“Some day soon . . . there will be no one alive who has ever known me.
That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.”
Irvin D. Yalom
June 8, 1917 was a Friday night in Butte, Montana – known by many as “The Richest Hill on Earth.”
Two months earlier, America had entered World War I and hundreds of men were busy that night at work in the mines excavating copper-yielding ore in order to support the war effort.
The worst hard-rock mining disaster in U.S. history was about to unfold.
At 11:45 p.m., a fire broke out near the 2400-ft. level of the North Butte Mining Co.’s Granite Mountain shaft and then quickly spread 800 feet to its sister shaft, the Speculator. There were 410 miners working underground that night.
When rescue efforts concluded eight days later, the final count of men who did not make it out alive would be staggering. One hundred sixty three husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. Young and old. Americans and immigrants.
Here are their stories.
May we never forget to speak their names.
