Miners March Thirty Miles for a Solidarity Strike
A group of Newcastle miners trekked across the territory to convince Franklin workers to shut down the pits in a labor dispute.
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.
On Thursday, at noon, sixty-five men, each with a small packet of provisions, started to walk from Newcastle via Renton, Cedar Mountain, and Black Diamond to the Franklin mine, a distance of nearly thirty miles, to induce the men at Franklin to stop work and shut down the mine until such time as the difficulties and differences between the company and the men at Newcastle be satisfactorily settled. The men marched out of Newcastle in double file, but after a while they all took up the 'go-as-you-please' gait, the only object being to 'get there.' At 11 o'clock at night they passed Black Diamond, where their force was increased till it numbered 115 men. They reached Franklin about midnight and induced the stable keeper to open the door of the barn and admit them to the hay pile, where they took a short nap. Rising early the next morning, they took their positions at the mouth of the drift, and when the Franklin miners attempted to enter the mine to go to work as usual, they were stopped. The visitors numbered more than double the residents. The leader of the visiting delegation advanced and stated that the miners of Newcastle earnestly desired the miners at Franklin to stop working for the Dragon Improvement Company until such time as the Newcastle employees and the company could come to some definite understanding. The pressure was too great, and the Franklin men not only agreed not to work, but promised to hold out until the Newcastle mine should start up again.
“The pressure was too great, and the Franklin men not only agreed not to work, but promised to hold out until the Newcastle mine should start up again.”
This 1886 labor action at the coal mines south of Seattle highlights the long history of militant unionism in Washington State. It is a direct ancestor to the regional labor movements that would later define the Pacific Northwest's political landscape, showing how workers historically navigated isolated company towns to build collective power.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.