:: Jasonville-A Booming Mining Town ::
Excerpts from the Ben Sink's book "The Jasonville Story" as featured on historian Max Griffith's website The Jasonville Story...
Jasonville's First Coal Mine... the P. Fry Mine was opened in 1901 by local investors... The coal proved to be of such high quality that other mines were soon sank in the new field. The city of Jasonville got its drinking water from the mine works from 1910 to 1952. The water had a mineral taste to it and local entrepreneurs bottled and sold the water, under the name of JASON WATER, all over the country, claiming it had health benefits.
The Miners...The growing town and expanding mining industry were sadly in need of workmen and this word rapidly spread throughout the mining fields of other states. Each arriving passenger train brought in men seeking employment. Mining was on the wane in the Jackson County, Ohio, coalfields and former residents of Welliston, Jackson and Coalton flocked to Jasonville. So great was the influx of workers from this section that a native-born Jasonvillian innocently inquired if there was but one county in Ohio, commenting that Jackson was the only county in the state he had ever heard of. Kentucky furnished a substantial number of miners but not nearly so many as Ohio. Parke County, Indiana, which had been the leading coal producing county in the state, found her mines closing as the resource was depleted, and residents of Nyesville, Lyford, Coxville, Diamond, and Rosedale joined in the rush for jobs in the new Jasonville coal field. Coal Bluff, Fountanet, Burnett, and Seelyville all in Vigo County, sent a good number, as did Clay county, miners, coming from Brazil, Harmony, Knightsville, Centerpoint, and Ashboro. Some of the above named towns, that now are but a dot on the map, were thriving mining towns at about the time or just before, Jasonville had its boom.
Many of the arrivals were single men who had to find regular board and lodging. Others were family men who sought temporary accommodations until they could find a home for their families. Of one thing they could be certain, there was a job awaiting them upon their arrival. There was a great work to be done in building a town and developing an industry, and with the exception of a handful of local workers, people coming in must do the whole job. The work to be done consisted of building railroad switches to the various mines, erecting mine tipples, mule barns, blacksmith shops, engine rooms, and other mining structures, the sinking of shafts and air shafts, and the building of the residence and business sections of an entire town and all detailed work incidental to ail of these.
The first hotel, a makeshift affair, located at the Northeast corner of Main and Washington streets placed cots and pallets in every nook and corner and no one rated a private room, space was too valuable. The native villagers and newcomers, who had established home, rented out every foot of floor space they could spare as sleeping quarters. Many slept in barns and sheds until a better place could be found. Fourteen “Hunkies” batched in one room. They worked on different shifts and the beds or pallets, never got cold, one crew crawling into bed as another got out. In this same room fourteen cooked and ate their meals. Eating “joints” sprang up like mushrooms in every shack and shed. Here was a business easy to finance. The only requirements for a start were a stove, a skillet, coffee pot, two dollars worth of dishes and silverware, a pound of lard, buns, bread, coffee, and a few inexpensive items as salt, sugar, pepper, mustard, etc. Any sort of a stove would be sufficed. I omitted the coal oil lamp with the smoked chimney, which cast a yellow glow, or gloom over the counter made from a wide poplar board. In most places the dimmer the light the better the appetite. If, and when, the place prospered, an oilcloth would be tacked over the counter board. No sewer, no garbage man, offal was tossed out the back door.
All this activity and there was still no gravel on the streets, no sidewalks and, of course, no electric lights and no town government. I have commented elsewhere that in the forefront of every pioneer settlement was the church. Likewise, in the forefront of every boomtown you found the saloon and professional gambler and Jasonville proved no exception. The class of women, not uncommon to boom towns, was here in numbers and plied their trade in quarters above the saloons.
Another essential part of the boom mining town human element was the so-called “bad man” and we had all known varieties. Some were by nature just “ornery” mean, other landed in that category after imbibing too freely, while others just liked to fight, with no particularly hard feelings or enmity toward their adversary and with these men the issue was forgotten with the ending of the fight. If a record had been kept of the number of encounters held on Main Street, you would think it in error. The common expression of that day was “that you could look out on Main Street at any time and see a fight.” That was an exaggeration, but you didn’t have to look too long or too hard to find one. In comparatively few fights was the use of weapons resorted to and the few fatalities resulting from so many incidents was surprising. This was before the day of the mine washhouse and the washing had to be done at home or at the boarding house in a common washtub. Of course, the town couldn’t boast of a single bathtub or indoor toilet. Some men “black as coal” would stop at a saloon on their way home from work and in their wet dirty clothes remain until the eleven o’clock closing hour.
We thus understand how it was possible for most any frugal family to buy a house on contract or through negotiating a loan. Miners’ wages were but $2.25 per eight-hour day or $13.50 for a full six-day week. Often you found a milk cow staked out on nearby vacant lots, and a garden of the lot where the residence was located. Maybe, the lady of the house kept two or three, and up to half dozen boarders. There were no light, water or telephone bills for a very good reason, there were no electric lights, no water other than wells and cisterns, and no telephone lines. There were no monthly payments due on television, washers and dryers, refrigerators, electric stoves and the many, many other appliances and gadgets which have become necessary to our present standard of living. By hard work and frugal living the people of that day built a city with the same spirit that the settlers on his same soil conquered a wilderness some sixty years before.
At a meeting on March 10, 1903 the board decided to advertise for bids (quote) “for building a calaboose, the work to be completed within two weeks from the date of awarding the contract”. Browning and McKain were awarded the contract at a price of $143.89. This was built on the north side of Ohio Street between Meridian and Lawton. You may know this street as Hickory Street. West of this short block it is Hickory and east it is Ohio. At a meeting later the same year the board gave the town marshal authority “to have necessary repairs made to the calaboose, and file bill for the same”. The structure was made of lumber with a brick chimney on the inside. It seems that a tenant wasn’t pleased with the accommodations and tore down the chimney, escaping through the hole left in the roof. Building a new chimney (on the outside) was the repair work the marshal was authorized to make.
In 1903, the town board granted the Indiana Coal Belt Traction Company a franchise “to lay tracks and operate a street car system along and upon the streets and alleys of the town.” Of course, the town never grew enough in size to warrant the building of this utility, but it afforded much speculation as to how long it would be, at the rapid rate of growth, before it would be built.
Vivian City, Bogle Corner War...Few people will recall, if they ever heard of it at all, a place named Vivian City. The name had no official status and was never shown on a map. It was the name given by the occupants of several rows of four room houses, all just alike, located in the field at the northeast corner of the Bogle cross roads. These occupants, all foreigners, mostly Hungarians, worked at the nearby mine owned by the Vivian Collieries Company. The coal company, financed by Chicago capital, through some arrangement would hire these men in Hungary and they would go to work immediately upon arrival in Jasonville. Living with only their nationality as neighbors and buddies in the mine, they learned to speak little English and had no particular need for the language. Most of their trading was done at a general store owned by Herman Goldstein and located at the northeast corner of Main and Meridian streets. Herman had some knowledge of their language and could attend to their needs and make him understood by them.
This labor was a valuable asset to the coal company, as they would work in water and in dangerous places refused by others. Being relieved of the expense of making such places dry and safe, the company profited by lower production costs. “Man cannot live unto himself alone” seemed to apply equally well to this racial group. Hundreds of immigrants from foreign lands moved into Jasonville, associated with, and adopted the customs of their neighbors and became some of our most reputable citizens. The only way they could be distinguished from our native born was their, to us, peculiarity of speech. Not so, with these residents of Vivian City. They had lived in the same squalor and overcrowded quarters they had known across the sea. With the passing of time some became arrogant and abusive to the other miners. The mine management would try to force other miners to work under the same unsafe conditions as the “hunkies”, but efforts to get the hunkies to demand better working conditions were to no avail. This created bad feelings between the two groups of workers and when some of the hunkies boasted that it was their city and their mine, and threatened to drive out all others, tempers really flared.
The incident that brought matters to a climax was when a hunky struck Charley Madaris over the head with a room tie, which was said to have cost the sight of one eye. By word of mouth a meeting of miners was called in the old opera house. The word got around quickly and on an April evening in 1908, some say 1909, a large crowd assembled. The writer attended the meeting and was impressed by the orderly manner in which it was conducted at the outset. Reports were made of several incidents at the mine, which placed the hunkies in a bad light. On one thing there seemed to be unanimity of opinion, the hunkies must go, or the other miners relinquish their jobs and seek work elsewhere. The latter course was unthinkable, so the discussion was based entirely upon the method of serving notice, and the time they would be given to leave. Cooler heads seemed to prevail toward giving them a few days to dispose of, or remove their belongings.
At this point a miner hurriedly entered and engaged in a whispered conversation with one of the leaders of the meeting. Three men followed him outside. In ten minutes or less the four returned and one of them taking the floor stated a report had been made that two hunkies had been in town that afternoon and purchased several boxes of ammunition for theses and other weapons. He alleged that the report further stated that the policeman had been tipped off concerning the purchase, had apprehended the men on their way home and relieved them of the arms and ammunition. The spokesman then announced that a committee of three had just interviewed the policeman and found the story to be true. Then a man yelled from the stage, “I make a motion we give them 15 minutes to leave.”
This was greeted with wild disorder and confusion. No effort was made to put the motion to a vote or to restore order. Without agreement or plan the crowd dispersed, each one motivated by the same purpose, arm himself and await the reassemblement of the crowd on Main Street at nightfall. A short time before, an army surplus Store in Terre Haute had held a sale on outmoded Springfield army rifles, selling the guns and several rounds of ammunition for $1.98. Several local people had bought them and many of them were in evidence when the crowd re-assembled. There was every sort of weapon from a muzzle loading squirrel rifle to the latest models in Colts revolvers and Remington shotguns. I even saw a horse pistol of ancient vintage that the owner proudly displayed as being the one he used in running the hoboes out of Alum Cave several years before.
With the arrival of darkness this motley crew began its two-mile march to Bogle Corner. There were men from almost every station in life. Miners, businessmen, livery stable, employees, bartenders, and a few farmers marched in the throng. The devout churchman marched side by side with the tipsy bartender, each equally enraged and outraged that a foreign group dared to attempt the exclusion of Native Americans from any part of the U.S.A. No martial music, no clipped marching commands, this group of silent, determined men trudged on, even those who had imbibed too freely before leaving town seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation and marched in grim silence. Upon approaching Wier’s store at the corner, a single horseman appeared in the middle of the road and commanded the “army” to “Halt, in the name of the law, I am from the Clay County Sheriff’s office”. The ranks didn’t slacken their pace and the horseman wheeled his horse and galloped at a lively clip back toward Brazil.
The first break in the ranks came when all the short men in front so the taller ones could shoot over their heads. With several of the taller men marching rather unsteadily, this formation did not appeal at all to those of shorter stature. They retired to the side in a formation of their own. It had been learned from people living nearby, that the children and most of the women had been placed in houses at a far corner of the “blocks” as the settlement was called. The men had concentrated in two houses in which they had stood railroad ties on end entirely around the walls leaving only cracks at the windows to fire through. These timbers of seasoned white oak eight inches thick undoubtedly saved several lives as those Springfield rifles penetrated the walls and plaster, as though, they were matchboxes. Long afterward these walls resembled a sieve.
When they arrived at the nearest of these houses, a committee of three stepped forward and called to those inside that they wished to talk with them. When they had advanced within a few feet of the closed door, the end of a shotgun barrel was stuck through from the inside and fired almost in the faces of the committee. The charge couldn’t have missed the heads of two men more than a few inches as it passed between them. This committee of truce sprang back out of range from the door and the battle was on. No one there had ever heard such a volume of sound. There was no count but I know there were more than 200 firearms of various designs being fired simultaneously. One gun blast makes quiet a sound, and if you can image it multiplied 200 or 300 times, it may give you a faint idea of what it was like. To our boys who have served in two wars since that day, it would probably resemble the popping of corn.
After the door had been pretty much shot away, the hunkies shouted that they wanted to talk. A cease-fire was ordered and the defenders of the houses agreed to leave at once if the other force would withdraw. Most of them left on foot that night, some catching trains at Coalmont, Lewis and elsewhere the next morning. The wounded among them kept applying for medical aid from the doctors of Clinton Indiana, and Georgetown and Westville, Illinois for several days thereafter. Most of them became citizens of those three mining towns thereafter. They must have adopted American ways in their new environment more readily than they did here. One of them became mayor of Westville and this made our football team and fans quite apprehensive when they learned of this after arriving there for a football game. The matter went unnoticed. I can recount six members of the native “Army” that were wounded by gun shot, none seriously.
The next day wild rumors flew through the city about a proposed return of the hunkies with reinforcements from their numbers in nearby mining towns. Guards had been left at the Bogle through the night and the next day and they reported no suspicious movements. In spite of this apparent cessation of hostilities, a local citizen, Mack Kilburn, promptly recruited an army for duty on the second night and telephoned friends in Linton to send re-enforcements on the evening train. A great host of onlookers together with “General” Kilburn’s army packed the platform at train time. As the train neared the General, bayonet fixed on an old army musket, prodded people out of the way and commanded, “Stand back folks, give these Linton men room to get off’. The train ground to a stop, they helped a little old lady off on the station side, a drunk fell off on the other side and the train whistled its departure.On the night of the battle the Clay County sheriff must have notified the Governor’s office, as Company B. of the state militia was alerted and held in the armory at Terre Haute all night. The affair was also subject to diplomatic exchanges between the Austria Hungary government and the American state department. If our government ever made any sort of settlement, I never learned of it, and no one of the attacking force was ever tried or punished.
Were there serious casualties on our side? It is alleged that Clell Sexton suffered a heat prostration while leading the retreat of the “short” men, from which he has never fully recovered.
In the early days of mining, pay roll checks were a thing unknown. On miners pay days the 10th and 25th of each month, the men received their pay in cash at the office on the mining property. In many cases payment was made in gold except the small amount required to balance the payment. Each employee’s pay was made up in a small envelope and handed out to him when he arrived in turn at the pay window.
No one paid any attention to a red bearded man who loitered about the tipple at Latta Creek mine on the morning of Saturday, October 9, 1915. Men, bearded and otherwise, often hung, hoping to catch one of the bosses “on top” and ask for a job. Lattas Creek had better working conditions than most mines of the field, and for a period of years had averaged better working time than most.
As this autumn morning wore on, Neal Murphy, Cashier of the Vandalia Coal Company from Linton, called at the Lattas Creek office and delivered to bookkeeper Earl Smith $8400.00 in cash for the pay roll. The day, October 9th, was payday, the 10th falling on Sunday. After a brief chat with Smith, Murphy departed for Linton. Smith busied himself with getting the pay roll money in readiness for distribution to the men at the close of the workday. He paid scant attention to a man entered the office and inquired as to what time he would begin paying off. Smith had no means of knowing that this was the red bearded man seen loitering about earlier in the morning, but had now shed the false beard. Nor did he know that this man with or without beard was Dusty Grimes a notorious underworld character of Terre Haute, came out of the brush West of the office dressed in hunting clothes and carrying a shotgun. Upon entering the office he ordered Smith to turn and face the wall. A mine pay roll robbery was a thing unheard of and Smith considered it a joke until Grimes whipped out a revolver, and leveling it at Smith’s head, ordered him to put up his hands.
They took the money, and a shotgun Smith kept in the office, and tearing the telephone from the wall ordered the terrified Smith not to move for five minutes. They ran west to a lane where they had hidden a motorcycle, throwing both shotguns away in the brush as they ran. As they ran front Smith’s sight he raced to the engine room and excitedly spluttered out the story to Pleas Bledsoe and hoisting engineer. Pleas grasped the whistle cord and five long piercing blasts from the mine whistle (the distress signal) rent the autumn air. He then quickly spun the crank on the phone; the one in the engine room had not been disconnected, answered by Mary Lewis the Jasonville operator. He relayed to the operator, Smith’s story with a description of the two men and their means of escape. The information was soon in the hands of the police officials of Linton, Sullivan, Shelburn, Terre Haute, and all other nearby towns and cities.
Through the ownership of a motorcycle Davey was picked up for questioning, being found at a hotel on N. 9th Street in Terre Haute. Smith identified him as one of the men at the Terre Haute police station the following Tuesday. Dusty Grimes was arrested about a week later in a boarding house at Zeigler, Illinois, where he had fled with the bulk of the money. He had secreted this money in a jug and two of his fellow boarders stole it and departed for the West Coast. After some time these men were located but had squandered all the money. Davey had hidden something over $1000 inside a piano in the home of a relative in Sullivan County and this was all of the $8400 ever recovered. Both men entered pleas of guilty and were sentenced to terms of 2 to 14 years in the state prison. Their prison terms did not turn them aside from their lives of crime, and both men met violent deaths while engaged in the commission of crimes in later years. Davey was shot to death by officers when caught in an attempted robbery in Worthington a few years ago. I do not recall the details of Grimes’ death.
It was necessary that I refresh my memory to get the exact details of this story again in order. We older folks all knew the story well 43 years ago. With this in mind, I directed a letter to Earl Smith at Petersburg, Indiana a month or so ago, enclosing some questions I wished to be answered. I received a reply from his daughter Lois (Smith) Burch stating that Earl was “almost blind and quite deaf’ but that his memory was very clear about the incident and she relayed to me the needed information. Old Lattas Creek men, who reside away from Jasonville, will be sad to learn that not long after this correspondence was had, about May 1, 1958, Earl passed away. I am taking it for granted that all his local friends, and they were a host, know of his passing.
This incident entirely changed the manner of payment of miners’ wages. Until the system of payment by check could be instituted, armed guards stood over the money from the time it arrived at the mine until the distribution was completed. It was the first and only holds up of the kind.
Mining Catastrophes...In Jasonville’s long history of mining, the local mines had no great catastrophe where numerous lives were lost. An explosion in the Island Valley No. 3 seam on March 23, 1918 injured 16 men, one Linton resident dying from his injuries the same night. Elvin Price, one of the injured, furnished this information.
On Friday February 20, 1925 the worst disaster in the history of this entire coalfield occurred at the City Mine near Sullivan, in which more than 50 miners lost their lives. The mine was largely operated with Jasonville capital, the same group of owners having operated the City Mine, East of Jasonville and moving to Sullivan upon its abandonment. The following men were killed who were residents, or not long before had been residents of Jasonville: Mike Cusack, James Miller, James Eller, John Row, Oliver Keagy and Blame Gibson. If I have overlooked any, I am sorry. These are the only ones I can remember as late residents of our town, and several people of whom I made inquiry could think of no additional names.
Over the years we had many, many fatal accidents in the various mines and I recall these double tragedies and I am quite certain there have been more: Everett Neal and Dougald Malcalm, John and Fred Bennett (father and son) John and Ira Burns (not related), Clyde Burns, and Lawrence Pershing.
The explosion at Little Betty (The old Gould Mine SW of Linton) claimed but one Jasonville life, Clarence McQueary. This occurred in January of 1931 and twenty-eight men lost their lives. Fred Reed of S. Lawton Street was listed as dead in this disaster and newspapers carried his name. However, when a Red Cross worker called here at the residence to inquire as to the family’s immediate needs. Fred answered the door. As Mark Twain once said “The story of his death had been greatly exaggerated.”
Isaac Cotton from out Shakamak way was awarded the first Medal of Honor bestowed upon any citizen of Indiana by the Joseph A. Holmes Safety Association for heroic valor performed after an explosion at Antioch mine on April 18, 1923. “Ike” faced what seemed to be almost certain death, in going into a fire that raged after the explosion and carrying Logan and Muirl Bedwell, brothers of Linton, away a few days later from the burns received.
Tornado Hits Hoosier Mining Town...As if to announce its coming to town, a tornado crushed two or three houses in the SW section of Jasonville, as it entered. Then in all its fury, it struck the north central part of town. This was at 4 a.m. on May 2, 1935 and in a matter of seconds 28 homes had been leveled, some entirely swept away. The family of John Sexton, and his family, suffered the greatest physical injuries, although many were injured more or less seriously. Mrs. Sexton had a leg broken in five places; John had four broken ribs; a daughter had her collarbone broken; and a son broke his leg.
This was the only serious storm the city ever had except the big hailstorm in late April or early May of 1908. It is no exaggeration that practically every west window in the town was broken and many of those on the south side. I recall that it was on Sunday and the opening game of the baseball season was being played and that Charles Sheppard, town marshal, leaped from the grandstand and broke an ankle. The two lumber yards and two furniture stores each got in carloads of glass. As to the size and depth of the hailstones on the ground, you may inquire of another who remembers this incident of almost exactly 50 years ago. You would not believe me if I wrote the facts, and I couldn’t blame you.
It seems that our town’s disasters must come from the air, rather than high water. The center of Washington Street at West Main is the dividing line between White River and the Wabash, the water falling on the east half going into Eel then White and that falling on the West half of Washington flowing to the Wabash. If you ever see water standing at that point, your only hope is an ark.
:: Jasonville History ::