EDITOR’S NOTE: In a four-part series, Journal Ishpeming Bureau reporter Lisa Bowers will explore the Barnes-Hecker Mine disaster of 1926, which is being commemorated by the Barnes-Hecker Remembrance Committee. The series will run on Mondays through Nov. 7, covering many aspects of the disaster, the worst mining accident in Michigan history, claiming 51 lives.

ISHPEMING – Nov. 3, 1926 should have been the routine beginning of a routine workday for the men reporting for day shift at the Barnes-Hecker Mine west of Ishpeming.

In order to report to their work assignments, the 52 men had to enter a cage in groups of 15 to be lowered to depths ranging from 600 to 1,000 feet below the surface through a vertical mine shaft 1,060 feet deep.

In 1926, Michigan’s iron ore industry employed about 12,000 workers, mostly comprised of immigrants.

No one could have predicted that later that Wednesday morning the world would come crashing in on the people of western Marquette County bringing with it the worst mining disaster in Michigan history.

The men arrived for their shift at about 7:20 a.m. from Diorite, North Lake, South Greenwood, Ishpeming and the Barnes-Hecker location to report for work, according “No Tears in Heaven – The 1926 Barnes-Hecker Disaster” by Thomas Friggens.

Some walked, some rode the company bus, and some drove their own automobiles.

“Their faces reflect the weariness of their labors and the pride of their heritage. They are strong and alive, laughing and sullen, as they prepare to toil underground,” Friggens wrote.

Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company had been considered a pioneer of mine safety for 15 years leading up to the cave-in. Barnes-Hecker was considered very safe by all, according to Friggens.

The mine had been inspected by CCI safety inspector William Conibear just three weeks prior.

“There has been just one fatality, a carpenter, since the property opened in 1917,” Friggens stated.

Which is why the events of Nov. 3 were all the more horrifying and surprising.

An explosion at about 11:20 a.m. caused a 60-foot cave-in and as a result the entire mine flooded. It is estimated that it took about 15 minutes for the mine to fill up with water, mud, and debris.

Barnes-Hecker Remembrance Committee co-chair Mary Tippett – whose grandfather Walter Tippett, along with his older brother and mine captain William Francis Tippett died in the mine that day – said the force of the water and the debris was so powerful it lifted the motor and threw it into the shaft.

“Think how heavy that train motor was,” Tippett said, “7,000 pounds.”

The 51 men who died in the Barnes-Hecker tragedy left 42 widows and 132 minor children without fathers. Fifty of the dead were miners and the other was newly re-elected county mine inspector William E. Hill.

Mary Tippett said she wants to encourage people to see the human side of the tragedy.

“In those numbers are people, in those numbers are us, our families,” Tippett said.

The sole survivor of the tragedy was Rutherford Wills, who climbed 800 feet on an escape ladder toward a small hatch with water and debris filling the shaft behind him.

Area historian Jim Paquette recounted what Wills’ 15-minute ascent up the ladder must have been like.

“They took off up that ladder. When they got to the next level they picked up a skip tender there, and all four of them are going up. As they are doing it, the mine is filling up with timbers and mud, it’s just this horrible, horrible thing that’s happening,” Paquette said. “His three companions there didn’t make it.”

Mary Tippett said she had to quantify exactly how far 800 feet is to truly appreciate Will’s ability to get to the surface within 15 minutes.

“It’s 75 percent of the Eiffel Tower, three hundred feet higher than the Washington Monument, and four and a half times the height of the C-Shaft at the Cliffs’ Shaft Mining museum,” Tippett said.

Days after the tragedy in an interview with a newspaper reporter, Wills said he would never mine again.

“You can tell the world for me, that I am through with mining for good,” Wills said.

Only seven bodies were recovered from the site of the accident. The company, vowing to recover every man buried in the mine, continued efforts to do so for two months to no avail. The mine was declared unsafe by engineers and on Jan. 11, 1927, CCI announced it would abandon the site.

The company sealed the mine with concrete soon after. In February of 1927, a coroners inquest ruled that “the deceased met their death in the Barnes-Hecker mine by a cave-in, the cause of which is unknown,” according to Friggens.

Each dependent family was compensated $8,400 in 300 weekly allotments of $28 each.

CCI provided the widows free rent and utilities. Sons of the victims were offered employment when they turned 18 years of age, according to Friggens.

The events of that day, and the days, months and years afterward, still have had a powerful effect on many of the descendants of it.

“One thing that really hit home with me, is that every family thinks it’s their story, and its their grief and their history,” Tippett said. “It’s not just our story, everyone feels this raw sense of unfinishedness.”

Tippett said if there were no remains in the 1920s, there was no funeral.

The names of the men who died were mentioned in worship services and a memorial day ceremony was held at the site, but that was the extent of any closure, Tippett said.

Therein lies part of the reason for the Barnes-Hecker Remembrance events, to remember the men who died that day, not just in number, but who they were as people, and to provide some sense of closure.

Tippett said she and the other descendants have always been interested in sharing their family stories of tragedy and survival and passing them down from generation to generation, even though the subject is an emotional one.

“If we don’t make sure that these little children that are following behind us know what their history is – if they don’t know how much courage it took, how much faith it took and how much strength it took for all of these people, not only the widows, but the siblings the mothers, and the fathers as well,” Tippett said.

Tippett said it is not the tragedy itself that defines the families, it is the spirit of survival.

“These things are who we are. I am the west Ishpeming kid with Hematite in her blood,” Tippett said. “We can never forget that these people went to work in horrible conditions, because they took care of their families and that is what they did. They bucked up and they did it.”

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-486-4401.