RETRO REPORT: The Millfield Mine Disaster

Photo via: William Peters/Public domain/Wikimedia Commons

Millfield, Ohio, is a dot on the map, a 20-minute drive away from Ohio U’s campus. 

Ninety-four years ago, it was the home of the worst mining disaster in Ohio’s history.

At around 11:45 a.m. on Nov. 5, 1930, there was an explosion at the Sunday Creek Coal Company’s Poston Mine Number Six. There were around 230 men in the mine that day, and 82 perished in the disaster.

At the time of the explosion, an official party of company executives was touring the mine to inspect new safety equipment, led by Company President William E. Tytus. Five officials, including Tytus, four visitors and 73 miners were killed.

According to Douglas L. Crowell, the author of “History of the Coal-Mining Industry in Ohio,” the mine nearly met the standards dictated by state mine inspectors, and they were in the process of implementing further safety measures to be completely compliant. Prior to the explosion, the company recently constructed a new air shaft and would have installed a ventilation fan by the next week, if not for the disaster.

However, Ron Luce, the author of “The Millfield Mine Disaster,” quotes one investigator’s report on page 108, saying, “Judging by the conditions inside the mine after the explosion, it is evident to the writer that the safety of the men was given little consideration by the company officials.”

Due to essentially a decades-long game of telephone, various sources discussing the disaster have been scattered across the internet and the information varies across sources. Luce’s 2024 book is an accessible and comprehensive compilation of the information available. 

In an interview with the Athens News, Luce said: “I’ve read everything I could get my hands on, and there’s just so many differing ideas of what happened…I just wanted to say once and for all, here’s what we know are the facts, or at least as close as we’re going to get.”

On page 98 of Crowell’s report, he states that the explosion was caused by “a rock fall that broke an electrical (trolley wire) cable, which then shorted against an underground train rail, producing an arc which ignited a pocket of methane gas that had collected in that portion of the mine.” 

Countless mine shafts, spanning miles, caved in and equipment was scorched. Some of the men escaped through ventilation shafts, but many succumbed to carbon monoxide asphyxiation. 

Twenty-one men barricaded themselves in one room of the mine to escape the gas. Two of these men perished and nearly all were unconscious by the time they were rescued 10 hours later. Former Athens County Sheriff’s Deputy Lewis Sanders told The Columbus Dispatch that the miners likely would have died in the next half-hour, had they not been found.

Distress calls were made across Ohio. State mine rescue teams responded, but according to The Columbus Dispatch, they were largely unable to help because they had no oxygen tanks. Many volunteers from the Salvation Army, nurses from the American Red Cross and members of the community stepped up to help rescue efforts as well. Many community buildings, like the company store and church, became temporary morgues.

Just two days later, an Ohio U student named Paul Moritz wrote a front-page story in the Nov. 7 issue of The Green and White, a former student newspaper. Moritz was driving near the Millfield company store when he was stopped by a frantic miner. Moritz stopped to help, although his portrayal of the miner in his writing reads as unnecessarily cartoonish and reflects a possibly problematic and reductive view of the miner as a person.

Moritz gave the man a ride and returned to the scene, watching the rescue efforts unfold. Crowds formed outside, largely consisting of women and children waiting anxiously to see if their family members would be among those rescued. The mine provided work for the majority of men in the town.

Rescue efforts were difficult. “Smoke was so bad at the air shaft that it was suicide even to bend over the hole,” Moritz said. “Meanwhile, the cage descended at frequent intervals, lifting groups of four to six minors from the gas-filled bottom. Faces of the men were expressionless.”

Elmer Dingeldey was the editor of the Green Goat, another student publication at the time. He spent 20 hours helping the Red Cross and eventually descended into the mine as a part of the rescue effort. He worked alongside a few more Ohio U students who arrived to help, and his account appears in the same issue of The Green and White.

“As I assisted in raising the lifeless forms of 75 miners…as I climbed through the narrow, smelly underground lanes to help in the rescue work, I realized that all that I had ever known about death was trifling,” Dingeldey wrote.

Dingeldey’s testimony described his experiences in graphic and excruciating detail. He went on to write an article called “Graphic Description of Scene Following Ohio’s Worst Mine Disaster at Millfield, November 5,” which was the opening story in the November 1930 issue of The Ohio Alumnus. The gruesome firsthand account can be found in the Ohio U Library’s Digital Archives, alongside the other Alumni Journals.

The last living survivor of the disaster, Sigmund Kozma, passed away in 2009. Kozma was 18 years old at the time of the disaster, working alongside his father. The men were around 500 feet away from the explosion, but they were able to escape with Kozma carrying another injured miner to the surface. According to The Columbus Dispatch, it took four hours for the men to reach the top.

“I wasn’t afraid,” Kozma told The Columbus Dispatch in 2007. “You didn’t have time to be afraid. We were looking for a way out.” The mine reopened a month after the disaster before eventually closing in 1945.

At the time of the 2020 census, Millfield had a population of 311. In 1930, it had a population of around 1,500 – many of whom were miners and their families. Following the disaster, 59 women were widowed and 154 children were orphaned. Those who survived often faced significant health issues, according to Crowell. 

In 1975, a monument with the names of the deceased was established near the disaster site. The wounds of the past can still be felt today. Many of our neighbors lost relatives, loved ones or acquaintances. Historic events still carry personal weight for some – it was not so long ago. 

In recent decades, some could argue that our culture has become desensitized to mass death events. It is important to reflect on the history of our home and remember the significance that these events still hold for our community, the people who were affected and the lives that were lost. Tragedies do not happen in a vacuum – communities must continuously support each other and rebuild.

Additional information, including photos and videos from the disaster, can be found in the Ohio University Library Archives and Mahn Center. 

Several articles used as sources from The Columbus Dispatch were archived and unable to be hyperlinked. They are:

“Millfield remembers the day 82 men died” by Jim Woods, Nov. 4, 1990

“Worst mining tragedy hit without warning,” by John Switzer, Nov. 3, 1995

“1930 mine disaster forever changed Ohio town, families,” by Dale Gnidovec, Nov. 5, 2002

“Mining tragedy still haunts small town” by Mike Harden, Nov. 26, 2002.