Mine Site Photos Page Three

Cherry Coal Mine Disaster

Mine Site Photos Page Three

St. Paul Mine in Cherry IL.

Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul RR.

The railroad needed coal for their locomotives throughout the system.

The picture here of the 10-wheeler locomotive was taken on nov 20^th 1909. These were the type of locomotives working the mine site. This is the same day that 21 miners were surprisingly discovered alive after eight days of hell in the earth below.

LOOKING NORTH TO CHERRY IL.

Tracks came off the branch line in Ladd IL. The Milwaukee Road RR.

THE TRACKS WENT NORTH RIGHT NEXT TO THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ELEVATOR IN THE DISTANCE. ONCE NEAR THE MINE SITE THE TRACKS TOOK A LEFT AT ABOUT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE AND ENDED AFTER ABOUT 300 YARDS OR SO. THIS WAS A SPUR OFF THE BRANCH AT LADD JUST THREE MILES SOUTH.

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Looking directly northwest toward the mine

Can you see the tripod in this photo?

The moments were captured on film! This view looking northwest is another one of my favorites. In this view (toward left) the fire has destroyed the fanhouse when a decision to reverse the fan was made. This means no more air for miners who may still be alive. Also, since the escape shaft was adjacent to the airshaft, the flames also destroyed the stairway from the levels below. Thus cutting off an important means of escape.

Without pictures such as these I could have never built the HO scale model of the mine site. Now with the model permanently displayed at the Cherry Library people can come and visit and now get a three-dimensional perspective of the mine site. They can learn about how coal was mined in the early 1900s.

Visitors came on boxcars to see the chaos

One of the ways in which visitors got to the mine site quickest was by rail.

John Fosco worked in the coal mine in Cherry

Contact gjourney1@yahoo.com for Digital Books of the Cherry Coal Mine Disaster

See Model Railroading magazine at task bar at left.

The Grain Elevator in Cherry is gone now.

Torn down in 2001. Another landmark gone.

The Look of November 13^th.

When November 13^th and 14^th of 1999 came, it was the 90^th anniversary of the Cherry Mine Disaster. This was the weekend the Mine Model was unveiled. As I was entering Cherry early morning, it was an unseasonably warm day for the time of year. The sky was clear and I thought it wonderful to have the weather conditions exactly as they were on Saturday Nov. 13^th and 14^th in 1909. The picture above is a picture I took as I entered town, the historic town of Cherry on the 90^th anniversary. The grain elevator was next to the track that once went to the coal mine. The track was on the left. The slag pile hills are seen in the distance behind the elevator.