Fifty-Four Dead in a Year: The 1894 Reckoning of Washington's Coal Mines
The state mine inspectors' annual report tallies 1.16 million tons of coal, 1,159 miners — and 54 lives lost to accidents, with the toll heaviest at Franklin.
State Coal Mine Inspectors David Edmonds, for the first district, and Joseph James, for the second district, have filed their annual report for 1894, giving the general condition of the mines, the number of tons mined, the number of employees and a recapitulation of the accidents. The report shows that during the year 1,163,132 tons were mined.
The largest producing mines included Roslyn (222,282 tons), Newcastle (139,817), Black Diamond (120,644), Franklin (99,150), South Prairie (66,235), Wilkeson (55,922), and Gilman (30,833), with smaller outputs reported from Alta, Kangley, Eureka, Navy, Denny, Cokedale, Blue Canyon, Cle Elum, Ellensburg, Keelaa Ward, Carbon Hill, Bucoda, Acme (New Wellington), Ouinwette, Centralia and elsewhere.
The number of deaths from accidents was fifty-four, distributed as follows: Kangley 1, Coal Creek 6, Roslyn 2, Franklin 37, Carbon Hill 1, Wilkeson 3. The number of men employed in the mines of the state is 1,159.
“The number of deaths from accidents was fifty-four.”
Washington's 1894 mine-inspection report counted more than a million tons of coal hauled to the surface and fifty-four men dead to get it — nearly all of the deaths clustered at Franklin. The same tension between industrial output and worker safety persists in the state's regulatory fights today.
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