People/miner, rescuer

Zeno Lightfoot Dili

Zeno Lightfoot Dili (1893–1927), miner, rescuer, victim, from United States. Linked to copper.

The downfall

Died in the Magma No. 2 shaft fire at Superior, Arizona, on Thanksgiving Day 1927, when the cage cable snapped as he went down to reach men trapped at the 500-foot level.1

Legacy

An Apache cage operator from San Carlos, he was posthumously given a gold medal by the Joseph A. Holmes Safety Association in 1935. His story marks the part Apache miners played in Arizona copper mining.1

Story cards

Sources

  1. 2022 Inductees from Mining's Past Mining Foundation of the Southwest

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: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.