The Price of Independence: Cold Mountain Miseries
After surviving a brutal winter, two miners on the Cascade mountains suffer life-altering injuries, highlighting the grim reality behind the region's mining industry.
James Church and Silas W. Jones, who have long been mining on the eastern slope of the Cascade mountains, were so badly frozen last month that the cutting off of both feet was absolutely necessary in the effort to save their lives. It is reported now that Church will have to undergo a second operation—the cutting off of one leg near the thigh. It is to be hoped the additional report that the mines are valuable properties is true.
“It is to be hoped the additional report that the mines are valuable properties is true.”
This story from 1885 mirrors the persistent, hazardous nature of industrial labor in Washington. While the site of the injury (the Cascades) remains a rugged frontier, the high human cost of 'valuable properties' remains a recurring theme in Pacific Northwest labor history.
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