1935 - Van Lear Mine Explosion
There was no coal production scheduled for Mine No. 5 of Van Lear's Consolidation Coal Company on July 17, 1935. Only a crew of 12 men were in the mine that day. They were in a worked out section of the mine "pulling track" so the section could be closed permanently and the track used elsewhere in the mine.
This was not considered to be dangerous work although any work deep in the Van Lear coal mines was dangerous. A pillar could give way or a piece of slate could fall or the roof of a passageway could cave in. There was never a total absence of life threatening danger. Even in the safety of their own beds the miners' heads still echoed with the sounds of the mountain rumbling over them. They learned to live with the danger and the fear that accompanied it.
One of the deadliest elements in an underground coal mine is methane gas. It was volatile explosive. An electrical spark or a carbide cap light could set off a chain of explosions that would race through the corridors of a mine with blinding speed.
Thus it was on July 17, 1935, in Mine No. 5 at Van Lear.
When word of the explosion reached the world above ground, rescue crews and safety squads from every coal operation in this section of the state and as far away as Virginia sped to the scene. State mine department crews also reported. All was under the personal supervision of John F. Daniel, Chief of the Kentucky Department of Mines and Minerals. The rescue efforts were so organized and efficient that a task which had been expected originally to take two days or more was all but completed in less than 12 hours.
Families, friends, mine officials, the press and the curious so crowded the scene of the accident that security officers were brought in to keep order. Newspaper and newsreel photographers tried to film the rescue efforts but Mine Chief John Daniel turned them away.
The organization and efficiency of the rescue, however, were of little consolation to the families of the nine men found to be killed in the explosion. The first two bodies were brought to the surface early Thursday morning, July 18.
William Kretzer, Charles Kretzer, James Vaughan, John Gould, Deerwood Litz, Roy Murray, Virgil Clay, Frank Tuzzy and Sherley Hefford, all residents of Van Lear, perished in the fiery blast. Three other men in the crew were working some distance away and were not injured.
Two weeks later, as the investigation into the cause of the disaster continued, Mines and Minerals chief John F. Daniel was arrested on a murder warrant signed by John Mollette. Mollette alleged that Daniel was guilty of murder and of a failure to do his duty at the mines at Van Lear. In a statement to the press, Mollette stated that he was convinced that the mine explosion was due to Daniel's negligence. The basis for Mollette's charge was that Daniel had been requested to place more "fire bosses" at the Number 5 mine but had refused to do so.
Daniel was released under a $10,000 bond, signed by some of the county's most prominent residents, and a trial date was set for the November term of Johnson Circuit Court.
However, during the first week in November Governor Ruby Laffoon granted Daniel a full and free pardon even before Daniel's trial. Laffoon stated at the time that it was his conviction that Daniel "was in no way responsible for the deaths of the nine men."
