April 22 Red Jacket Mine Explosion

On this day in labor history, the year was 1938.

That was the day Keen Mountain Coal mine exploded near Grundy, Virginia.

Described as a flame-belching volcano, the explosion killed 45 and injured three more.

It is considered one of the worst mining disasters in the history of Virginia.

One surviving miner described the scene: “I saw coal carrying cars, motors, slate and timber spouted as if from a cannon.”

The state mine inspector determined the miners had been killed instantly.

The mine had just opened the year before and produced 40 railroad cars of coal a day.

But the mine was also owned by the Red Jacket Coal Company.

In Mingo County, West Virginia years earlier, Red Jacket had been a key player in keeping the UMWA out, making its employees sign yellow dog contracts and winning injunctions against UMWA organizing.

As a member of the Williamson Coal Operators Association, Red Jacket contributed to the hostile, anti-union environment that created the conditions for the Matewan Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain in the early 20s.

They called in Baldwin Phelps detectives to start evicting Matewan strikers from company housing.

In the aftermath of the 1938 explosion, new mine safety regulations were demanded.

While inspectors were finally given the legal right to conduct inspections over the protests of mine owners in 1941, there was no power to enforce new regulations.

The Phipps Family commemorated the disaster in its 1965 song, Red Jacket Mine Explosion: