{"id":2754,"date":"2023-08-04T20:00:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T00:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=2754"},"modified":"2023-08-04T08:25:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T12:25:30","slug":"the-laurel-mine-disaster-of-1884","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=2754","title":{"rendered":"The Laurel Mine Disaster of 1884"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2756\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2756\" src=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2756\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Pocahontas_Mine_Explosion_Memorial-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2756\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By Virginia Hillbilly &#8211; Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=123387978)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Pocahontas coal field, located in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, was one of the most productive coal areas in the United States.\u00a0 The town of Pocahontas, in Tazewell County, Virginia, and for which the field was named, was granted a town charter by Virginia on January 31, 1884.<\/p>\n<p>Less than two months later tragedy struck when the Laurel (East) mine suffered a series of massive explosions powerful enough to move homes off their foundations and uproot massive trees.<\/p>\n<p>Today we tell the story of the Laurel mine disaster of 1884, a tragedy that cost the lives of at least 114 men and boys.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast on your favorite podcast app so you don&#8217;t miss any of our stories.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_2799\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2754-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/56367734\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/56367734\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/56367734\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/56367734\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=2754-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/56367734\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pocahontas coal field, located in southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, was one of the most productive coal areas in the United States.\u00a0 The town of Pocahontas, in Tazewell County, Virginia, and for which the field was named, was granted a town charter by Virginia on January 31, 1884. Less than two months later [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,17,5,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disasters","category-the-1880s","category-the-coalfields","category-tragedy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Iq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2758,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}