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Follow
the Fire in the Hole script and accompanying images to see how tensions
flare as unions gain a foothold in the Colorado Coal Fields in 1894.
Narrator:
The Western Federation of Miners started their organizing in an economic hurricane. A financial panic had gripped the nation in 1893. . .plunging the country into an economic depression and throwing hundreds-of-thousands of men out of work. Silver mines were especially hard hit. . .and thousands of men drifted from mining camp to mining camp, desperate for jobs and willing to accept virtually any wage that was offered. Many drifted toward the gold fields of the Colorado Rockies. The gold mines of Cripple Creek were booming, and mine owners found themselves free to dictate the terms to maximize their output.
"They wanted to take control from the beginning, and they thought they could because, after all, this is a situation where we're in the middle of a depression. There are a lot of people out there who are unemployed, and they thought that they could deal from some strength."
Narrator:
But the Western Federation of Miners – the W.F.M.– had made inroads in the Cripple Creek district. And when mine owners announced plans to add two hours to each miners shift, with no increase in pay, the union called a strike.
Jameson:
"The miners were after
a uniform eight hour day–three dollar minimum daily wage, and crucially union
recognition. The right to be recognized to bargain with mine owners for wages,
hours and working conditions."
Narrator:
Mine owners refused,
and prepared for the worst. When the strike reached its fourth month, mine
owners decided to break the union by hiring scores of unemployed miners. They
also bankrolled the local sheriff, ordering him to hire deputies from the
unemployed. . .and buying rifles to outfit a private army that soon swelled
to over 12-hundred men. 
Robert Hunter:
"Only in the United States is it still possible for rich and powerful individuals or for corporations to employ their own bands of armed men: thugs, thieves, strikebreakers and murderers."
John Calderwood/Union Leader:
"All of this war display
only tended to cement the union miners more closely together. They determined
to meet force with force, if necessary and prepared to that end."
Narrator:
Far from innocent, the W.F.M. miners had stockpiled rifles. Suddenly, in a town in the American West, two armies faced each other. Briefly, the moment was frozen in time. Hundreds of men had left their lives and picked up guns to do battle. An extraordinary time when conviction ran so deep that men were willing to kill . . .and men were willing to die.
Jameson:
"Everybody was violent.
Daily life was violent. There is a culture of male violence. What they were,
were real people who were struggling for control of their daily lives, and
they were no more angelic or demonic than you or I am. They were simply in
their view doing what they needed to do to either control and protect their
profits, or control and protect their communities."
Narrator:
Men started to die in the mountains of Colorado. A mysterious explosion tore through a strikebreaking mine, trapping men inside. In a dramatic gesture, Colorado Governor Davis Waite fought through a late-spring snow storm to personally intervene between the armies.
Jameson:
"What is unusual about Waite is that he is clearly on the miners' side, and he's this very interesting character. This sort of, you know, aging Moses who comes up through the snow walking because the railroad gets washed out gets himself to the district, meets with the miners and tells them that there has got to be peace."
Narrator:
Waite dramatically announced a settlement that gave the miners an eight-hour, three dollar day and their jobs back at the mines. But when the mine owner-financed army of deputies refused to disband . . .Waite called out the Colorado National Guard under General E. J. Brooks.
General E. J. Brooks:
"Situation critical. Sheriff persists in quartering his entire force at the Independence Mine. Says he does so at request of owner. There is in my mind but one solution– martial law!" –General Brooks
Narrator:
For two days the Cripple Creek district teetered on the brink of a three-way war between mine owners, the union, and the National Guard. Stunned that the government had failed to side with them, the private army of deputies backed down. The Western Federation of Miners declared victory, and soon had every mine in the district organized under their banner.
Jameson:
"Well once you had the miners organized, that formed the organizational basis for what became one of the most powerful labor communities in the country."
Narrator:
The mining towns in the Cripple Creek district elected union-friendly city councils. . .and even sheriffs. The Western Federation of Miners viewed Colorado as the first step in redefining living and working in the mines. But the flames of union victory did not spread in the kindling of mine towns in the arid West.
