CHS Class of 68

Centralia No. 5 Mine Disaster

It happned two or three years before the members of the Class of '68 were born. It became a legacy that the members of our class would hear about throughout our days in school. On March 25, 1947 the Centralia No. 5 coalmine explosion near the town killed 111.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor reported the explosion was caused when an underburdened shot or blown-out shot ignited coal dust. The mine was exceedingly dry and dusty. Heavy deposits of coal dust were present along the roadways and on the roof, ribs, and timbers in working places and entries. At the time of the explosion most of the men were at the man trips on the entries waiting for the shot firers to complete lighting the shots so they could ride to the shaft bottoms on the man trips. At the time of the explosion 142 men were in the mine. Of those, 65 were killed by burns and violence and 45 by afterdamp. Eight men were rescued but one died from the effects of afterdamp. Twenty-four escaped unaided.

The Centralia High School basketball team became known as the "Orphans" in 1936 because upstate sports reporters thought them shabby upstarts to be competing at the state level. However, the name became prophetic after the No. 5 disaster; at one time, all the players had lost a father in the mines.

Bill Neipoetter Recalls Mine Disaster

Bill Niepoetter, 77, of Centralia, Ill., holds a St. Louis Post-Dispatch special section from April 30, 1947, detailing the aftermath of an explosion that killed 111 miners in this southern Illinois city on March 25, 1947, at Niepoetter's home in Centralia, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006. Niepoetter's father and three other relatives died in the blast. **

(Saturday, January 7, 2006, Centralia, IL *) - Notes found in dead miners' pockets. The confusion, hope and then agony of loved ones waiting for word of rescue. The news this week from West Virginia's Sago Mine was hauntingly familiar for 77-year-old Bill Niepoetter. He lost his father and three other relatives in a coal mine explosion that killed 111 in this southern Illinois town in 1947.

Niepoetter, a college student at the time, rushed home upon word of the explosion. He gathered with others to wait hours for word of their friends' and relatives' fates.

" One rescue worker would come up and say, `It's bad, there are not going to be any survivors.' The next one would come up and say, `It's not going to be as bad.' We had no notion," he said.

Rescue workers would emerge from the mines, their faces sooty and grim.

" I swear that if the rescue guys would come in right now, I'd be able to recognize them. Their faces," Niepoetter said. "It's something you never forget."

March 25, 1947 is the day Niepoetter's 41-year-old father Henry "Peck" Niepoetter and 110 others died. Thirty-one miners managed to survive.

It was later discovered that an explosive charge meant to loosen coal in the mine ignited coal dust hanging in the air 545 feet below ground.

At first, Niepoetter was hopeful, remembering that several years earlier his father had managed to dig his way out of a mine when its roof caved in. That hope faded as a searcher said he had found his own brother, dead with a lunch bucket under his arm.

The man told Niepoetter that 15 or 20 other bodies were lined up below. More corpses were freed as the digging pressed on, some near notes the victims scribbled to loved ones in their final moments — something also found with some Sago miners.

" Be good boys. Please your father. O Lord help me," one of the Centralia miners wrote.

Woody Guthrie later memorialized those notes in his song "Dying Miner."

Searchers brought the first of the miners' bodies to the surface a day later. It was four days before Niepoetter learned his father was dead, his remains identified.

Niepoetter buried his father in Hillcrest Memorial Park, the place locals often call "Coal Mine Hill" because so many tombstones bear the date March 25, 1947. At least 39 of the miners are buried there, said Judy Sutherland, co-owner of the cemetery.

Niepoetter said his father, like those in West Virginia, knew the risks of his job.

" Every miner that I ever knew had a little plaque-like thing on his wall, a little prayer that said he'd rather be killed than trapped," he said. "We had one, and you accept the danger."

(* Jim Suhr, Associated Press Writer) (** AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

UMWA President, John L. Lewis, surveys the disaster site. Members of relief rescue crew wait to descend into the Centralia No. 5 Mine, Centralia, IL, where 111 miners were killed in an explosion March 25, 1947.

On March 25, 1947, a mine exploded in Centralia, Illinois killing 111 miners. The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor reported:

"The explosion was caused when an underburdened shot or blown-out shot ignited coal dust. The mine was exceedingly dry and dusty. Heavy deposits of coal dust were present along the roadways and on the roof, ribs, and timbers in working places and entries. At the time of the explosion most of the men were at the man trips on the entries waiting for the shot firers to complete lighting the shots so they could ride to the shaft bottoms on the man trips. At the time of the explosion 142 men were in the mine. Of those, 65 were killed by burns and violence and 45 by afterdamp. Eight men were rescued but one died from the effects of afterdamp. Twenty-four escaped unaided. "

Although the explosion was a tremendous tragedy, loss of life in underground coal mines was a common occurrence. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) President John L. Lewis stated, "There were more casualties in coal mining than in the armed forces in 1942." The United Mine Workers of America had emphasized mine safety since the 1930's.

Following the disaster UMWA President John L. Lewis invoked the union's right to call memorial days. As a memorial to those killed at Centralia, the miners did not work for six day, beginning March 29, 1947.

The disaster was of such magnitude that both the House and Senate held committee hearings on mine safety. Lewis used those forums to castigate both the operators and the government. He told the representatives that historically the operators philosophy was, "We kill them, you (the union) provide for their widows and orphans. "

For years, Lewis and the UMWA had vocally advocated for improved mine safety as well as a welfare and retirement fund. The Centralia Mine Disaster provided the catalyst to force the government to act and the mining industry to acquiesce. The UMWA Welfare and Retirement Fund continues to this day.