Across the Fence: The Colorado Coalfield War

In 1867 the Kansas Pacific Railway was planning a route for the railroad that would take it through the southern regions of Colorado. William Jackson Palmer, who led the survey crew, discovered large veins of coal that lay close to the surface and provided relatively easy access for mining operations. The expansion of rail transportation across the continent made those coal deposits a valuable natural resource and Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) quickly seized the opportunity for commercialization of those deposits.

CF&I became one of the nations most powerful corporations, at one time employing more than 7,000 workers and controlling nearly 72,000 acres of Colorado coal deposits. In 1902 CF&I was purchased by John D. Rockefeller and in 1911 turned his controlling interest in the company over to his son John D. Jr.

Colorado's coal mining industry peaked in 1910 and at that time employed nearly 16,000 people, equal to10 percent of the states population. But even coal deposits near the surface posed dangerous working conditions for the miners. Fatality rates in Colorado coal mines were more than double the rates in other coal mining districts, but not because the Colorado mines were more dangerous. In fact Colorado had some of the most stringent safety laws enacted, but enforcement of those laws were for the most part largely ignored. Miners were paid based on tonnage produced and averaged about $1.50 per day. However, "dead work," which was time shoring up weak walls and collapsing tunnels, was unpaid work. Consequently little time was spent on safety measures and the company had no incentive to enforce them.

From 1884 through 1913 more than 1,800 men were killed in Colorado mining accidents.

Additionally, the company owned the mining towns. The company owned the houses, where miners and their families lived. The company owned the shops and stores in the towns and the miners and their families were prevented from spending their money anywhere other than the company stores. Company guards, armed with machine guns and rifles, patrolled the towns and would not permit any miner to leave the town. The meager wages that the miners earned all went to pay for living expenses owed to the company.

Beginning in the early 1900s the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) attempted to unionize the miners but met with strong opposition from mine owners. By 1913 the UMWA had gained momentum and presented a list of demands on behalf of the miners:

• Recognition of the union as a bargaining agent

• An increase in tonnage rates (equal to a 10 percent wage increase)

• Enforcement of the eight-hour work day law

• Payment for dead work (laying track, timbering, etc.)

• Weight-checkmen elected by the workers (to keep company weightmen honest)

• The right to use any store, and choose their own boarding houses and doctors

• Strict enforcement of Colorado's laws (such as mine safety rules, abolition of script) and an end to the company guard system.

In September 1913 CF&I rejected the demands, and the UMWA called a strike. In response CF&I evicted all of the strikers families from their homes and brought in "scabs" (strike breakers) that would work in place of those who had gone on strike. The UMWA purchased land in locations around the mines and set up tent villages to house the striking workers and their families. These lands were strategically located near the mouths of canyons leading to the mines so that striking workers could watch and harass the scabs as they went to and from the mines.

Confrontations between the strikers and the strikebreakers often became violent and many times fatal. In response, CF&I hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency (mostly hired gunmen) to protect the new workers and intimidate the strikers.

Baldwin and Felts had a reputation for successfully breaking strikes through excessive force and intimidation. The agency would sweep the tent villages with spotlights at night and shoot into various tents at random. These random shootings would often result in death or severe wounding of miners and their family members. In the CF&I foundry in Pueblo, Colorado the agents built an armored car equipped with a machine gun mounted on the vehicle. The agency frequently drove around the tent village and randomly fired into the tents. These sniper attacks forced the miners to dig cellars or underground pits in the dirt floors of their tents so that the bullets would hopefully pass harmlessly overhead.

In late October, as the violence escalated, governor Elias M. Ammons called in the Colorado National Guard under the command of Adjutant-General John Chase, who imposed a harsh regime and had successfully broken a miners strike in Cripple Creek in 1904.

For a short while the presence of the Guard quieted the conflict, but the sympathies of the Guard commanders were with CF&I and tensions remained high. In March of 1914 the body of a replacement worker was found near the mines close to Forbes, Colorado. The strikers at the Forbes tent village were suspected to be the killers and General Chase ordered the complete destruction of the village. In that action, all of the residents of the village were at a funeral for a number of infants that had recently died and the village was empty when Chase's men burned and looted the camp.

The strikers continued to hold out, but in the early spring of 1914 the state funds for supporting the Guards had been depleted and the governor was ready to pull them out when Rockefeller offered to cover the costs. One company of National Guardsmen, several agents of Baldwin-Felts and CF&I guards were left at the Ludlow tent village near Trinidad, Colorado.

On the morning of April 20, the day after Easter, three guardsmen approached the Ludlow tent village and demanded the release of someone who they claimed was being held against his will. The camp leader Louis Tikas, a Greek immigrant and spokesman for the miners went with the three men to meet with Lieutenant Karl Linderfelt at the headquarters about a half-mile from the village. While the meeting was in progress two companies of militia set up machine gun positions around the camp and opened fire.

Many of the miners and their families managed to escape to the hills to the east of the camp. Many others were killed or wounded during the onslaught. Some who had dug pits in the floors of their tents took cover beneath the ground level. During the initial attack, a freight train pulled between the militia and the village providing a barricade that allowed several families to escape.

From 9 a.m. until dusk, around 7 p.m., the gunfight continued, miner rifles and pistols against the machine guns and rifles of the militia. The death toll is variously said to have been somewhere between 70 and as many as 200. Most casualties were among the miners. When darkness fell the village began to burn. Some guardsmen claimed that the fire began accidentally but others later testified that they had helped it along by pouring kerosene on the canvas tents.

With daylight, the troops entered the deserted village and looted anything of value that remained.

Louis Tikas and two other captured miners were found dead near the headquarters. Tikas and Lt. Linderfelt had clashed on many previous occasions and it was reported that Linderfelt had broken a rifle stock over Tikas' head and then five shots were fired into his back while he lay on the ground. The other two captured miners were also executed and the three bodies were left beside the Kansas Pacific Railroad for several days before being removed for burial.

Among the remains of the tent village at Ludlow one of the pits was found to contain 11 children and four women. Only two of the four women survived the inferno that swept through the village that night 100 years ago. Alcarita Pedregon survived the intense heat but her two children, Rodgerlo 6 years old, and Cloriva 4 years, did not. Mary Petrucci also survived but her three children that she had tried to save, Joe 4 years old, Lucy 2 years, and Frank 4 months, succumbed to the flames.

I can imagine that the promise of spring lay dark and cold in the hearts of those parents who children had been taken so suddenly and needlessly. No doubt grief and rage fueled the will to fight and avenge those who had been sacrificed. General Chase must have sensed the frenzied resolve of the miners and requested federal troops to be sent to Ludlow. The requested troops arrived and disarmed the militia, the detective agency and the company guards, as well as the miners, and brought a halt to the deadly conflict.

The strike had been busted and the UMWA defeated. However, though the battle had been lost the war would yet be won. Public outrage over the incident at Ludlow, now known as "The Ludlow Massacre" prompted our government to take a serious look at the mining industry and the safety concerns and unfair labor practices that existed in that industry and others.

Mary Petrucci, having lost her three children, traveled to Washington D.C. imploring President Wilson to keep the federal troops at Ludlow to prevent a resurgence of hostilities. President Wilson granted her request.

The strike did not officially end until December of 1914, when Governor Ammons forced strict adherence to the existing Colorado mining laws and the striking workers returned to the mines. However, it was not until 1935 that mine workers were paid for dead time and allowed the right to live outside of company owned towns.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. To contact Tim email; [email protected]