Explosion In A Mine.

Six Men Believed to Have Been Killed Near Chicopee, Kan.-Rescue Party at Work.

Pittsburg, Kan., Jan. 8.-Six lives are supposed to have been lost by an explosion probably of dust or gas at 6:40 o’clock this evening in Shaft No. 5 of the Mount Carmel Company mine, six and a half miles south of here near Chicopee.

The explosion occurred at shot firing time, when, so far as known, but seven or eight men were in the shaft, five of these being shot firers and the others drivers. Had the accident occurred half an hour later the forty men of the night shift would have been caught.

The blacksmith’s shop and other buildings at the surface were wrecked and fire started in the timbering. The fans, however, were quickly started and the fire was extinguished. Twenty minutes after the explosion two men, BOB BOYD and JOE SHERARD, escaped the smoking shaft by climbing up the frame work. They could give no account of the explosion.

The men still in the mine and supposed to be dead are: JOE SETAR, JIM SIMMERMAN, JOHN BOSSING, ANTON WEIMBERGER, ANTON GORWITZ, and CASPER MARTOLI. It is not believed that they can be reached before daylight. Great masses of slate and other debris must be removed before the rescue party can reach the interior of the mine and the men composing the rescue party are having afterdamp to contend with.

The New York Times, New York, NY 9 Jan 1897
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Transcribed by June. Thanks June!