Dawson NM
Ghost town or a town of ghosts? When I began my research for an upcoming book about Dawson, New Mexico, my sole focus was on the former. After all, the earthbound story of the old mining town was scary enough: Two massive mine explosions 10 years apart. Nearly 400 men killed between them, the first…
Industrial history was made yesterday at Bruceton. So began a front-page story in The Pittsburgh Post on Oct. 31, 1911, describing in painstaking detail the first public demonstration inside the U.S. government’s new Experimental Mine in Bruceton, Pennsylvania. Its purpose? To determine once and for all whether coal dust – in a mine absent of…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…