Thirty-Seven Dead at Franklin: Seattle Rallies for the Widows of a Mine Disaster
A day after an explosion killed thirty-seven coal miners in the Franklin pit, the Post-Intelligencer opens a relief fund for the widows and orphans left behind — pleading with readers that the miners' own generosity cannot stretch far enough.
Of the thirty-seven miners killed in the pit at Franklin yesterday only twelve were married, but presumably each of the victims had some one dependent upon him. One miner leaves eight children. The comrades of the dead are undoubtedly willing, with the proverbial generosity of miners, to assist the families of those who have lost their lives; but the miners are poor, and relief must come from outside of Franklin for the widows, children and other dependent relatives of the thirty-seven men who lie dead at Franklin.
The Post-Intelligencer has opened a relief fund for the benefit of the widows, orphans and dependent relatives of the Franklin miners killed yesterday, subscribing $1 itself, and calls upon the kind-hearted people of Seattle and the whole state to contribute to the fund. All subscriptions will be acknowledged in the columns of this paper. Money is needed.
Some of the sufferers will probably leave Franklin to go to friends, and will need money for traveling expenses. Others must be provided with means to carry them through the winter. The Post-Intelligencer begs every one of its readers who can spare money, no matter how little, to send it at once to buy food and clothing for the Franklin miners' sufferers.
The Post-Intelligencer has raised nearly all the relief sent to the sufferers at Nanaimo and Roslyn after the terrible accidents in those mining camps. Not a cent of money entrusted to it was wasted or paid in salaries; and any citizen of Nanaimo or Roslyn can tell how well the fund for each of these towns was distributed and how much good it did.
Every penny sent to the Post-Intelligencer's Franklin relief fund will buy food, clothing and shelter for widows and helpless children. The Post-Intelligencer once again appeals to the sympathetic people of Washington; the response has been liberal hitherto, and the present cause is as deserving as any to which the Post-Intelligencer has ever given its services.
“The miners are poor, and relief must come from outside of Franklin for the widows, children and other dependent relatives of the thirty-seven men who lie dead at Franklin.”
Franklin was one of the coal company towns that powered Seattle, and its 1894 explosion was among the deadliest in Washington history. The disaster's aftermath — a newspaper organizing relief because mining families had no safety net — echoes today's debates over who bears the cost when dangerous work goes wrong. The once-thriving town of Franklin is now a King County ghost town, its cemetery a reminder of the human price of the region's resource economy.
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