For nearly a century, Kellogg, Idaho, was home to America’s
richest silver mine, Sunshine Mine. Mining there, as everywhere,
was not an easy life, but regardless of the risk, there was
something about being underground, the lure of hitting a deep vein
of silver. The promise of good money and the intense bonds of
friendship brought men back year after year. Mining is about being
a man and a fighter in a job where tomorrow always brings the hope
of a big score.
On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine on their daily
quest for silver. Aboveground, safety engineer Bob Launhardt sat in
his office, filing his usual mountain of federal and state
paperwork. From his office window he could see the air shafts that
fed fresh air into the mine, more than a mile below the surface.
The air shafts usually emitted only tiny coughs of exhaust; unlike
dangerously combustible coal mines, Sunshine was a fireproof
hardrock mine, nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There were
many safety concerns at Sunshine, but fire wasn’t one of them. The
men and the company swore the mine was unburnable, so when thick
black smoke began pouring from one of the air shafts, Launhardt was
as amazed as he was alarmed.
When the alarm sounded, less than half of the dayshift was able
to return to the surface. The others were trapped underground, too
deep in the mine to escape. Scores of miners died almost
immediately, frozen in place as they drilled, ate lunch, napped, or
chatted. No one knew what was burning or where the smoke had come
from. But in one of the deepest corners of the mine, Ron Flory and
Tom Wilkinson were left alone and in total darkness, surviving off
a trickle of fresh air from a borehole.
The miners’ families waited and prayed, while Launhardt, reeling
from the shock of losing so many men on his watch, refused to close
up the mine or give up the search until he could be sure that no
one was left underground.
In The Deep Dark, Gregg Olsen looks beyond the intensely
suspenseful story of the fire and rescue to the wounded heart of
Kellogg, a quintessential company town that has never recovered
from its loss. A vivid and haunting chapter in the history of
working-class America, this is one of the great rescue stories of
the twentieth century.
From the Hardcover edition.
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