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Events/Disaster · 1909

Cherry mine fire

Disaster, 1909-11-13, United States.

What happened

On 13 November 1909 a car of hay for the mules was left under a lit oil torch in the Cherry mine in Illinois. The hay caught fire shortly after 1 pm. 481 men and boys had gone down that morning, and 259 died.1,2,3

Why it matters

Illinois calls it the nation's third largest mine disaster.1,2,3

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Tombstone: inception recorded

    Tombstone has an inception date of 1879 in Wikidata.4

  2. Witwatersrand Gold Rush

    Witwatersrand Gold Rush.5

  3. Greater Sudbury: inception recorded

    Greater Sudbury has an inception date of 1893 in Wikidata.6

  4. Dudley Colliery explosion

    The regulator describes the mine as dry and dusty, with 292 workers.7,8

  5. Mount Kembla coal mine explosion

    It is the worst mining disaster in Australian history.9,10

  6. Monongah mine explosion

    E-WV links public outrage to the creation of the US Bureau of Mines in 1910.11,12,13

  7. Kimberley Big Hole stops work

    The Big Hole is the largest hand-dug excavation in the world and the centre of the Kimberley diamond story.14,15,16

  8. Kipushi mine: Wikidata inception date

    The Katanga base metal mine is dated to 1925 in Wikidata.17

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Where next

Events

An example ofMonongah mine explosionIllinois calls Cherry's fire, with 259 dead, the nation's third largest mine disaster.1An example ofStag Canon No. 2 mine explosionA fire at Cherry in 1909, an explosion at Stag Canon in 1913: two of the deadliest in US coal.1

Sources

  1. Cherry Mine Disaster (OutdoorIllinois, November 2009) Illinois Department of Natural Resources
  2. Fact Sheet 95-8: Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States US Mine Safety and Health Administration
  3. 1909 Cherry Mine disaster (item Q4558986), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  4. Wikidata item Q79873 (Tombstone)
  5. Wikidata item Q2604396 (Witwatersrand Gold Rush)
  6. Wikidata item Q383434 (Greater Sudbury)
  7. 1898 Dudley Colliery case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  8. Dudley (item Q5311786), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  9. 1902 Mount Kembla Coal Mine Explosion case study NSW Resources Regulator
  10. Mount Kembla (item Q12062114), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  11. Monongah (1907) e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia (WV Humanities Council)
  12. Coal fatalities, 1900 to date US Mine Safety and Health Administration
  13. Monongah (item Q2731020), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  14. Work is stopped at the Kimberley mine (4 August 1914) South African History Online
  15. The Big Hole Kimberley Kimberley City Info
  16. Kimberley (item Q125905), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  17. Wikidata item Q15100601 (Kipushi Mine)

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.