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Events/Disaster · 1913

Stag Canon No. 2 mine explosion

Disaster, 1913-10-22, United States.

What happened

An explosion at the Stag Canon No. 2 mine at Dawson, New Mexico, killed 263 workers in October 1913. Fourteen miners escaped and nine were rescued from the bottom of the air shaft. NIOSH says the cause was an overcharged shot in a dusty pillar section.1,2,3

Why it matters

MSHA lists it as the second deadliest US coal mine disaster after Monongah.1,2,3

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Broken Hill: inception recorded

    Broken Hill has an inception date of 1883 in Wikidata.4

  2. De Beers founded

    De Beers founded.5

  3. South Broken Hill silver mine airblast

    The regulator uses it as a case study of ground failure at Broken Hill.6,7

  4. Nome: inception recorded

    Nome has an inception date of 1898 in Wikidata.8

  5. Malay States export duty protects Straits tin smelters

    The discriminatory duty indirectly shielded Penang and Singapore smelters from American competition.9,10

  6. Coal Mines Act 1911

    It was the main British coal mine safety code of the early twentieth century.11,12

  7. Anglo American founded

    Anglo American founded.13

  8. Construction of Norilsk combine begins

    Nornickel describes itself as one of the world's largest producers of palladium and Class I nickel, and the plant was built by Gulag labour.14,15,16

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Where next

Events

An example ofMonongah mine explosionMSHA lists Stag Canon's 263 deaths as the second deadliest US coal disaster after Monongah.1An example ofCherry mine fireCherry killed 259 in 1909. Stag Canon killed 263 in 1913.17

Sources

  1. Fact Sheet 95-8: Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States US Mine Safety and Health Administration
  2. Underground Coal Mine Disasters 1900-2010: Events, Responses, and a Look to the Future NIOSH (Brnich and Kowalski-Trakofker)
  3. Dawson (item Q2201125), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  4. Wikidata item Q270734 (Broken Hill)
  5. Wikidata item Q471891 (De Beers founded)
  6. 1895 South Broken Hill Silver Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  7. Broken Hill (item Q270734), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  8. Wikidata item Q79996 (Nome)
  9. Wong Lin Ken, Singapore: Its Growth as an Entrepot Port, 1819-1941 Cambridge University Press (journal article, DOI 10.1017/S002246340000953X)
  10. Wikidata item Q61092 (George Town (Penang))
  11. Coal Mines Act 1911 UK National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)
  12. London (item Q84), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  13. Wikidata item Q541451 (Anglo American founded)
  14. Building Norilsk, chapter 7 of The Economics of Forced Labor: The Soviet Gulag Hoover Institution Press (S. Ertz)
  15. Our history (Annual Report 2023) Nornickel
  16. Norilsk (item Q175517), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  17. Cherry Mine Disaster (OutdoorIllinois, November 2009) Illinois Department of Natural Resources

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.