“RIOTING!” was the headline in the Rocky Mountain News on December 12, 1891. “Five men were killed, the article claimed. Italian miners stirred up the trouble; the town is armed; the sheriff and posse are hurrying to the rescue.”
Calmer reflection shows hard working miners, upset about a pay decrease of 10 cents, to 65 cents per ton, attempting to find a way to keep feeding their families. Christmas was right around the corner. Their technique was a miners’ parade with a brass band and an American Flag leading. Alarmed citizens, including mayor John Tetard, wired to Gunnison for Sheriff Shores, who arrived that evening near midnight with an armed posse. The strikers rushed to meet the train, thinking it full of strikebreakers. Someone fired a gun, and a barrage of shots followed…seven miners were wounded.
Rumors flew, Governor John Routt sent the Deputy State Commissioner of Labor, Lester Bodine, to mediate the dispute. And mediate he did. The miners were told if they didn’t go back to work the mine would be shut down. By the 16th, nine days before Christmas, the miners front collapsed and they “applied” for the return of their jobs. None of the Italian miners were “rehired”.
Source:”When Coal Was King”, Duanne A. Smith
Rob Quint