At 10:20 a.m., December 6, 1907, explosions occurred at the No. 6 and No. 8 mines at Monongah, West Virginia. The explosions ripped through the mines at 10:28 a.m., causing the earth to shake as far as eight miles away, shattering buildings and pavement, hurling people and horses violently to the ground, and knocking streetcars off their rails. Three-hundred and sixty-two men and boys died. It remains the worst mine disaster in the history of the United States.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvmarsha/mine.htm1914
USA West Virginia
coal mine
Explosion at Eccles No. 5 & No. 6 mine kills 181.
1915
USA West Virginia
coal mine
Explosion at Layland No. 3 mine kills 115.
1924
USA West Virginia
coal mine
Explosion at Benwood mine kills 119.
1968
USA West Virginia
coal mine
Explosion and fire killed 78 men at the Consol No 9 mines at Farmington, West Virginia.
1972
USA West Virginia
coal mine
Dam failure at Buffalo mine in Saunders kills 125.
http://www.endgame.org/industrial-disasters.htmlOn four separate occasions between 1919 and 1921 the United States Army was ordered to intervene in labor disputes between miners and coal mine operators in West Virginia. Federal military interventions to maintain or restore civil authority threatened by unrest or riots originating from labor disputes was not unknown duty to army personnel. Between 1877 and 1920 several presidents had called upon the army to assist civil officials in quelling domestic disorders under authority of the Constitution and congressional statutes. In the vast majority of federal military interventions prior to 1917, regular army troops succeeded in restoring order quickly, with a minimum of injury and bloodshed, in strict adherence to orders issued within legal parameters set by the Constitution, federal statutes, and army regulations. Although questions of army neutrality were constantly raised, especially by labor groups and workingmen who were most often the focus of federal military interventions, historically United States Army actions during American domestic disturbances were amazingly non-partisan and non-violent when compared to the record of National Guard forces while under state control.1
Although intervention in labor disputes was a relatively routine duty for army personnel by 1920, the interventions in West Virginia represented a watershed in the history of the army role in suppressing domestic disorders. The Constitution and Revised Statutes of 1874 clearly defined the procedures for state authorities to gain federal military assistance and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1874 prevented the misuse of federal military power by local and state civil authorities before and after regulars had been deployed. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker suspended these legal procedures in 1917 for the duration of World War I when National Guard forces, traditionally the first recourse for state officials needing military forces to maintain order, were federalized for wartime service in France. With the absence of state military forces, the United States Army was called upon to fill the void under a policy developed by Secretary Baker known as direct access. A wartime expedient, the direct access policy allowed local and state civil officials to summon directly federal troops for quelling disorders without resorting to the complicated pre-war procedure involving the state legislatures, president, and the War Department. Without pre-war legal procedures, numerous state and local officials, at the behest of local businessmen and patriotic groups, took undue advantage of the easy access to federal troops to crush labor unions or suppress radical groups and dissenters. The years 1917-21 saw an unprecedented number of federal military interventions in domestic disturbances and labor disputes.2
http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh50-1.html
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