Nick Pappas
Poor Frank Hinds never saw it coming. A longtime engineer for the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad, Hinds had no reason to suspect anything but a routine run when he pulled out of Dawson with carloads of coal ticketed for his hometown of Tucumcari. After all, trains had been making this 132-mile trip over the…
Read More
For Celestino Vincioni, selling grapes to mining camps during the early years of Prohibition must have felt like taking candy from a baby. Solicit orders for grapes. Deliver grapes. Collect payment for grapes. Repeat. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit, as it turns out, starting with a minor arrest that remarkably ascended to…
Read More
For Dawson’s shot firers, nothing seemed amiss the night of April 14, 1920. The men entered mine Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 6. They set their explosives. They exited to await detonation by an electric shot-firing system. All in accordance with company rules; all in accordance with New Mexico mine regulations. So how did five…
Read More
Who hasn’t heard the expression “a canary in a coal mine”? Today, the phrase generally refers to a person or object equipped to detect danger at the earliest possible moment. But not long ago the words held a more literal meaning, reflecting the use of canaries in coal mines to detect whether the air was…
Read More
For a New Mexico coal town forever linked to two of the deadliest mine disasters in the nation’s history, Sept. 28, 1907, is remembered as a much happier occasion. On that night, 1,000 people –– 20 to 25 percent of the town’s population – came out to patronize a new business venture in downtown Dawson.…
Read More
Dozens of men working underground. A raging fire. A sudden explosion. Noxious fumes. The mine sealed shut for 12 days. Much is known about the mine disasters of 1913 and 1923 in Dawson, New Mexico. A combined 383 men – mostly immigrants from Europe – died in two violent explosions, the 263 lost in the…
Read More
The most spectacular crime in the history of Dawson, New Mexico, had it all – even if it didn’t actually take place in Dawson. Masked bandits. Bound and gagged guards. Exploding safes. Sledgehammers. Quick getaways. Ex-Rough Riders. Multiple arrests. And, as described by one newspaper, “one of the most daring hold-ups ever attempted by desperate…
Read More
Angelo. Beniamino. Carlo. Dom. Egisto. Geriomine. Luigi. Petro. Pit Della. Raymondo. All emigrants from the same village in Italy. All coal miners. All among the 263 killed in the horrific Oct. 22, 1913, mine explosion in Dawson, New Mexico. All with the same family name: Santi. Ten in all. Of the 146 Italian miners to…
Read More
The unpaved roadway leading from State Road 505 to Dawson Cemetery, to be kind, is pretty remote. No businesses. No homes. No people. Not that I was surprised. I had read enough stories, seen enough photographs, and watched enough videos to prepare myself for my first visit to the historic cemetery, Or so I thought.…
Read More
I thought I was ready for pretty much anything when I began my research into Dawson’s history. But I never expected to run smack-dab into a “breaking news” story while writing about a coal town that hasn’t existed for 70 years. That’s what happened earlier this month when a Google News search led me to…
Read More