The Newcastle Mine Riot
A bitter dispute over a 'breast' of coal at the Newcastle mines escalated into a violent confrontation between the Miners’ Union and the Knights of Labor, leaving one man dead and many injured.
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.
Trouble which had been brewing for some time at the Newcastle mine culminated yesterday morning in a riot, resulting in the death of Wm. Raston, of Gillman, and the serious injury of a number of others. The immediate cause of the difficulty was a dispute over the title of a man named Wm. Doyle to a 'breast.' Doyle is a member of the Miners' Union, and about two weeks since, he was chosen by a miner named K. Cooper as his mate, being entitled to the position by the custom of the miners in allowing a 'breast' to work out in his turn. The Knights of Labor, who numbered less than 60 of the 300 men employed in the mine, insisted that Doyle was not entitled to the place and named one Peter Zulig to be Cooper’s mate in his stead. This neither Cooper nor the Miners' Union would consent to, and Doyle continued to work with Cooper. The situation reached a breaking point when hundreds of miners from Gillman and McAllister arrived at Coal Creek, leading to a violent riot that required the intervention of the Sheriff and the state militia.
“No more work in Newcastle mine until this trouble is settled.”
This 1889 labor conflict at the Newcastle coal mines highlights the volatile history of industry in King County, where ownership and workers frequently clashed over control of the site and the shop floor. Today's labor struggles in the region may have shifted from coal to technology and service, but the underlying tension regarding worker autonomy and the right to organize remains a constant thread in Washington's history.
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