A party of 10 miners and 3 trammers on the night shift was walking home from the boundary of the property above the twentieth level of the mine.
Hearing ground dropping, they retreated to what they thought was a safe place, the main drift, which was securely timbered and had 35 to 40 feet of solid ore above it.
The cave, however, did not occur at the place where the men had been working, but in the very place of refuse to which they had retreated, crushing in the drift timbers over a length of about 80 feet.
Six men were rescued alive after about 24 hours, but one died about a week later.
Source: Historical Summary of Mine Disasters in the United States, Volume III
