"A Wink and a Nudge" | Hyden, Kentucky, December 30, 1970
The film of this episode premieres February 2, 2027 on YouTube. The documents, the transcript and the sources are below now.
At 12:20 p.m. on December 30, 1970, a coal-dust explosion went through the interconnected Nos. 15 and 16 mines of the Finley Coal Company on Hurricane Creek, four miles east of Hyden, in Leslie County, Kentucky. Thirty-nine men were underground. Thirty-eight died.
Transcript
One year to the day
R001 MEMBERS OF THE BETH ELKHORN COAL COMPANY BEGIN DONNING THEIR EQUIPMENT TO PREPARE FOR THE KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST AT BENHAM, NEAR CUMBERLAND. EACH TEAM HAS DIFFERENT COLORED COVERALLS THAT DIFFERENTIATE THEM DURING THE COMPETITION WHICH IS FIERCE, BUT GOOD-NATURED. THE AIM IS TO SAVE LIFE IN THE EVENT OF A MINE ACCIDENT. THESE MEN WILL GO TO ANY MINE DISASTER IN THEIR VICINITY, NO MATTER WHO IS INVOLVED
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14148 (556600). View the original.
The men in this photograph are practicing for a day that had already happened.
R003 MEMBERS OF A COAL COMPANY SAFETY TEAM DON THEIR EQUIPMENT IN PREPARATION FOR THE KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST AT BENHAM, NEAR CUMBERLAND, IN HARLAN COUNTY. ALL OF THE LARGER MINES SAFETY TEAMS FOR EACH SHIFT WHO PRACTICE TO MAINTAIN A STATE OF READINESS IN THE EVENT OF A MINE ACCIDENT. EACH TEAM HAS DIFFERENT COLOR COVERALLS TO DIFFERENTIATE THEM DURING THE COMPETITION WHICH IS GOOD-NATURED, BUT FIERCE. THE AIM IS TO SAVE LIFE
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14146 (556598). View the original.
Four years earlier and about forty miles west, thirty-eight men died in a coal mine the government had not finished inspecting.
S36
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · p. 804. View the original.
One year old that day, to the day. Approved December thirtieth, nineteen sixty-nine. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act.
S32
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · § 103(a), p. 749. View the original.
Section one hundred three. Federal inspectors shall inspect each underground coal mine, in its entirety, at least four times a year.
S30
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · p. 742. View the original.
It was written after Farmington, West Virginia, where seventy-eight men died in nineteen sixty-eight. What it did not give the Bureau of Mines, in the Bureau's own words, was any time allowance for staffing.
Thursday, December thirty-first, nineteen seventy. The Courier-Journal. Thirty-eight miners feared dead near Hyden.
Hurricane Creek
R012 Mountaineers carrying home groceries and supplies from general store near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055736 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Hyden is the county seat of Leslie County, Kentucky. The government had photographed these hills once before, in nineteen forty. Marion Post Wolcott, for the Farm Security Administration.
R013 Mountain woman carrying home groceries from the store. Near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055802 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Her negatives are black and white. The color here was put on by a computer this year. It is a good guess, not a record.
S03
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 2. View the original.
Four miles east of Hyden, off Kentucky eighty, on Hurricane Creek, the Finley Coal Company opened two drift mines in the spring of nineteen seventy. Number fifteen in March. Number sixteen in June. Later that year the two were cut through to each other and run as one.
R015 General landscape near Hyden, Kentucky showing mountain cabins, sheds and cornfields
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055669 · colorized 2026. View the original.
A hundred men worked there. Ninety-five of them underground, on two producing shifts and a maintenance shift. Fifteen hundred tons a day, hauled by truck to a tipple on the Louisville and Nashville railroad, at a siding called Sybert.
S04
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 3. View the original.
The seam was the Hazard Number Four, twenty-nine to thirty-six inches thick. The Bureau of Mines tested the coal afterward. Dust with a volatile ratio of point one two is explosive. This coal was point four two.
The rule the government skipped
S31
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · § 101(c), p. 745. View the original.
The Act carried a second requirement, aimed at the government itself. Section one hundred one. In developing and revising the safety standards, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with representatives of the coal operators and the miners.
S40
35 Fed. Reg. 17890 · Nov. 20, 1970 · Part 75, Mandatory Safety Standards. View the original.
On November twentieth, nineteen seventy, the Bureau of Mines published Part seventy-five in the Federal Register. Mandatory safety standards, underground coal mines. Amended and revised, the notice said, and herewith promulgated. Hold that word. It comes back.
December 22
S05
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 4. View the original.
Inspector Gordon Couch worked out of the Bureau's Barbourville office. On November nineteenth he made a spot inspection of Number fifteen and wrote five notices of violation. The company had until eight a.m. on December twenty-second to fix them.
S06
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 4. View the original.
Before the twenty-second, Charles Finley called him. The mines would be closed from the twenty-second through the twenty-seventh, for Christmas. On the twenty-eighth, Couch was covering for an inspector on leave. On the twenty-ninth he planned other mines. On the morning of the thirtieth he was sent to a fatality somewhere else.
S07
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 5. View the original.
The report explains the leave. It had to be used by January ninth or lost, so the Barbourville inspectors were taking it, December fourteenth through thirtieth. The new Act, the report says, became operative with no time allowance for staffing. The station lost two hundred forty-four hours of leave that year anyway.
C06
621 F.2d 832, 835 (6th Cir. 1980). View the original.
Years later a federal judge added up what the four-a-year rule had produced at Hurricane Creek. Number sixteen: one complete inspection, in October, and one spot check. Number fifteen: never completely inspected. Six spot checks in nine months.
R016 Logging is one of the few sources of income to mountaineers. This cabin with the cornfield above it is near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055763 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Forty-three notices of violation came out of those visits. Coal dust. Rock dust. Smoking. Ungrounded machines. All of them, the record says, were corrected on time.
Rock dust
S10
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 10. View the original.
Rock dust is powdered limestone. Spread on every surface of a mine, it keeps coal dust from carrying a flame. The company owned two rock-dusting machines. For about two months before the explosion, testimony said, both were broken, and the dusting was done by hand.
S33
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · § 304(d), p. 775. View the original.
Section three hundred four. Where rock dust is required, the combined dust on the top, floor and sides shall be not less than sixty-five percent incombustible.
S22
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 27. View the original.
After the explosion the Bureau collected three hundred eight dust samples. Two hundred seventy-seven of them, eighty-nine percent, were under sixty-five. Two hundred twenty-nine were under fifty.
Primacord
S08
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 6. View the original.
Then there is the trailer. A hundred and five feet from the Number fifteen portal, a highway trailer held two and a half cartons of forty-percent dynamite and four thousand-foot rolls of Primacord. For blasting highwalls along the road, the owners said.
S34
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · § 313(c), p. 786. View the original.
Section three hundred thirteen. Underground, only permissible explosives, fired only with permissible shot-firing units, stemmed only with incombustible material. Primacord is detonating cord. It is not permissible in a coal mine anywhere.
S09
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 7. View the original.
The company had hired a man to fire its shots. His experience, the report says, had been principally in road construction.
S18
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 30. View the original.
A boom hole is a loading point blasted up into the roof. At Finley, forty-five to more than a hundred holes were drilled, each loaded with a cartridge or two held in with wadded paper, and all of them fired at once. From a power cable. Or from the battery of a tractor.
S16
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 16 (photographs). View the original.
The Bureau's own photograph. Primacord, found in the number one crosscut near the boom hole, Number sixteen mine.
S16b
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 17 (photographs). View the original.
The outby end of the boom hole that was shot down on December thirtieth.
S14
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 15. View the original.
A. T. Collins was the beltman. At the hearing he said he had seen Primacord in the mine before Christmas, and that the superintendent told him to hide it.
A wink and a nudge
S15
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 18. View the original.
About eleven on the morning of the thirtieth, the superintendent told Collins he had a man underground to shoot a couple of holes, and that the blast would be light. He indicated, the report says, by a wink and a nudge, that it would be something unusual.
12:20
S02
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 1. View the original.
Twelve twenty p.m. Thirty-nine men were underground. Thirty-eight of them died. Collins was twenty feet inside the portal of Number fifteen, in the belt entry. The force came out past him and he lived.
S13
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 13. View the original.
Charles Finley phoned the Barbourville office at twelve thirty. Inspectors were at the mine by two thirty and underground by three.
R002 WILSON DAY OF WHITESVILLE, KENTUCKY, A MINER WHO IS A MEMBER OF THE SAFETY TEAM FROM THE BETH ELKHORN COAL COMPANY, ADJUSTS A GAS MASK BACK PACK DURING THE KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST AT BENHAM, NEAR CUMBERLAND. SAFETY TEAMS FROM EACH OF THE LARGER MINES IN THE STATE HAVE COME TO COMPETE. THOUGH THE COMPETITION IS GOOD-NATURED, IT IS FIERCE, AND THE AIM IS TO SAVE LIFE SHOULD THEIR EXPERTISE EVER BE NEEDED IN A MINE ACCIDENT
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14145 (556597). View the original.
Finley kept no mine rescue team. Teams from U.S. Steel at Lynch, International Harvester at Benham, Beth-Elkhorn at Jenkins, and two Virginia companies stood by. They were not needed. There was nobody underground left to reach.
S11
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 12. View the original.
Self-rescuers, the one-hour breathing devices, were not carried. Twenty-one of them sat in a metal box in Number sixteen, four hundred feet from the faces, undisturbed by the blast. Number fifteen had none underground. Sixteen were in a trailer on the surface.
S35
Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 · Pub. L. 91-173 · 83 Stat. 742 · § 317(n), p. 790. View the original.
Section three hundred seventeen, paragraph n. A self-rescue device approved by the Secretary shall be made available to each miner.
S12
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 12. View the original.
About half the men were not wearing identification tags. They could not be identified, the report says, until they were brought out of the mine.
R023 General landscape near Hyden, Kentucky, showing mountain cabins, sheds and cornfields
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055756 · colorized 2026. View the original.
More than sixty concrete-block stoppings had been blown out. The last body reached the surface at ten in the morning on December thirty-first.
Appendix A
S20
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · Appendix A. View the original.
Appendix A of the Bureau's report. Thirty-eight names, with ages, dependents, and years underground. The government printed their social security numbers beside their names. Those are covered here.
S21
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · Appendix A. View the original.
Armahnd Wagers, forty, tractor operator, twenty-four years in the mines. A wife and eleven children. Earl Phillips, forty-five, shot firer. Nine children. Price Henson, thirty-eight, roof drill operator. Seven.
R019 Gravel road down mountain near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055892 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Lee Mitchell was eighteen, a beltman, six months in. Theo Griffin was twenty-eight, four months. Elmur White was twenty-three. One month. Walter Bentley was sixty.
The next morning's Courier-Journal already had the inspector's calendar. Holidays delayed doomed mine's safety check.
R020 General landscape near Hyden, Kentucky, showing mountain cabins, sheds and cornfields
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055815 · colorized 2026. View the original.
The President issued a statement that day. Every appropriate step must and will be taken. The explosion along Hurricane Creek, he said, reminds us that the work of ensuring mine safety is not yet complete.
S19
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 22. View the original.
On January sixth, a week after, the Bureau and the state held a joint hearing at the Leslie County courthouse in Hyden. The director of the Bureau of Mines came down himself.
Cause of explosion
S01
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · cover. View the original.
The Bureau's report. Nos. fifteen and sixteen mines, Finley Coal Company, Hyden, Leslie County, Kentucky.
S17
Bureau of Mines, Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Co., Hyden, Ky., Dec. 30, 1970 · p. 31. View the original.
Its conclusion. The explosion occurred when coal dust was thrown into suspension and ignited by Primacord, or by permissible explosives used in a nonpermissible manner, or by nonpermissible explosives, during the blasting of a boom hole. Excessive coal dust and inadequate rock dust carried it through both mines.
Fifty-three thousand dollars
R004 CLOSEUP OF MINE SAFETY DEVICES AS SHOWN AT A KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST HELD IN BENHAM, NEAR CUMBERLAND. FROM THE LEFT, THEY ARE AN ANEMOMETER, WIND VELOCITY METER; A G-70 METHANE DETECTOR, FOR CHECKING GAS; AND A FLAME SAFETY LAMP FOR BLACK DAMP THAT WILL GO OUT IN MINE POCKETS WITH LOW CONCENTRATIONS OF OXYGEN. THESE DEVICES ARE CARRIED BY THE MEN DESIGNATED AS SAFETY MEN IN THE MINES
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14140 (556592). View the original.
Then the machinery of the new law started. On February twenty-third, nineteen seventy-one, the Bureau proposed civil penalties. Fifty-three thousand six hundred dollars, for about sixty violations over seven months. The company protested. Nothing was paid.
C01
United States v. Finley Coal Co., 345 F. Supp. 62 (E.D. Ky. 1972). View the original.
On June twenty-third a federal grand jury indicted the Finley Coal Company and Charles Finley. Twenty-four counts of willful violation of the safety standards.
The rulebook
C02
345 F. Supp. 62, 63 (E.D. Ky. 1972). View the original.
Finley's lawyers were Bert Combs, the former governor, and Edward Prichard. They did not argue about the dust. They argued about the rulebook.
C03
345 F. Supp. 62, 66 (E.D. Ky. 1972). View the original.
Judge Hermansdorfer, July nineteen seventy-two. The Secretary had amended and revised the mandatory standards without the consultation the Act required. The regulations were invalid.
C04
United States v. Finley Coal Co., 493 F.2d 285 (6th Cir. 1974). View the original.
The Sixth Circuit, March nineteen seventy-four. The United States concedes that the Secretary did not engage in consultations sufficient to satisfy the Act. Count seven, the coal dust count, stayed dismissed. That December the Supreme Court declined to hear it.
No contest
In May nineteen seventy-five the Finleys pleaded no contest to four counts, in exchange for the dismissal of sixteen others. Among the sixteen: that the company used Primacord and high-strength dynamite illegally in the mine on the day of the disaster.
July seventh, nineteen seventy-five, at the federal courthouse in Catlettsburg. The company was fined eighty-five thousand dollars. Charles Finley, thirty-seven thousand five hundred. Twenty-five thousand of it was for the self-rescuers, which the judge called a total failure. None of the four counts was about December thirtieth.
After sentencing, Combs said of his clients: the fellas will be digging coal for the rest of their lives to pay this off.
R005 CLOSEUP OF A MEMBER OF THE PEABODY COAL COMPANY TEAM THAT IS COMPETING IN THE KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST AT BENHAM NEAR CUMBERLAND. SAFETY TEAMS FROM EACH OF THE LARGER MINES IN THE STATE HAVE COME TO COMPETE. THE COMPETITION IS GOOD-NATURED, BUT FIERCE, AND THE AIM IS TO SAVE LIFE SHOULD THEIR EXPERTISE EVER BE NEEDED IN THE EVENT OF A MINE ACCIDENT
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14147 (556599). View the original.
The United States attorney told the paper that putting Charles Finley in prison would have had no deterrent value. Each count had carried up to a year.
The widows against the United States
C05
Collins v. United States, 621 F.2d 832 (6th Cir. 1980). View the original.
By then the widows of twenty-five of the men, and A. T. Collins, had sued the United States. The claim: the government's failure to inspect the mine four times a year, as its own Act required, was a cause of the deaths.
R021 General landscape near Hyden, Kentucky, showing mountain cabins, sheds and cornfields
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055745 · colorized 2026. View the original.
The trial judge agreed the inspections had not happened. And then he found that it did not matter.
C07
621 F.2d 832, 838 (6th Cir. 1980). View the original.
An inspection, he wrote, is good only for the day it is made. And even if every surface had been properly rock-dusted, a hundred and twenty pounds of dynamite fired with Primacord would have put the dust in the air and lit it.
C08
621 F.2d 832, 841 (6th Cir. 1980). View the original.
I find no evidence, he wrote, that the inspectors could or should have known that by failing to make the four inspections, the operators would abandon good mining practice. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in May of nineteen eighty.
R010 AERIAL OF WILLIAMSON, WEST VIRGINIA, SHOWING THE COAL RAIL YARDS AND THE RIVER THAT DIVIDES KENTUCKY AT THE UPPER LEFT AND WEST VIRGINIA. THE TOWN HAS THE LARGEST COAL TRAIN YARD IN THE WORLD, FOLLOWED BY DANVILLE, WEST VIRGINIA
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14012 (556464). View the original.
A year later, in another Kentucky case, the same court settled the question it had left open at Hyden. It threw out a verdict two miners' families had won over a negligent inspection, and with it the theory the Hyden widows had sued on.
What the record says
R007 INDUSTRY, EDUCATION AND HOUSING ARE SHOWN IN THIS PICTURE IN CUMBERLAND, IN HARLAN COUNTY. U.S. STEEL MINE
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14139 (556591). View the original.
So the record closes like this. The company: a hundred twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars in fines, on counts that did not touch December thirtieth. The government: found to have skipped its inspections, and found not liable for it.
R009 ONE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF JERRY RAINEY, 34, A MINER WHO WAS OUT ON STRIKE AGAINST THE BROOKSIDE MINING COMPANY IN BROOKSIDE KENTUCKY, NEAR MIDDLESBORO FOR SEVERAL MONTHS DURING 1974. SHE IS ON THE BACK PORCH OF THE HOUSE RAINEY RENTS FROM THE COMPANY NOTICE THE OUTHOUSES IN THE BACKGROUND. THE FAMILY WAS THREATENED BY EVICTION DURING THE LENGTHY AND SOMETIMES VIOLENT STRIKE DESPITE A STATE LAW WHICH OUTLAWS SUCH A PRACTICE
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14094 (556546). View the original.
The Act was never repealed. In nineteen seventy-seven Congress moved its enforcement out of the Interior Department and into the Department of Labor, where it remains.
R006 MEMBERS OF THE PEABODY COAL COMPANY TEAM DON THEIR EQUIPMENT IN PREPARATION FOR THE KENTUCKY STATE MINE SAFETY CONTEST AT BENHAM, NEAR CUMBERLAND, IN HARLAN COUNTY. ALL OF THE LARGER MINES HAVE SAFETY TEAMS FOR EACH SHIFT. THEY PRACTICE TO MAINTAIN A STATE OF READINESS IN THE EVENT OF A MINE ACCIDENT DIFFERENT TEAMS WITHIN THE DIFFERENT MINES COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER AS A WAY TO KEEP PROFICIENT
Jack Corn · 1974 · DOCUMERICA, National Archives 412-DA-14144 (556596). View the original.
These photographs of rescue teams are from October nineteen seventy-four, at a state mine-safety contest in Benham, Harlan County. Jack Corn made them for the Environmental Protection Agency. Period color. Nothing here is colorized.
R022 Mountain cabin along creek with corn on the hillside. Near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055861 · colorized 2026. View the original.
The number the record keeps returning to is not thirty-eight. It is four. Four inspections a year, written into law on December thirtieth, nineteen sixty-nine. At Hurricane Creek, one was made.
What is still buried
R018 Gravel road near Hyden, Kentucky
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055765 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Marion Post Wolcott photographed this road in nineteen forty. It runs toward Hyden.
R017 Farmstead in Kentucky, near Hyden
Marion Post Wolcott · near Hyden, Ky. · 1940 · Library of Congress LC-USF34-055490 · colorized 2026. View the original.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Mines, *Official Report of Major Mine Explosion Disaster, Nos. 15 and 16 Mines, Finley Coal Company, Hyden, Leslie County, Kentucky, December 30, 1970* (Westfield, Malesky, Crawford, Linville; Norton, Va.). 52-page scan preserved by the U.S. Mine Rescue Association, via the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20241212023033/https://usminedisasters.miningquiz.com/saxsewell/finley_1970.pdf - Summary, p. 1: 12:20 p.m., 39 underground, 38 dead; the lone survivor near the portal in the belt entry of No. 15. - p. 2: Holt, Charles and Stanley Finley, co-owners; 100 employed, 95 underground; 1,500 tons a day to Sibert; Hazard No. 4 seam, 29–36 in.; volatile ratio 0.42 against 0.12. - pp. 2–4: the inspection list (No. 15 opened March, No. 16 June 1970); Inspector Couch's Nov. 19 notices, abatement 8 a.m. Dec. 22; the Dec. 22–27 closure; Dec. 28–30; leave "had to be used prior to January 9, 1971, or lost"; "no time allowance for staffing"; 244 hours lost. - p. 6: two 50-lb cartons plus part of a carton of 40-percent dynamite and four 1,000-ft rolls of Primacord in a trailer 105 ft from the portal, "for blasting highwalls". - p. 7: the shot firer's experience "principally with road construction work"; 45 to more than 100 holes; wadded paper; fired from power cables or tractor batteries. - p. 9: rock-dusting machines "inoperable for a period of about two months prior to the explosion"; dusting by hand. - p. 12: no mine rescue team; the five standby teams; self-rescuers not carried, 21 in No. 16 and 16 in a surface trailer; half the men without identification tags. - pp. 13, 17: notified 12:30 p.m.; inspectors arrived 2:30, underground 3:00; more than 60 stoppings blown out; last body 10:00 a.m. Dec. 31. - pp. 15–16: A. T. Collins's testimony — Primacord before Christmas, told to hide it; "by a wink and a nudge". - p. 19: joint hearing, Leslie County Court House, Jan. 6, 1971, Dr. Elburt Osborn presiding. - p. 21: 308 dust samples; 277 (89%) under 65% incombustible; 229 (74%) under 50%. - p. 25: Cause of Explosion (quoted on screen). - Appendix A: the 38 victims with age, dependents, occupation and experience. Social-security numbers appear on the page and are covered on the plates.
- The report cited in *United States v. Finley Coal Co.* runs "some 98 pages"; the scan above is 52 pages and omits the appendices after A and the mine maps.
- Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, Pub. L. 91-173, 83 Stat. 742 (approved Dec. 30, 1969) — §101(c) consultation (p. 745), §103(a) "at least four times a year" (p. 749), §304(d) rock dust 65% (p. 775), §313(c) permissible explosives and stemming (p. 786), §317(n) self-rescue device (p. 790), approval line (p. 804). https://archive.org/details/sim_united-states-united-states-statutes-at-large_1969_83
- 35 Fed. Reg. 17890 (Nov. 20, 1970), Part II — Part 75, Mandatory Safety Standards, Underground Coal Mines, "amended and revised as set forth below is herewith promulgated". https://archive.org/details/sim_federal-register-find_1970-11-20_35_226_0
- Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 moved enforcement to the Department of Labor — as recited in *Raymer*, n. 1.
- *United States v. Finley Coal Co.*, 345 F. Supp. 62 (E.D. Ky. July 7, 1972) — $53,600 proposed Feb. 23, 1971, modified to $53,800, protested, unpaid; "some sixty individual violations over a period of seven months"; indictment June 23, 1971, 24 counts; the Secretary "proceeded to amend and revise the mandatory standards without such consultation"; Count VII dismissed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1891445/
- *United States v. Finley Coal Co.*, 493 F.2d 285 (6th Cir. Mar. 13, 1974) — "The United States concedes that the Secretary did not engage in consultations sufficient to satisfy Section 811(c)"; Combs and Prichard on brief; affirmed. Cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1089 (Dec. 23, 1974). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/317637/
- *Collins v. United States*, 621 F.2d 832 (6th Cir. May 22, 1980) — the FTCA suit by Collins and the representatives of 25 miners; "MESA failed to comply with its statutory duty of making four (4) complete inspections"; one complete and one spot inspection of No. 16, six spot inspections of No. 15; 43 notices; "at least one hundred and twenty (120) pounds of dynamite"; "the explosion would have occurred even if the coal dust present in the mine had been adequately inerted"; "I find no evidence upon which to find or infer that MESA could or should have known…"; affirmed. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/378134/
- *Raymer v. United States*, 660 F.2d 1136 (6th Cir. Oct. 9, 1981) — reversed a wrongful-death judgment against the United States for negligent mine inspection (Muhlenberg County, 1972). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/395206/
- *The Courier-Journal* (Louisville), Dec. 31, 1970, p. 1 — "18 bodies recovered after blast / 38 miners feared dead near Hyden".
- *The Courier-Journal*, Jan. 1, 1971, p. 1 — Ward Sinclair, "Holidays delayed doomed mine's safety check"; and "Probe promised into…", with Rep. Carl D. Perkins's statement that the House Education and Labor Committee would conduct its own probe.
- *The Courier-Journal*, July 8, 1975, p. 1 — Doug Perry, "U.S. judge fines Finleys $122,500": nolo contendere plea in May to four counts, dismissal of 16 others including the Primacord and dynamite counts; none of the four related to the day of the explosion; Charles Finley $37,500.
- *The Courier-Journal*, July 8, 1975, p. A10 — continuation: company fines $85,000; each count up to $25,000 and one year; Combs: "The fellas will be digging coal for the rest of their lives to pay this off"; self-rescuers "a total failure", $25,000; U.S. attorney: "no deterrent value"; $6 million in widows' suits pending. Photograph: Associated Press.
- *The Courier-Journal*, June 13, 1977, p. 1 — Stephen Ford, "U.S. too big to tackle when it comes to Hyden suit" (read, not shown): the widows' $6.8 million FTCA claims tried at Catlettsburg in June 1977; the families "lost their suits against the company five years ago".
- Richard Nixon, Statement on the Coal Mine Disaster in Kentucky, Dec. 31, 1970 — American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-coal-mine-disaster-kentucky
- Farmington No. 9, Nov. 20, 1968, 78 dead — MSHA, *Informational Report of Investigation, Consol No. 9 Mine* (1990), abstract.
- Kentucky 80 and the distances (Hyden–Hurricane Creek 4 miles; Benham–Hyden about 40 miles) — the Bureau report, p. 2, and a road map; the Benham figure is approximate.
- Marion Post Wolcott, FSA/OWI, near Hyden, Leslie County, Ky., Aug.–Oct. 1940 — Library of Congress LC-USF34-055490 to -055892 (call numbers on each plate). Black-and-white negatives; the color was applied by a computer (DDColor) in 2026 and audited with the channel's spot-fix pass. It is an estimate, not a record. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/
- Jack Corn, Project DOCUMERICA, Oct. 1974 — Kentucky state mine-safety contest at Benham; Cumberland and Lynch, Harlan County; Brookside; Williamson, W.Va. National Archives RG 412, series 412-DA (NAIDs on each plate). Period color transparencies, unaltered. Records: `useRestriction: Unrestricted`. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493
- The Bureau of Mines report's own photographs (pp. 16–17 of the scan): "Primacord found in No. 1 crosscut…" and "Outby end of boom hole shot down in No. 1 entry 2 left No. 16 mine."