Mine Site Photos Page One

Cherry Coal Mine Disaster

Mine Site Photos Page One

Photos of the Mine Site and More!

The St. Paul Coal office

The buildings end facing tracks was faced straight west.

The St. Paul Co. Coal office is where the miners signed in before they started work. It is also where they picked up their paychecks every two weeks.

The building still exists but not on the mine site anymore. It was moved in 1928 to a farm south of__________. It still however is in Bureau County IL. The owner who lives there wished to not have the location revealed. He was nice enough to help me get accurate measurements of the structure so I could be exact in building my replica of the office. The owners informed me that the original color of the building was a Milwaukee Road orange.

Shortly after the disaster the widows of the miners and mothers of some of the younger miners came to collect the final paycheck of their lost loved one. They of course were still in anguish and said to the payroll clerk in a loud voice, "I dont care about the money, just give me back my husband!"

Some women had lost husband, sons and brothers.

REVERSING THE FAN WAS A MISTAKE!

Not a very clear photo but ver dramatic and revealing. The smoke is a result of the fan being rever

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AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT INSIDE THE TIPPLE!

The Twelve Heroes were brought up in the tipple after that seventh fatal trip below.

The interior of the tipple was comprised of a multi-track system. When the mine cars were filled and hoisted up into the tipple, the cars were pushed where needed. When coal loads were brought up, they were dumped into the open sections seen just in front of the men seen in the picture. It is my best guess to say that the lever the young man has his hand on triggers the car to be "tipped". The coal emptied into a lower level of the tipple where it was separated according to size and then rinsed off before being dumped into the rail cars on the surface. When slag, dirt and rock were brought from below it was dumped into the slag piles which were a couple hundred feet away from the main shaft. The cage area is behind the man where the sunlight is shining through.

Sealing the mainshaft a second time

In this view workers are seen covering the 16ft. square opening into the earth.

Sealing the Shaft a second time on Nov.15 two days after the disaster began.

In another effort to cut off the necessary oxygen for the fire to burn, the mine officials ordered the shaft to be tightly sealed. The first time they sealed it was later in the day when the disaster began. They reopened it Monday the 15^th and still found the temperatures too hot and the fire started gaining force again. In the meantime the families of the miners were furious with anger at the officials for sealing the mine. The families still believed that their loved ones could still be alive. They claimed the officials were only worried about saving the mine below and not about the trapped miners. Tensions increased and a decision to bring in the state militia was made to help control the angry crowds.

See page two mine pics