Lonnie Warwick

The Fayette Journal
Special Edition
March 24, 1910

Mt. Hope Swept by Flames
Entire Town Devastated by the Most Disastrous Fire in History of County or Section.
Hundreds HomelessNo Casualties so far as Known - Loss Will Reach $350,000 Partly Covered by Insurance.
The greatest fire disaster that ever occurred in this county or section of the state reduced practically the entire town of Mount Hope to a heap of ashes Thursday morning. Of the rows of pretentious stores and dwellings that composed the business and principal residential portions of this thriving little place nothing remains but the stark, begrimed chimneys and smouldering ruins. In isolated places and along Sugar Creek, a few, a very few, houses remain unscathed, their total number not exceeding six. The general store of the Sugar Creek Coal Co., stands like a sentinel at the northwest corner of the devastated area, it having by some unaccountable reason escaped destruction. The loss is approximately $350,000 and the insurance about $150,000.
The fire started at about 7:30 in the morning in the room of the Lewis & Houcks saloon located in the midst of the most thickly settled portion of the main street, and within a short time the building was enveloped in flames. Despite all efforts, the fire quickly spread to adjacent structures and within an incredibly short space of time the entire east side of the street was a fiery furnace.

Remembering a Disaster

Published: July 29, 2007 10:15 pm  
 Bill Billeter
 Beckley Register-Herald Reporter  

Man recalls deadly Siltex mine explosion

MOUNT HOPE — Last Monday, the Rev. Lynn “Gene” Hall loaded his weed whacker into his car and drove to an overgrown hillside mine opening near Family Dollar.

He has thought about this place many times over the last 40 years. He sometimes lies awake at night, remembering the July day in 1966 when he lost his brother and several close friends in a mine explosion that shook the mountain.

He placed a cross and flowers at the entrance to the mine, and trimmed back the brush so the entrance could be seen.

“I go there every year and pray,” Hall said. “That’s a day I will never forget.”

On July 23, 1966, Hall was one of 22 men working underground at the Siltex mine when a gas explosion set off a series of other blasts and broke off tons of slate deep within the mine. Seven men were killed instantly, and others died of their injuries in the hours and days that followed.

Hall narrowly escaped death twice that day, and then volunteered to go back down into the mine to help recover the bodies of his fellow miners.

Hall recalled that he and his crew had just entered the mine when he was told by a supervisor to change jobs and go with a different group. Another miner replaced him on his original crew.

After Hall joined the second group, they descended into the mine when the explosion knocked them to the ground.

“It just sounded like a jet airplane right up close. The concussion felt like it jerked everything out of your head.”

Hall said the gas, dust and smoke were overwhelming as he and 10 other miners, including his brother, tried to find a way out. Every exit was blocked, and the men erected a barricade to keep poisonous gas fumes from entering their portion of the mine.

The men knew time was running out as their miners’ lamp flame began to turn yellow, indicating the presence of methane.

“We sat there and waited to die,” Hall said.

Hall, a preacher and deeply religious man, took a minute to pray alone. Then a foreman who was trapped with him said, “We don’t have much time left. Would you pray with us?”

He prayed with the men as his brother sat next to him. Some men wept. One jotted some notes on a piece of paper — possibly a letter to his family.

“We got about 20 minutes. If they don’t find us alive, this is where they will find us dead,” the foreman said.

Meanwhile, up on the surface, the superintendent had made the decision to block the entrance and not send more men into the deadly fumes to search for the trapped miners. Hall said a fellow miner, Carlos Colliers, asked for one chance to go back into the mine and locate the men.

Colliers held a wet cloth over his face as protection against the poison gas. He went into the mine as far as he could, crawling much of the way on his hands and knees. He could go no farther and had decided to turn back when his hand brushed against a loose rock. Colliers picked up the rock and struck it against the floor three times as a signal to anyone who could hear it.

From where he was trapped, Hall heard Colliers knocking, and quickly picked up a piece of lumber and knocked three times in response.

Colliers realized he had found the men and made his way to where they were. He called out, “Stay where you are. We will get you out.”

All 11 of the miners of Hall’s crew made it out alive, though a few were seriously injured.

When Hall made it out of the mine, he experienced both joy and pain.

A local radio station had reported Hall dead, and his mother had heard the radio announcement. His distressed family stood in the crowd that had gathered outside the mine opening. They were relieved to see him emerge into the sunlight. Hall recalls the joy of seeing his family, including his wife and children.

But at the surface he also saw the bodies of his friends who had been killed. He found out the man who had taken his place on his original crew that morning had died instantly in the explosion.

His brother who had been trapped with him died shortly thereafter of his injuries.

“When we got out, that was the most tragic thing,” Hall said. “What I saw that day I never want to see again.”

As the day wore on, some of the miners were still unaccounted for, and the company was putting together a search party to go back into the mine to get the bodies.

Most men did not want to return to the mine that was filled with dangerous gas and tons of rock made unstable by the blast.

Hall said one of the men called out to him, “Preacher, would you go back and help us?”

“Sure, I’ll go back until everybody is out,” Hall said.

The recovery operation was hard and slow work. The search party got to within 80 feet of the bodies, but struggled with the dangerous conditions, smoke and fear.

“I was a sweatin’. I was a prayin’. I was a cryin’,” Hall remembers.

Eventually everyone was brought out of the mine, and Hall returned home to his family and his church.

Because of the radio announcement that had reported Hall among the dead, many in his church were amazed to see him alive on Sunday morning. His parishioners gave him the flowers that had been laid out in his memory.

Despite the tragedy of that day, Hall returned to the coal mines and worked for another 10 years before a back injury forced him to retire.

However, after 57 years of preaching, Hall is unlikely to retire from the church. He described the pride he has felt over the years in teaching young people Christian values, and then watching them raise their families according to those values.

Hall now serves as the pastor of Terry Independent Christian Church, where he preaches a passionate sermon every Sunday.

“When I preach now, I preach like them old-time preachers. I don’t just go up there and talk, I preach,” Hall said.

He lives outside Beckley with Gladys, his wife of 56 years. They have four children, nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Forty-one years after the Siltex explosion, Hall has wondered many times why he was spared that day when so many of those around him perished.

“The Bible says, there is a time to be born and a time to die. I guess that wasn’t my day,” he said. “The Lord wasn’t done with me yet.”

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