Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 55 minutes after the other. The nippers, thinking they could shave off some time, rode with the equipment, as had their predecessors, the boys who had trained them. It was an open secret that nippers rode the cage, despite being strictly against the rules. And there was a reason why the boys were not supposed to ride the cage. It might go well enough for a hundred, even a thousand rides to the surface. But this time, something went dreadfully wrong. Somehow a shaft of steel slipped out of the grate of the cage, dragging against the walls of the tunnel as the enclosure was hauled at great speed to the surface. The steel tore out wooden beams and pieces of the tunnel's wall, as well as sending the cage careening around the tight passage. By the time the eight nippers reached the surface, the cage was broken and wrenched out of shape. Six of the youths were dead, bodies mangled beyond recognition. The other two were still alive, but badly mutilated. They died shortly after, as horrified miners looked on. Yet, oddly enough, no one seems to agree as to what hap- pened that day, and to whom it happened: other historical sources report that there were no sur- vivors, even for a few minutes, and that the victims were grown men impatient to reach the surface, not industrious children. A Washington Post article from September 9th, 1911, also reported that the victims were adults, but adds anoth- er horrible detail: "[the] station tender... was hurled from the upper deck of the cage to the lower level by the impact when the brakes were applied, and was decapitated, as were all the other min- ers, with the exception of [one miner], whose head was mashed to a pulp." SMITH MINE It serves as an object lesson in the morbidly high mor- tality rate of mining that the Smith Mine disaster of 1943, in which 74 souls were lost, is both the worst coal mining disaster in Montana's history, and only the 43rd worst in the nation's history. No one knows for sure what ignited the explosion, but there are some likely contenders. For one, coal mining pro- duces a prodigious amount of dust, as well as methane, and the Smith Mine was known for producing higher than aver- Easy Death BUTTE SILVER BOW ARCHIVES (3) Manus Duggan, Hero of the Speculator Mine Disaster. THREE OF MONTANA'S WORST MINING DISASTERS

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