Yellow Jacket Mine Fire
On the morning of April 7, 1869, a fire spread at the 800 foot level in the Yellow Jacket Mine. Firefighters entered the mine but the smoke and flames pushed them back. As the fire burned, wood timbers collapsed and poisonous air expanded into the adjacent Kentucky and Crown Point mines. The fires persisted and mine sections were sealed off and remained hot for several years. At least thirty five miners died, and some bodies were never retrieved. The Yellow Jacket Mine fire was the worst mining accident in Nevada history up to that time.
Read more about this topic: Comstock Lode
Famous quotes containing the words yellow, jacket and/or fire:
“iris and lilac, birds
birds, yellow flowers
white flowers, the Diesel
does not let up dragging
the plow”
—Charles Olson (19101970)
“Old age begins in the nursery, and before the young American is put into jacket and trowsers, he says, I want something which I never saw before and I wish I was not I.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States, and excite in his bosom a lively, deep, decided and heart-felt interest.”
—Maria Stewart (18031879)