North Lake, MI Terrible Mine Disaster, Nov 1926

SETTLEMENT IS ROBBED OF MALE POPULACE.

2 MEN SURVIVE OUT OF FIFTY-THREE.

AT NORTH LAKE.

Disaster From Mines Wednesday Leaves 160 Orphans Homeless.

Ishpeming, Mich., Nov. 4 (AP) -- This little settlement which grew up around the development of the BARNES-HECKER Iron Mine at North Lake, was robbed of nearly every man resident by the disaster Wednesday which took 51 lives.
Today, as the slow work of recovering the dead to their families proceeded, there were only two men residents of the community to help. The others lay in a morgue or in the mine where they were caught Wednesday by the collapse of swamp land and the subsequent flooding with water.
In the homes the widows sat comforting their children and accepting their loss with the heroic stoicism common to their English ancestry.
The disaster left 160 orphans and the school house near by where 32 children from the community usually attended was closed today as only six children appeared today.
Only seven bodies hve been recovered so far. Fifty employes of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company perished, as did WILLIAM HILL, County Mine Inspector who was on a trip through the mine.
About forty men are working to recover the bodies, one crew is preparing to bail the wrecked shaft. Another is working in from the third level to reach the shaft from beneath.
Mine officials believe that men were working on all three levels of the mine and that most of them were on the first level, six hundred feet below the surface.
The shaft is thought to be a mass of wreckage from two hundred feet below its mouth to the bottom.

Plattsburgh Sentinel New York 1926-11-04

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Listings taken from The Daily Globe Ironwoods Michigan 1926-11-04
Sole Survivor:
WILFRED WILL, 23 years old.
Dead:
SALOMON VALIMEA.
NESTER SOLOMAN.
ELIAS RANTU. [last name is actually RANTA]
JAMES SCOPEL.
WILLIAM KAKKURL.
WILLIAM HUOT.
Capt. WILLIAM TIPPETT.
SAM PHILLIPPI.
NEIS HILL.
JOHN SANTTI.
PETER MONGLATT.
JOSEPH MANKEE.
THOMAS DREW.
RAYMOND CARLYON.
ALBERT VICKMAN.
FRANK JANKINEN.
EDWARD CHAPMAN.
HERMAN CHAPMAN, son of EDWARD.
ED TOMO.
ARVID UELNO.
LOUIS TRUDELL.
GEORGE HILL.
EMIL MAKL.
HARRY QUAYLE.
HERMAN AHO.
ARVID KALLIO.
FRANK HEINO.
UNO KOSKINAN.
GUST FRENDI.
GEORGE LAMPSHIRE.
RICHARD LAMPSHIRE, brothers.
ED LAITURA.
THEODORE KUFRT.
JOHN WILJAMER.
WALTER MATTILA.
HENRY HANPALA.
WILLIAM CARLYON.
PETER CARLYON, brothers.
WILLIAM TUEMELA.
EARL J. ELLERSICK.
CLEMENT SIMONEAU.
JACK J. HANNA.
JOHN LUOMA.
SOLOMON MILLIMAKI.
THOMAS KIRBY, SR.
THOMAS KIRBY, JR., his son.
JAMES GREEN.
PETER DUROEHE.
NICK VALENTI.
JOSEPH CELMI.
HARVEY VESPOLA.
WALTER TIPPETT, brother of WILLIAM.
WILLIAM E. HILL, of Lahpening, County Mine Inspector.

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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!