Cherry Mine Disaster - Day Ride

Finally, it might be Spring.  By this time last year, I had ridden 1,000 miles.  Not so lucky this year, but did get a chance to go out today and rev the engine a bit while checking out something I had read about over the winter.  Headed out to some twisties at Starved Rock.  Took a few passes, little traffic, and the gears wound out perfectly.

Started heading to the the town of Cherry, but stopped off in Troy grove for a few pics.

Too cool.

Stopped off at the Wild Bill Hickok memorial.  Pretty cool story - especially focusing on his efforts for equality.

And a cool statue.

So I headed out to Cherry, IL to see the Cherry Mine Disaster memorial.  I was surprised at how large the slag piles were.  On these open plains, I could see them several miles away.  They look small in the pic, but they are quite large in person.

In the end, 259 men and boys died here including 12 rescue workers.   Tragedy for sure, though the event did lead to safer mining regulations by the state. 

From Wikipedia:
"On Saturday, November 13, 1909, like most days, nearly 500 men and boys, and three dozen mules, were working in the mine. Unlike most days, an electrical outage earlier that week had forced the workers to light kerosene lanterns and torches, some portable, some set into the mine walls.
Shortly after noon, a coal car filled with hay for the mules caught fire from one of the wall lanterns. Initially unnoticed and, by some accounts, ignored by the workers, efforts to move the fire only spread the blaze to the timbers supporting the mine.

The two shafts were then closed off to smother the fire, but this also had the effect of cutting off oxygen to the miners, and allowing the “black damp,” a suffocating mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, to build up in the mine."

There is more at Wikipedia if you would like to read it.