Dynamiting the Sun & Moon Mine
Gilpin labor dispute from a hundred years ago started anti-union sentiment
The night watchman suddenly noticed the three figures stealthily leaving the cover of the forest. “Who goes there?” Three shots answered! The watchman returned the fire, then ran faster than he ever thought he could as a streak of light came rolling down the mountain toward him.
The building housing the mine transformer disappeared in a terrific explosion! The concussion knocked the watchman off his feet. Recovering, he saw the fire and ran to the shafthouse – 20 miners were working below. After they were safely pulled to the surface, he joined them in fighting the fire, but the strong wind defeated them. All the machinery in the dynamited building was a total loss; however, the other buildings on the Sun & Moon Mine site were saved by that same wind.
As the scene calmed down, a groaning could be heard. When the watchman looked in the bushes, he found Philip Fire, an Austrian miner and ardent union member, shot several times through the hip. Fire refused to name the other two conspirators or offer any information, including whether he had been hit by the watchman’s bullets, or was shot by his companions. Within an hour he died, without revealing anything.
The dynamiting of the Sun & Moon Mine was just one more incident among many in Colorado’s labor troubles between 1894 and 1914. The Western Federation of Miners was determined to organize the hard-rock miners of Colorado; the union even established its headquarters in Denver, but the highest state in the Union was a tough place to unionize. One obstacle to union organizers was that Colorado teemed with unskilled labor attracted to the thriving mining industry and willing to work for any mine owner during a strike.
The Western Federation of Miners called a strike in mines in Gilpin and Clear Creek Counties early in 1903 in an effort to force the owners to bargain with the union. The Sun & Moon Mine, located at the head of Gillson Gulch, straddled the border of the two counties; the shaft, hoist-house and blacksmith shop were in Clear Creek County, and the transformer house sat in Gilpin County. The mine was closed for nearly two months by the strike, but the owners began mining again in June, 1903, with non-union miners.
The Sun & Moon’s production had been steadily expanding for years and the owners wanted to begin production again as soon as possible. When the 7th level was opened in February of 1901, it revealed “a continuous body of ore for 120 feet, with no sign of playing out on either side…The first-class streak is from a few inches to one foot in width”, according to the Denver Times. The deeper the ore streak went, the wider it was, and the Times reminded its readers that “the best values in the ores of this section cannot always be found near the surface.” As the shaft was dug down to 1,100 feet, the average value of the ore kept increasing.
When the owners responded to the strike by bringing in non-union miners, J.E. Chandler, organizer of the union at Idaho Springs, tried unsuccessfully to persuade the men not to work. When the miners ignored his pleas, he ordered three sympathetic members of the union to roll the keg of dynamite with a lighted fuse down the mountain to destroy the property.
The reaction of the citizens in the two counties was quick and lawless! The businessmen of Idaho Springs retaliated by jailing 22 prominent union members and running them out of town. Only the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s swift action saved the two union members suspected of being with Philip Fire that night from a noose. The Sheriff moved them to the Georgetown jail during the initial excitement. Chandler wisely disappeared.
Though Chandler disappeared, he was located in California within a few months and extradited back to Colorado for trial. Actually two trials were held, the first in Clear Creek County in 1903. Only five of the defendants could be found: Chandler, Foster Milburn, Ross Sanborn, Frank Napoli and Joseph Carbonetti. The sixth, George Siegrist, disappeared permanently. None of the six were ever charged with murder because the facts concerning the death of Philip Fire could never be established. The charge was conspiracy, and the jury deadlocked.
Immediately the five were re-arrested to be held for trial in June of 1904 in Gilpin County. The charges this time were arson and malicious and willful destruction of the transformer building and plant, which happened to be in Gilpin County. The defendants’ attorney requested separate trials, which the judge denied in the morning, but granted that afternoon.
Chandler’s case was tried first; 12 jurors were seated by the next day’s adjournment. Judge DeFrance stated that the jury wouldn’t need to be sequestered at night because “jurors of this district were of the right kind and would not allow anyone to approach them with any proposition.”
The trail was quite long for those times – two weeks! The jury voted for acquittal after deliberating for only 24 hours. The Central City Register Call reported that actually four held out for conviction, but after several ballots they gave in to save the expense of another trial. Foster Milburn’s trial came next and took nearly six days. That jury deliberated for two hours and 15 minutes before again voting for acquittal.
The message was loud and clear by now – in mining country, no jury would convict union members. The other three defendants were dismissed and the fiery episode disappeared from history books, eclipsed by the violent dynamiting of the railroad station at Independence, near Cripple Creek, in June, 1904 by union employee Harry Orchard. That foul deed killed 13 strikebreakers and turned the rest of Colorado against the union. (The Sun & Moon incident had already tarnished the union in the two counties affected.) Unfortunately history will never know if Philip Fire died from the watchman’s bullets or was murdered by his compatriots.