There were a dozen Johns and several Joes who walked into Frontier Mine No. 1 a mile north of Kemmerer on Aug. 14, 1923.
There were also names like Marion, Oswaldo, Eino and others with surnames such as Kawasi and Ojima, Rodriguez and Andratta. The 135 workers represented eight nationalities as they headed into the 6,000-foot coal mine to go to their work assignments on levels 28, 29, and 30 deep inside.
Acting fire boss and shot firer Thomas Roberts had matches in his pocket, his flame safety lamp on his head and breakfast in his hand, intending to eat after he started his shift — as was his daily custom.
As fire boss, Roberts' job was to find any gas that could cause safety issues in the mine, and he had reportedly been in the mine earlier and had found gas at the face of room 45 at the 27th entry level and shared that information.
Roberts then was ordered by Foreman John Oakley to assume his shot firer role of blasting a coal seam to be mined on the 30th level. The mine used black powder charges to break the coal off the tunnel ceilings and sides.
Oakley ordered safety inspector Joe Wainwright to remove the gas reported by Roberts through improved air ventilation. As his men went below, Oakley remained on top taking care of some business.
The shift, that included some fathers and sons, as well as a few brothers, was working in the oldest mine in the Kemmerer region, first started in 1887 by Patrick J. Quealy and Mahlon Kemmerer.
But before Roberts ate his breakfast and Oakley went into the mine to check on his crew, disaster struck.
At 8:20 a.m., Oakley and others on the surface noticed a cloud of dust issuing from air discharged by the mine’s huge fan. There were also papers and rubbish blown out of the entry of the mine indicating an explosion.
“135 Miners Believed Dead,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported on Aug. 14, 1923. “Kemmerer, Wyoming, Disaster Will Take Enormous Toll.”
The final tally would be adjusted down to 99.
A shot of miners at the Frontier Mine #1 following the 1923 disaster. (Courtesy University of Wyoming American Heritage Center) 
Kemmerer as it looked in 1923. (Courtesy University of Wyoming American Heritage Center) 
A shot of the portal of a Frontier mine. (Courtesy Miningartifacts.org)
‘No Hope’
But that would not be the last tragedy for the coal mining community.
Before the wounds of those losses could heal, just 13 months later on Sept. 16, 1924, another mining explosion in a Kemmerer Coal Co. mine in nearby Sublet, Wyoming, would claim 39 lives.
“No hope was held that any of the miners who were within the (work area) when the great blast occurred shortly before noon were alive,” The Wyoming Press in Evanston reported Sept. 20, 1924, using an article from a Sept. 17 edition of a Kemmerer newspaper. “Twenty-two bodies of the victims lay in Kemmerer morgues tonight.”
The Frontier mine blast became the second worst mining disaster in the state and the Sublet explosion the fifth. And there were other deadly Kemmerer-area mining accidents.
“We had lots of accidents, lots of men’s lives taken,” said Deb Archibald, a volunteer at the Hamsfork Museum in Kemmerer.
To keep the history of the region’s underground coal mining alive, she said the museum has created a room that depicts a working mine in the region.
The replica of a mine includes tools of the trade and mannequins representing the fire boss and shot firer, as well as the numbered brass tags that represent miners and would prove crucial to determining who was in or out of the mine.
The museum is working at acquiring a boot that was on one of the miners who was inside the Frontier mine on that fateful day in 1923.
“It was really dangerous work,” Archibald said. “They didn’t know if they were going to come out alive.”
Mining disasters at the turn of the past century were not uncommon. But by 1923, Wyoming had stricter laws in place related to safety and the state had mining inspectors who produced annual reports to the governor on mining safety.
The reports from 1923 and 1924 coupled with a U.S. Bureau of Mines investigation into the Frontier blast offered insight into the two disasters in Lincoln County that together claimed 138 lives and left 97 widows and 133 fatherless children.
At Frontier Mine No. 1, response to the disaster moved quickly for its time. A special railroad car for mine rescues from the Bureau of Mines had been in Rock Springs and was dispatched to Kemmerer first pulled by one locomotive, then a faster one.
Quealy, vice president of Kemmerer Coal Co., helped direct rescue and recovery operations. Oakley and a few men wearing helmets with oxygen apparatus immediately headed into the mine to investigate.
Miner’s Story
Down below in the mine, Joe Nagi was working on level 29 in about the 33rd room. He told a coroner’s jury later that he felt ringing in his ears and went toward the slope or entry tunnel of the mine, was met with gas and ran back.
“Went out as far as No. 1 room and was pretty near knocked down,” he testified. “Then went back and worked on stopping.”
The term “stopping” refers to blocking the passage that gas and smoke might creep through using rock and other means.
Oakley and other miners worked quickly to try and restore ventilation to the mine.
“As news of the explosion spread throughout Kemmerer and Frontier yesterday, a crowd estimated to number 1,000 persons gathered at the portal of the mine and maintained a frantic, fearful vigil,” the Deseret News in Salt Lake City reported on Aug. 15, 1923. “Wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, sweethearts and children of the entombed men pressed against the rope barrier strung around the shaft.”
Tom Russell, the mine superintendent at Diamondville, Wyoming, was called to help with the disaster and on arrival, entered the mine with breathing apparatus to find a man dead at the entry to the 25th level.
Russell said when a crew from Cumberland Mine arrived and tried to access the 30th level, they found a lot of gas and saw evidence of the explosion.
“Men in 30 (level) were killed as they stood, burned,” he said.
In the 30th level entry they found “shot firer” and gas watchman Tom Robert’s body badly burned as well as the body of a Japanese miner. There was gas present in the room, and they found and open safety lamp belonging to Roberts as well as a wooden match with the tip charred.
His breakfast had not been eaten.
A brattice, or curtain to conduct air circulation, appeared damaged in the room where the Japanese miner lay. Inspectors believed Roberts had gone to repair the brattice and his special gas-detecting light had gone out because of the gas in the room.
He had tried to relight it.
The Susie Mine entrance near Kemmerer depicts a mine entrance in the earl part of the past century in the region. (Courtesy University of Wyoming American Heritage Center) 
Miners outside the Frontier #3 Mine in Frontier in the early part of the past century. (Courtesy University of Wyoming American Heritage Center) 
The cover of the State Coal Mine Inspectors Report for 1923. (Courtesy Wyoming State Archives) 
Pages in the 1923 State Coal Mine Inspectors report detail the Frontier No. 1 disaster. (Courtesy Wyoming State Archives)
Holding Out
Miners such as Nagi who survived the explosion huddled in rooms and some erected barriers to smoke and gas and held out for hours until rescued or ventilation was restored enough so they could make their way out.
Some who immediately tried to escape the mine died not from the blast, but from gas inhalation and may have survived if they had retreated to rooms and barricaded themselves from the gas until ventilation was restored, the Bureau of Mines investigation found.
Mike Pavlisin, a shot inspector on Level 29, told the coroner’s jury that he was met by smoke as he tried to go to the slope out of the mine. He then retreated and through a room on level 29, went up to Level 27 where he found others.
“Went back to 29 with 28 men,” he said. Pavlisin and others built barriers and were able to hold on until rescuers met them hours later.
A Japanese miner named M. Fukumutsu told the coroner’s jury that he was working in room 26 on the 28th level and “felt concussion and wind.” He tried to go to the slope but found too much smoke and retreated. He said at 11 a.m. he attempted to escape again and found “many dead men.”
“So, go back and wait long time for men,” he said. “Men come at 5 o’clock and me and partner go out about 5:30.”
The U.S. Bureau of Mines report said that Roberts “thinking he was safe on the intake air side of the line brattice, he opened the flame safety lamp and attempted to relight it with an ordinary match.”
There was also general carelessness related to open flames and coal dust in the mine, the U.S. Bureau of Mines inspectors reported.
“While the mine was felt to be sufficiently gaseous to require use of closed lights exclusively, yet all men were allowed to carry into the mine and use ordinary matches for smoking and for lighting of shots or of flame safety lamps,” the report said.
Match Caused Blast
The coroner’s inquest after the blast interviewed survivors and those who arrived to help rescue miners. The three members of the coroner’s jury also found Roberts’ actions caused the blast.
“The explosion was caused by the fire boss while uncoupling his lamp and a result of the explosion all victims are dead,” the jury concluded.
The State Coal Mine Inspectors of Wyoming report for 1923 agreed that Roberts’ actions triggered the disaster. The December report stated the mine was back in operation and producing “1,000 tons of coal daily.”
The state report also emphasized: “No matches or smoking material are allowed in the mine.”
Thirteen months later on Sept. 16, 1924, in Sublet Mine No. 5, also owned by the Kemmerer Coal Co., another gas explosion occurred.
There had been 53 miners in the mine, according to a report in the Wyoming State Leader on Sept. 17, 1924.
“The explosion at 11:45 (a.m.) occurred just after a number of men had emerged from the mine at lunch hour,” the newspaper reported. “Had it occurred a few minutes earlier or an hour later there would have been 81 in the workings instead of 53.”
Quealy, who again needed to respond to a mine disaster from his base in Kemmerer, was nearly killed when his car left the road heading north to Sublet.
“The automobile in which he rode was crowded off the road and toppled over a 10-foot embankment,” The Laramie Republican reported on Sept. 19, 1924. “The machine remained upright and aside from a severe shaking up and minor bruises, the occupants escaped serious injury.”
The car was pushed back over the embankment and onto the road with help from passing motorists and Quealy make it to the mine to direct efforts.
The Aug. 14, 1923, Casper Daily Tribune reports the disaster at Frontier Mine No. 1 near Kemmerer. (Courtesy Newspapers.org) 
The Casper Daily Tribune on Sept. 17, 1924, reported the Sublet Mine No. 5 disaster. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The Wyoming Press in Evanston reported on the loss of life in the Sublet mine disaster. (Courtesy Wyomingnewspapers.com)
Survivor And Rescuer
A 12-year veteran of the mine, Mike Benna led 11 fellow surviving miners out of the mine after the blast, The Wyoming Press reported on Sept. 20.
He then led a rescue crew back inside the mine where he knew three miners had died to recover their bodies from under rock and rubble.
“Throughout the night Mike kept up his self-appointed task," the newspaper reported. "And when he was relieved for a respite of four hours, he had seen the bodies of most of the men who entered the mine with him … carried out on stretchers and removed to two morgues in Kemmerer.”
A Bureau of Mines report revealed that gas had accumulated in the 12th level of the mine and a locomotive trolley arc set off the gas which combined with coal dust caved in the 12th level for most of its length killing the miners quickly by flame and suffocation.
“Enough gas was regularly given off in the mine to entail immediate hazard if ventilation was even temporarily interrupted,” the Bureau of Mines inspectors reported. “Edison electric cap lamps were used, but regular tests for gas were neglected. Dust was sprinkled on entries and the slope.”
The Wyoming State Mine Inspectors report for December 1924 said both the Sublet and Frontier mines had installed new fans and had sprinkler systems in place to keep down the dust.
Despite the Sublet mine disaster, the state mining inspector found companies in the Lincoln County district were trying to maintain safe work environments.
“The mines in the district are in good condition, the different companies are trying to eliminate accidents and are willing to use any safety measures that will reduce them,” the report stated. “The mining laws are being lived up to in the district.”
Compensation
The Kemmerer Gazette reported on March 23, 1927, that Wyoming Coal Miner’s Union officials shared how the state’s Workman’s Compensation law created in 1915 had benefitted miners and their families — mentioning the Sublet disaster.
“In 10 years and nine months of operation, (the law) paid to injured workmen and their dependents $3,249,480,” Union President Martin Cahill said.
The Casper Herald-Tribune reported on Oct. 29, 1924, that $49,520 had been paid to 14 widows and 30 children. The maximum award per family was $5,600. It gave an example that a Mrs. John Pagon received $2,000 and her seven minor children $3,600.
Frontier Mine No. 1 closed on March 2, 1926, after producing about 8 million tons of coal. Sublet Mine No. 5 closed in 1950.
Frontier continues to exist as a neighborhood on north side of Kemmerer. Sublet became one of the state’s several ghost towns.
Visitors to the Kemmerer region today can find remains of some concrete openings to some of the region’s mines, Archibald said.
“A lot of people go up and search the homesteads that used to be there,” she said. “You can see foundations. We have a map that shows people where they can go. Many people have been able to find where they were at.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
