The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster

With only a few minutes of light, these 21 men would sit in total darkness for the next eight days before they were rescued. Without food or water, they ate their own leather belts and shoes and even drank their own urine to survive.

Up above, mine officials sealed off the two shafts with timber and dirt to smother the fire raging below by denying it oxygen. This enraged family members and villagers who thought the company was only concerned about the coal and not the lives of the miners below. The company, fearing the worst requested the governor send the State militia to quell any violence and maintain order in the village. As for the cage operator who got the signals mixed up, he had to flee Cherry for his own safety.

In the meantime, four trapped miners below decided to try to see if they could make it to the surface. They crawled along the darkened passageway over the bodies of their fellow miners and started for the surface. As these brave souls neared the main shaft they were discovered by a rescue party. The company’s steam whistle sounded the good news and family members and villagers rushed back to the mine.

However, the hopes for many who thought their loved ones were still alive were immediately dashed when only 21 men emerged from the mine that day. There would be no more survivors.

It would take approximately six months to retrieve all the bodies from the mine. For weeks, funerals where held almost daily for the lost coal miners. In the end, 241 men and boys had survived and 259 had perished below the prairies of Illinois and the village of Cherry. Those who died in this disaster left behind 160 widows and 470 children-of these 407 were under 14 years old.

Despite the tragedy which befell this tiny Midwestern community and the loss of life a year later, the St. Paul Coal Company reopened the mine and worked it until 1927 after which the Cherry Coal Company bought the mine and worked it until the mid 1930s.

A year after the Cherry Mine Disaster, the Illinois Legislature enacted tougher safety regulations as well as workman’s compensation laws.

(For further reading on the Cherry Mine Disaster there are two excellent books about the disaster: Black Damp by Steve Stout and Trapped: The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster by Karen Tintori.)