Page 14 - Traverse 50.3

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shaft to the 1500-foot level. They made it to the 1700-foot level
and removed the bulkhead only to find the drift badly caved in
and the smoke so overpowering that they were forced to give up
the attempt. The Daily Alta California then reported, “There is little
hope for the men on the 400-foot level. The hoisting works are filled
with smoke so thick that it is necessary to remove all the doors and
windows to allow the engineers to remain at their posts.”
A rescue party finally succeeded in pulling out the men on the
800-foot level, as the fire burned below. A party of twenty miners
managed to fight their way down to the 400-foot level, only to
find the five miners there had all perished from the smoke.

The mine’s surveyors analyzed their maps and calculated the
possibility of driving a rescue drift to reach the trapped men. But
they wanted a second opinion. Concern heightened when it was
revealed that six boxes of Giant Blasting Powder were stored on
Josiah Grumman’s Improved Surveyor’s Chain, Smithsonian photo the 1500-foot level. Bulkheads were constructed to cut off the air
supply to the fire; it slowed but didn’t stop. Meanwhile, sixty hand-picked miners working three shifts, twenty-four hours a day, started
cutting the rescue drift. 14

On July 7 , 1887, The Daily Alta California optimistically reported progress with the res-
th
cue, “Survey Made of the Rescue Drift, Connection Hoped for Shortly”
“Virginia, Nev., July 6th. Surveyor Wrinkle, who has been doing the underground survey work
for the different mines on the Comstock, was telegraphed for and arrived here this morning
from Mono county. This afternoon he went to the 1,500-foot level of the Con. Virginia mine and
made a survey of the rescue drift. He says the drift has been run right, and in sinking about six
feet deeper and then running about five feet south, connection will be made with the Best &
Belcher crosscut, where the imprisoned miners are supposed to be.”

Stories continued daily in all the western press, but the writers could only speculate
about the condition of the trapped miners. Meanwhile, the hard labor of cutting the new
drift continued, ever closer it was hoped, to the trapped men. Finally on the 9 of July, the
th
rescue party broke through to the miners. All had perished.
The Daily Alta California summed up the disaster, Virginia City, July. 10 . At 12:30 a. m. the
th
bodies of all six miners were found in the old drift, two hundred feet from the winze. They were
all lying close together. The cave prevented their reaching the winze…Several of the relief party Grumman’s patent drawing showing thermometer
were overcome by the gas. and tension mechanisms, U.S. Patent Office

The bodies of the men were found at a distance of about 800 feet
from where they had opened the bulkhead and entered the drift and
within 200 feet of the incline winze for which they were making.
They were stopped by a big cave in that closed the drift…Miners who
examined the 1500-foot level of the Bonner Shaft say that the men
undoubtedly fought the fire in the station for a long time. It is found
that they carried back out of the old east station, where the fire
originated, a large lot of primers, to prevent them from exploding…
The east station shows they must have put out the fire there, as the
timbers still stand, although badly charred. What beat the men was
the cave.”
On July 12 , The Daily Alta California reported that James C. Flood
th
and John Mackay donated $5000 to the victim’s families, raising
the total donations for the stricken widows to $25,000. The Eu-
reka Daily Sentinel described the three gold medals struck for men
who had especially risked their lives during the rescue. Lorenzo
Pinaglia and William Scadden, were lowered down the burning,
Soda works, Inyo Development Company, at Keeler, the Carson & Colorado
RR railhead at Owens Lake, California. The pile of carbonate of soda at left smoke-filled shaft in the cage, to rescue the men on the 1300
is ready for shipment, 1901. Owens Valley History website
14 Engineering and Mining Journal, July 2, 1887
12 The Nevada Traverse Vol.50, No.2, 2023