By Staff Correspondent
Coal Glen, N.C. May 29—Coal Glen, with the aid of Sanford, Cumnock and Gulf, is planning the burial of her dead today. Hope is exhausted. Every man who entered the Carolina mine at 7 o’clock Wednesday morning and remained their until 9:30 is dead. Only the final clearing of the wrecked workings will reveal whether the number of dead stands at 60, 75, or some intermediate figure.
At 10 o’clock this morning three more bodies, blackened and terribly mutilated in almost every case, were brought forth by the stoic rescue crew on duty. During the second long night of agony, while batteries of electric lamps poured a ghastly, untwinkling glare about the shabby hole in the ground which marked the opening of the slope, 12 more cloth-shrouded forms were brought up in the tiny mine cars. Silent, sooty men accompanied the strange freight up the single narrow track at the end of a worn cable.
In all, 34 bodies had been removed shortly before noon today. Of that number, 21 had been identified. From 30 to 35 more are believed still buried in the lower levels.
The identified dead:
White:--
George S. Anderson
S.H. Anderson
June Cotton
Charles Watson
Archie Holland
Hollis Richardson
Will Byerly
Henry Hall
Zeff Riner
Walter Dillingham
David Wilson
John Shaw
Colored:--
Will Irick
Ed Wright
Lee Buchanan
James Williams
Citizens of Sanford and the surrounding county will hold a mass meeting this afternoon to organize for relief of the families of the miners lost in the disaster. Coal Glen, the name of the tiny mine village which housed the workers at the Carolina mine, consists of from 30 to 40 tiny houses. Every male in all but the scanty half dozen is believed to have been lost, according to J.R. McQueen, one of the owners of the mine. The families have practically deserted their homes, except where their dead have been recovered. They haunt the mouth of the mine, packed back behind the rope barriers, wards of the Red Cross.
It is proved necessary to repair air equipment as the crews advance, clearing out the fumes ahead and providing air for the workers. This fact hassled to the certainty expressed by officials on the ground that none of those entrapped could have survived, even though uninjured by any of the three great blasts which apparently swept every inch of the underground tunnels and left behind unbroken masses of twisted and piled debris against which the crews, working in two-hour shifts, are making slow progress.
Uncertainty continues as [to] the actual number trapped in the mine. Seventy-one lamps are unaccounted for. It is stated, however, that some may have taken out extra lamps, and that others may have taken out lamps and yet not entered the mine. A Durham man, Gus Boyles, listed among the possible dead yesterday, was learned today to have left the mine some days ago after working for a brief period. His name had not been removed from the rolls, according to his brother William Boyles, who investigated yesterday.
Special regulations have been adopted for the emergency by the Seaboard Airline Railway. Rules requiring the accompaniment of bodies shipped over the road have been waived and remains will be accepted for shipment without traveling supervision. Owners of the mine, Jr. R. McQueen, Bion Butler, J.M. Reeves and others, have ordered all undertakers to provide the victims with suitable burial at the expense of the company and every need of the families will be anticipated. Many of the miners were native citizens of Chatham, Lee or adjoining counties. Their families have relatives in many cases who will extend aid and who will assist them to adjust themselves in the world as they must after the loss of the breadwinners.
The Sanford American auxiliary, the Red Cross chapter and nurses from the Sanford hospital are still on the job at the mine, working in relays just as are the rescuers deep down in the diggings.
From the front page of The Durham Sun, May 29, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84020732/1925-05-29/ed-1/seq-1/#words=MAY+29%2C+1925
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