Into the inferno
Illinois mine rescue expert R.Y. Williams bravely descended into the burning depths of the worst coal mine fire in state history.
Contributors
Written by Kim Schmidt
Photographs courtesy of the Edward Caldwell Collection in the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections at the University of Illinois Library, Original photographers unknown
An urgent telegram asking for help arrived at the Urbana Post Office on an unseasonably warm Saturday evening in November 1909. It was addressed to R.Y. Williams, an engineer who headed up the experimental mine rescue station at the University of Illinois.
A fire had broken out in a coal mine in Cherry, Illinois, and rescue equipment, including oxygen helmets, was desperately needed. A special train car was sent the next morning to bring Williams, his assistant James Webb, and the life-saving equipment to Cherry.
Cherry, an hour north of Peoria, was a small town of 2,500 people, nearly all of whom flocked there when the mine opened in 1905. The drab town with wooden houses washed in dirty gray was growing, mostly due to the mine’s reputation as a safe place to work. In fact, a consulting engineer and contractor who helped build part of the mine called it the “safest mine in the world.”
That perception would change, however, when the word “disaster” found itself permanently attached to the town’s name. The Cherry Mine disaster is the third-worst coal mining accident in our nation’s history. On that November day, 484 men and boys showed up to work. Over half of them would never make it out of the mine alive.
Like a flash in the smoke
The Cherry Mine was 485 feet deep and had three veins, or levels, from which miners worked. Men were lowered in cages down the haulage shaft, one of two shafts that accessed the mine.
The men worked alongside mules who were essential to the coal-mining process. The animals hauled coal cars and were often stabled underground. A little after noon on that ill-fated day, a coal car stacked high with six bales of hay was lowered down the shaft, headed for the stables.
The mine was lit with electric power, but because the main cable had recently burned out, the miners resorted to using kerosene lamps while waiting for new parts to arrive.
When this car full of hay landed on the second level, it was parked too close to one of these lamps and ignited.
They hollered,‘look out!’
The fire was small at first, and the miners who discovered it thought they could extinguish it themselves. The men pushed the burning car closer to the pump that collects water that naturally seeps from the walls of the mine. But it was too late. The flames leapt from the hay to the pine infrastructure that braced the mine’s walls.
Knowing there was also water on the third level, 165 feet below, the miners called down the shaft asking to drop the car. “They hollered, ‘Look out!’” said surviving miner William A. Smith. “The car of hay and all came down like a flash in the smoke.” Smith was able to extinguish the fire in the hay car, but hadn’t yet realized the scope of the danger he and the hundreds of other miners were in.
It took 45 minutes from the outbreak of the fire before there was an official call to abandon the mine. Deep below the surface and with the fire spreading rapidly among the timber, men scrambled to the cages in the main shaft to be hauled up to safety. Some, like Smith, attempted to escape through a second shaft, known as the air shaft. At its surface sat a fan that forced fresh, breathable air into the mine while allowing noxious gases to escape.
As Smith climbed up the stairs, he noticed the fan had stopped. A minute later, it began to work again, but this time the fan’s rotation was reversed, making the flames stronger. The two shafts were now becoming roaring towers of fire.
“I knew that the fire and smoke would come up and catch me on the way, so I climbed faster than I climbed in my life before,” Smith testified at the coroner’s inquest. “The smoke overtook me when I got halfway up or a little more. I don’t know just how far, for I was choking and climbing the whole time.”
The helmet men
Around town, word spread quickly that the mine was in trouble, and residents rushed to the scene. Many awaited updates about their loved ones. Others, including grocers and saloonkeepers, volunteered to help in the rescue. They became some of the first men lowered into the mine, wearing only a wet cloth over their faces to protect them from the smoke.
It is estimated that a little under half of the miners were able to escape the mine before the heat, smoke, and noxious gases made rescue efforts too dangerous. That left hundreds of men and boys trapped below. It seemed impossible for anyone to survive very long in a burning mine, but people did not lose hope — they were desperate to bring their loved ones to the surface.
By 4 p.m. that Saturday, only four hours after the fire began, those in charge believed that the only way to extinguish the fire and hopefully save more lives was to starve the fire of oxygen by sealing the haulage shaft. Hundreds of men were still inside, and to this day, sealing the mine remains a controversial decision. It was reported that “onlookers surged forward in hysteria and disbelief, straining against the ropes and the human chain of volunteers keeping them from the shaft.”
By Sunday, Williams and Webb arrived with the eagerly awaited oxygen helmets. Other relief arrived in the form of mine inspectors from neighboring states, members of the Chicago Fire Department, area doctors, mining engineers, and, of course, members of the press. Photographers captured dozens of haunting photos of the disaster in real time, from smoke snarling out of the mine’s mouth to the expressions of dread on the women worried about their loved ones.
Onlookers surged forward in hysteria and disbelief.
Shortly before Williams arrived, men opened the shaft. Williams tested the gases immediately and determined it was safe for him to enter. He and a volunteer tied a rope around their waists and climbed into a sinking bucket made from half a whiskey barrel. It was so small that each man had one leg dangling over the side. With them, they had their breathing apparatus (an extra 40 pounds each), an electric light, and an automobile horn to sound in case of danger.
At the top of the shaft, local doctors and nurses laid out bandages, ointments, syringes, and “flasks of stimulants” in preparation for any possibility. The crowd cheered in anticipation, but at 1:20 p.m. the president of the state mining board called for silence. “You people will have to get far back,” he said. “We are all in the most imminent danger.”
The pair was slowly lowered into the mine and reached the second level, but the smoke was too dense to see anything. Numerous attempts were made that day and the next, but the fire continued to rage below ground, and the men standing above could do very little to control it.
Pioneering rescue efforts
Williams had come to Illinois only eight months earlier when he was sent from Pittsburgh to open the Mine Rescue Station in Urbana, the second of its kind in the nation. It was housed in the College of Engineering’s Experiment Station and run as a joint effort between the university, the Illinois State Geological Survey, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Illinois’ mission as a land-grant university was to serve the state and its people. The work done at the Mine Rescue Station fit nicely into that mission, bridging education, research, and outreach by testing evolving technology and conducting rescue training.
Williams’ focus on rescue efforts was unique. Developing new tools and training was critically important in the early 20th century. By 1909, over 660,000 men and boys were employed in mines nationwide. Accident and fatality rates grew steadily, and the public became increasingly vocal in their pleas for safety. Mine rescue techniques, however, were still evolving, which made the work Williams and Webb did at the Urbana Mine Rescue Station literally a matter of life and death.
Nestled inside the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory was a “smoke room” which Williams used to train rescuers who came from Illinois as well as surrounding states. The room was designed with heavy beams and low passageways to simulate the experience of being in a mine. During training, it would be filled with sulfur fumes and obstacles. Trainees would use one of the most important tools at the time: newly developed oxygen helmets designed in Germany. Trainees would learn how to breathe and to trust the apparatus.
In addition to training in Urbana, Williams brought equipment and his expertise to disasters across the state. In the first 12 months after the station opened in March 1909, he assisted in two explosions and seven fires, the worst of which was Cherry.
Grief at the mine’s edge
The fire continued throughout the week. A handful of rescuers and firefighters, including Williams and Webb, kept on a steady rotation of entering the mine when it was deemed safe.
It wasn’t until Thursday night that rescuers discovered the first body and brought it to the surface. The National Guard had been called in to control the crowds, and when this first body was transported to the makeshift morgue, the soldiers had to hold back dozens of frantic women who held their lanterns high to see if he was their missing loved one.
After the discovery of the first victim, the recovery efforts began in earnest. As the morgue filled over the next few days, fires continued to burn in several areas of the mine. Most people, rescuers and families alike, assumed that if their loved ones hadn’t died in the fire, surely they had succumbed to the suffocating “black damp,” a toxic buildup of carbon dioxide and other chemicals that accumulate in sealed mines. After a week of emotional and physical pain, the people of Cherry were exhausted and losing hope.
Surviving the darkness
While the fire raged, the rescuers worked, and the town mourned, 21 miners were tucked away in a deep corner of the mine, trying to survive.
One of the men, George Eddy, had extensive mining experience, and once he realized both shafts were overtaken with flames, he gathered any man he could find and led them deeper into the mine. They found a passageway where the smoke had not yet permeated and hunkered down waiting — and hoping — to be rescued.
Over the next few days, the encroaching smoke and gases pushed the men further into the mine. Eventually, they built a wall to seal themselves off, leaving a small hole through which men could leave to see if escape was possible. They drank only drops of water that collected in little pools on the ground and wrote goodbye letters to their loved ones until their lamps stopped working.
Seven days after the fire began, the trapped miners were barely hanging on to life. A handful of the men used all the energy they had left to venture out once again in search of water. After hours of crawling on hands and knees, the men realized they were near a shaft. They could feel fresh air blowing, and their eyes were suddenly met with a blinding light from rescue workers’ lanterns.
What had been a somber search for bodies was quickly infused with energy. One man in the rescue party yelled up the shaft, “Living men down here!” Both above and below ground, people sprang into action. People up top ran to telephone every available doctor and nurse. In the mine, rescuers, including Williams, trekked to the walled-up area where the remaining survivors were and began to give them small amounts of water before transporting them to the cage that would bring them back to the surface. The air quality was still at dangerous levels, and the heat was intense. Many of the rescuers, unaccustomed to using the oxygen helmets, ended up using them incorrectly. Suffering from a lack of oxygen meant rescuers were not only resuscitating the survivors but also their fellow rescuers as well.
At the surface, the frantic crowd waited for the men to be hauled up to safety. Doctors prepared three train cars to be makeshift medical suites. Finally, the engineer yelled, “Haul her up!” and the miners were brought to the surface. As they emerged, they were met with fervent applause.
Recovery work continued into the next week, and as workers explored, they continued to find smoke and fire in different areas of the mine. Once the men began to smell coal smoke, however, they realized the coal pillars that support the mine’s infrastructure might be on fire, increasing the risk of explosion.
In the early hours of the morning of November 25, Thanksgiving Day, Williams joined an emergency meeting with the president of the state mining board, fire officials, and representatives from the mining company. Twelve days had passed since the fire began, and all agreed that the men who remained in the mine were likely dead. It was safest now to seal up both shafts with steel and concrete.
The concrete cover on one shaft included a 2-inch pipe extending down into the mine. This open pipe would be used to monitor the air quality and temperature to determine when recovery efforts could resume.
With the harsh winter weather behind them and the temperature in the hoisting shaft 68 degrees, the mine was unsealed in February 1910. Once again, the mine was a hub of activity — not with mining coal, but with recovering additional victims, repairing pipelines, and clearing passages. The fire continued to burn through the end of May.
In Cherry, it was common to see a line of horse-drawn carriages following a hearse to yet another funeral.
The 259 victims of the mine disaster left behind 160 widows and 390 children.
In the fall of 1910, repairs were complete and though they closed the second shaft completely, miners went back to work in the third shaft.
Cherry’s legacy
The disaster became national news, and Williams and the Urbana Mine Rescue Station received accolades from all over. Without the oxygen masks and Williams’ expertise, rescuers could not have reached the 21 surviving men, and fighting the fire would have been more difficult.
Williams’ tenure at Illinois coincided with a pivotal point in the history of coal mining. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the fire at the Cherry Mine was one of 20 coal mine disasters that occurred across the nation that year. To date, 1909 is still the year with the highest number of coal disasters with over 2,600 lost lives in that year alone.
The disaster was a catalyst for significant change in the mining industry. In 1910, Congress established the U.S. Bureau of Mines, which created safety regulations, conducted scientific research, and developed technology that vastly reduced the number of workplace deaths over the next decades. The Illinois Legislature also appropriated $100,000 to support opening three additional rescue stations in LaSalle, Benton, and Springfield. Once superintendents were chosen for those facilities, they underwent extensive training with Williams and Webb on the Urbana campus.
Because Williams brought the young field of mine rescue to campus, Illinois was one of the first states in the country to adopt modern rescue apparatus and rescue methods. He continued his career at Illinois helping to firmly establish the stations until 1915 when he left to become safety engineer and then superintendent of the Delaware and Hudson Coal Co. in Pennsylvania.
The Cherry Mine fire is one the most well-documented coal disasters in history, thanks to the detailed testimony of survivors and mine officials. The event has inspired books and articles, the opening of a local museum, and two stone memorials. Descendants of surviving miners still share stories passed down through generations.
For more than a century, the town of Cherry has carried the weight of the disaster’s legacy, yet its significance and emotional resonance remain as powerful and relevant as ever.
