Scofield Mine Disaster

At 10:28 on the morning of May 1, 1900, coal dust ignited in the Winter Quarters No. 4 mine above Scofield, and the blast and the afterdamp that followed killed about two hundred men and boys — the worst mine disaster in the country to that time. Most were immigrants, sixty-one of them Finnish; the Luoma family, three months off the boat, lost nine. The dead left more than a hundred widows. Coffins had to be shipped from Denver. The company had not wetted the dust, and real safety laws came slowly, over more graves.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fairview — 16 mi
  The north gate of the Heritage Highway, home to a near-complete Ice Age mammoth
• Mount Pleasant — 20 mi
  A National Register Main Street and Utah's oldest boarding school
• Prehistoric Museum at USU Eastern — 20 mi
  A small-town museum punching way above its weight in dinosaur science
• Price — 20 mi
  A gritty coal mining town with a surprisingly excellent dinosaur museum

More markers nearby

• Pleasant Valley Junction — 12 mi
• Soldier Summit — 15 mi
• Pleasant Valley Coal Company — 15 mi
• Utah's Coal Industry — 15 mi