brent. He missed his mark but killed Armstrong.”
When miners at Black Diamond challenged a shift from daily wages to piecework, the company boss opted to shut the mine down entirely rather than negotiate the rate.
“I telegraphed him the particulars, and he authorized me to shut the mine down if the men held out.”
When the rails finally pushed into Black Diamond and Franklin in 1886, a Sunday school outing became a historic moment for Washington Territory's coal country.
“The barometer talked fair, and, seeing a stray star in the heavens, they took heart again.”
Striking miners appeal for their jobs after a bitter labor dispute in King County, clashing with the superintendent over claims of systematic discrimination.
“Now, if you have resolved to prevent these men from getting work, we would kindly request you to reconsider your action.”
The Oregon Improvement Company serves eviction notices to former employees at Franklin, citing a dispute over land ownership and past labor unrest.
“They are the irreconcilables among the strikers and some of them are now tearing down or burning their houses.”
A broken signal wire leads to a terrifying fall for two miners working at the Oakdale coal mine near Franklin.
“Head over heels, now together and again separate, they fell seventy feet to the bottom and lay there stunned and breathless.”
A broken cable sends an empty coal car plunging into the depths of a flooded mine, barely missing a catastrophic accident for the workers.
“The car had plunged with lightning speed into the water at the bottom of the mine.”
A local church breaks with 'sepulchral' tradition by hosting a social gathering that crosses racial and social lines.
“Common sense and Christianity alike unite in bidding the ladies Godspeed in the example which they and their invited husbands and friends gave to the world in this hour of simple peace and cheer.”
A community mourns a miner killed on the job, sparking a massive turnout at his funeral.
“Superintendent Morgan Morgan closed the mines for the afternoon in respect to the dead and to allow the miners to attend the services.”
A miner was severely injured when a makeshift tool used to celebrate the Fourth of July exploded, nearly costing him his life.
“A ring used for holding the dynamite burst between two anvils and went 200 feet like a cannon ball.”
A tragic accident at the coal mine leaves a widow mourning her only son.
“His foot slipped on the rail and he fell headlong. The heavy car was upon him in an instant and crushed and ground him frightfully.”
The operator of the Black Diamond coal works discharged all Chinese employees and replaced them with white labor, a change greeted with jubilation amid exclusionary sentiment in Black Diamond and Franklin.
“Mr. Jones has discharged all the Chinamen from the Black Diamond coal works, and now it is all white labor here.”
A hotel fire in the mining town of Black Diamond leaves residents homeless and penniless.
“A subscription is being taken up at the mines for the relief of Mrs. Khoe, who lost everything she possessed by the fire.”
A local reverend barely survived the blaze that destroyed his home in Black Diamond by shattering a window to escape the flames.
“He broke through the door and leaped through the sash and glass of a window.”
Two railroad workers suffer horrific injuries on the same track within a single day, highlighting the extreme dangers of manual labor in the 1890s.
“The engine was right upon him and he had to use his hands to extricate himself.”
A gambling dispute at an unlicensed saloon in Black Diamond spirals into a shootout, narrowly missing local schoolchildren.
“Twenty-one shots were fired and the roof and floor and windows were riddled. Timothy Morgan's children, who were on their way home from school, had a narrow escape.”
Three years after opposing the arrival of Black miners at Franklin, a white miner wrote home praising their societies, their Masonic hall, and their Black justice of the peace.
“The justice of the peace at Franklin is a colored man and will bear comparison with a great many of our justices of the peace.”
A Ladies' Aid Society steps forward to provide a proper burial for a man found under a train trestle.
“The Ladies' Aid Society would like to be informed of the wishes of the family concerning the disposition of the body.”
After a hung jury and two days of intense legal maneuvering, James M. Evans, charged with the murder of his wife in Franklin, admits to second-degree murder to avoid a life-or-death first-degree verdict.
“It would have been a very difficult matter to convict Evans of murder in the first degree, and thought the ends of justice were best served by the course adopted.”
In 1885, Seattle's elite boarded a special train to tour the burgeoning coal-mining boomtowns emerging along the Cedar and Green River valleys.
“A ride over this piece of road will dissipate the too common idea that there is no agricultural land near Puget Sound.”
A booze-fueled construction argument at the Black Diamond coal mines turned into an armed pursuit through the woods.
“The two men lashed up pretty freely on China gin.”
When a glove contest turned sour, a local newspaper found itself at the center of a legal battle over gambling stakes and the role of the press as an impartial stakeholder.
“The stakeholder wanted nothing but to hand out the money when the decision was presented, without regard to rules or anything else.”
In the coal-mining town of Black Diamond, a secret society of men sought to preserve their solitude—until one member was caught walking a beautiful woman home from church.
“We, the undersigned honored members... do hereby... disapprove of the actions of Mr. William Prosser, which actions reflect dishonor on said society.”
In an era before high-tech entertainment, an industrial mining town turned a humble church fundraiser into a test of domestic skill—and a hilarious, needle-pricking contest for the men.
“The sewing part of the programme was merely a contest between the gentlemen, many of whom were minus thimbles, which was much to their disadvantage in doing neat work with a needle.”
A foreman investigating a steam plume slipped into near-boiling water, a reminder of how quickly industrial work could turn.
“He thought an unusual amount of steam was issuing from the pump ... and made a misstep and went feet first into the water.”
County commissioners hear a temperance minister’s complaint against A. Greene & Co., where women danced in the barroom and the owners pleaded ignorance.
“They admitted that women danced in the bar room, but claimed ignorance of the coming, going and housing of the dancing women.”
County commissioners weigh whether Anton Greene & Co.'s place was a 'dive and dance hall and worse'—or just a barroom where women worked and swore.
“The citizens were sure that the saloon was a 'dive' and also a dance hall and worse.”
When the mining town’s social calendar was handed over to the ladies, the town hall erupted in a celebration to fund a Japanese-themed wedding spectacle.
“The whole affair was managed by the ladies, to whom its success is entirely due.”
A lonely cabin near the mining town marks a tragic end for a man consumed by alcohol.
“Death found to be due to heart failure superinduced by excessive use of alcoholic drinks.”
A day of sports, baseball, and fraternal pride as Seattle's volunteer firefighters and their families took the train to Black Diamond for their third annual picnic.
“The train, after the excursionists had lunched at Black Diamond, continued on to the Franklin mines, where many of the excursionists enjoyed themselves for an hour or two.”
A firsthand account of the booming mining operations at Black Diamond and the growing industry near Seattle.
“At the head of the slope, I clambered into an empty coal car, the engineer let on steam, and, as the great wire rope uncoiled, we glided down 450 feet into the bowels of the earth.”
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