Fire and Brimstone The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917

The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began just before midnight on June 8, 1917. Sparked by a tragic accident more than two thousand feet below ground, a fire in the Granite Mountain shaft spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour, more than four hundred men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, one hundred and sixty-three of them would be dead. As the miners fought below ground, their families waited in anguish above, united in the prayer that their sons, fathers, and husbands might make it home.