Marianna mine explosion gets historic marker
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Pastor Wesley Silva gives the benediction on Saturday during the dedication of the historical marker for the 1908 Marianna mine explosion.
Observer-Reporter
The marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission was one of 18 granted in 2019.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Former coal miner and Marianna resident Joe Glad, center, unveils the historic marker for the Marianna mine explosion as Pastor Wesley Silva, left, lends a hand and West Bethlehem Township Supervisor Lars Lange watches.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
David Dillon of Marianna remembers the 1908 mine explosion, a cataclysmic event in the borough’s history, during a ceremony on Saturday.
For David Dillon’s family, the morning of Nov. 28, 1908, is still a vivid memory of how two members were killed when an explosion coursed through the Rachel and Agnes Mine in Marianna.
“My great-grandfather, 10-year-old Jack Rule … was waiting outside with his mother at the mouth of the Rachel shaft for word on the condition of his brothers, only to learn of the tragic end to their lives,” said Dillon on Saturday.
Dillon, who lives in Marianna, recounted the deaths of 18-year-old James and 19-year-old Timothy – two of the 154 men and boys who died in the explosion – on Saturday. The outdoor ceremony was for the unveiling of a historic marker to commemorate the mining disaster, the worst in Washington County’s history and among the most lethal in the country.
The marker stands next to the bridge over Ten Mile Creek at the southern edge of the borough. It is the manifestation of an idea Lisa Scherer of West Bethlehem Township conceived several years ago.
Scherer said she was long dismayed that there was no official marker to remind residents of the cataclysm in the town’s history.
“I felt passionate about the families who lost miners and began researching the disaster over a six-month period,” Scherer said. “The more I researched, the more I felt we needed a marker.”
She worked with the Marianna Community Public Library, which sponsored the project and helped raise the $2,060 cost of the marker, to get the application in by the December deadline.
“I knew there would be competition from across the state, but felt the fact that Marianna had no previous marker was an advantage,” Scherer added.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission notified her in March that the application was one of 18 successful ones, from a pool of 55.
Lars Lange, a West Bethlehem supervisor and engineer who spent years in the mining industry, said that many of the workers in the Marianna mine weren’t from the town. About 30 who went unidentified were buried in a mass grave in Scenery Hill.
Flammable coal dust in the air and on the ground throughout the mine spread the blast through the mine. Only one worker who was in the Pittsburg-Buffalo Co. Mine survived.
“That’s like a second explosion,” Lange said. “So that’s the reason 154 people died and not 20.”
The marker cites the death toll from the catastrophe, and notes how it helped catalyze public opinion and lead to the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1910. Subsequent USBM research on explosives resulted in alternative blasting materials that did improve safety conditions.
Still, the industry never stopped being dangerous for workers. Dillon’s great-uncle Stanley Collins was one of six men who were killed by a 1957 explosion in the mine, which had been sold to Bethlehem Steel Corp. decades earlier.
More than 100 workers managed to escape during a 1988 fire on an underground conveyor belt that closed the place for good.
A reception was held afterward at the Marianna Community Public Library, where relics of the industry like equipment, mine hats and photos were on display.
“The artifacts on display came from our own holdings and from the community and library board members,” said librarian Pamela Clutter. “The exhibit will remain up for at least a week after the dedication.”