The Smith Mine Disaster

The board quotes one chalked goodbye; there was at least one more. Emil Anderson, one of the forty-four men who suffocated after the blast rather than dying in it, wrote to his family on the lid of a dynamite box, timing it at five minutes past eleven and addressing Agnes and the children. Elmer Anderson later gave the lid to the Montana Historical Society in Helena, which catalogues it as 1985.38.01, and in the society's online contest of its collection voters named it Montana's Most Awesome Object.

What the plaque says

The Smith Mine Disaster The Smith Mine is the site of the worst underground coal mine disaster in Montana history. The decaying buildings across the coulee are a memorial to the 74 men who died in the mine on the morning of February 27, 1943. Smoke pouring from the entrance to the No. 3 vein was the first indication of trouble. "There's something wrong down here. I'm getting out," the hoist operator called up. He and two nearby miners were the last men to leave the mine alive. The families of the men trapped underground anxiously waited as rescue crews from as far away as Butte and Cascade County worked around the clock to clear debris and search for survivors. There were none. Some men died as a result of a violent explosion, but most fell victim to the deadly methane gasses released by the blast. The tragedy sparked investigations at the state and national level that resulted in improvements in mine safety. Today's marker of the Smith Mine Disaster follows a simpler one left by two miners trapped underground after the explosion, waiting for the poisonous gas they knew would come. "Walter & Johnny. Good-bye. Wives and daughters. We died an easy death. Love from us both. Be good."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Mine — steps away
  Rusting buildings beside the highway, all that is left of the mine where Montana's worst coal disaster emptied a valley.
• Beartooth Highway — 13 mi
  A road over the top of the world, built because a coal town's mines closed and it needed tourists instead.

More markers nearby

• Black Gold — steps away
• Bearcreek — 1.5 mi
• Red Lodge — 3.1 mi
• The Beartooth Plateau — 3.1 mi