The Aftermath of the Roslyn Mine Explosion
A town mourns forty-five dead while the community rallies to support eighty-four orphaned children.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Forty-four newly made graves in Mountain View cemetery and the body of a forty-fifth victim sent to its home in the East tell the story of the terrible results of Tuesday's explosion in the Roslyn slope. A heavy cloud of sorrow hangs over the city. Thirty-two mothers and eighty-four children have within the past twenty-four hours followed their beloved husbands and fathers to their final resting places. In the absence of kindred, sympathetic hands performed the weary duties. The body of the last victim recovered was shrouded by 8 o'clock this morning. Due to rapid decomposition, the committee decided to bury as many of the unfortunates as possible today. Work in the city was suspended, and the intense sorrow of the people was manifest on every side. The brave men who labored so diligently to rescue the bodies of their comrades have now laid aside their blackened clothing.
“The rich man can give his $10 or $20, but the poor man's half dollar or quarter and the child's dime or nickel are no less welcome.”
This 1892 disaster in the Roslyn coal mines highlights the extreme danger inherent in turn-of-the-century labor and the precarious state of families left without breadwinners. Today, the site of the Roslyn mines is a National Historic District, yet the legacy of labor safety and the economic fragility of mining communities remains a constant theme in regional history.
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