On this day in 1925 an explosion ripped through Bethlehem Mines’ Barrackville mine number 41 near Fairmont, West Virginia.
34 men were trapped in the mine by the blast.
There were no survivors but all the bodies were recovered, including the torso of an unidentified man believed to have been responsible for the explosion, as reported in the coroner’s report. That report determined that the blast had been caused by dynamite or nitroglycerin that had been deliberately set off by the man whose mangled body was found near the bottom of the main shaft.
The Barrackville mine number 41 had been opened in 1909 and was the site of a gas explosion in 1916 that had killed 19 miners.
