New Straitsville Mine Fire refugee Elizabeth Green   Save
Ohio Guide Photographs
Description: Reverse reads: “Perry County—A refugee from the New Straitsville Mine Fire is Mrs. Elizabeth Green, 75-year-old widow, who was driven from her little cottage on top Plummer Hill by the ‘black damp’ or carbon dioxide. Mrs. Green lived here for 20 years and in recent years as the fire crept closer she has been forced to flee several times, returning when the gas abated. Recently, however, she was forced to leave her home permanently when the ‘black damp’ (a suffocating gas) seeped through fissures in her cellar in such volume that it put out the fire in her stove and in her oil lamp and would have killed her had she tarried. She is shown here gathering up a few possessions. The cottage now is not only full of gas but it is in imminent danger of sinking into the earth which has been underained by the fire. She has moved into the village of New Straitsville about a mile away where she lives with her sister, Mrs. Nelly Walters. ‘It’s awful crowded in the city,’ she remarked ruefully.” In 1936, the WPA began work to stop the spread of the fire by building barriers across burning veins of coal. In 1938, nearly 350 men were employed on the project, which then was estimated to cost less than $1, 000, 000. Under the direction of James R. Cavanaugh, a veteran mine fire fighter, tunnels were driven through veins in the path of the fire, and were filled with a clay-water mixture or similar non-burning material. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B06F04_001_1
Subjects: Disasters; Coal mines and mining -- Ohio; Fires;
Places: New Straitsville (Ohio); Perry County (Ohio)