Renodesertfoxstill
Yellow Jacket Mine
Gold Hill Nevada. Virginia City Historical District.
Yellow Jacket Disaster was probably the worst mining accident in Nevada history. On the morning of April 7, 1869, fire spread at the 800-foot level. As the day crew descended, smoldering timbers collapsed, flooding poisonous air into the Yellow Jacket and neighboring Kentuck and Crown Point Mines. Fortunately, shifts were changing or casualties would have been higher. Nevertheless, survivors described horrible scenes of miners desperately struggling for life.
Heroic firefighters entered the mines, but flames and smoke pushed them back. At least thirty-five miners died, but some bodies were never retrieved, and single workers may have vanished without record. The fire persisted, so miners sealed off the offending levels, which remained hot for several years.
Yellow Jacket Mine
Gold Hill Nevada. Virginia City Historical District.
Yellow Jacket Disaster was probably the worst mining accident in Nevada history. On the morning of April 7, 1869, fire spread at the 800-foot level. As the day crew descended, smoldering timbers collapsed, flooding poisonous air into the Yellow Jacket and neighboring Kentuck and Crown Point Mines. Fortunately, shifts were changing or casualties would have been higher. Nevertheless, survivors described horrible scenes of miners desperately struggling for life.
Heroic firefighters entered the mines, but flames and smoke pushed them back. At least thirty-five miners died, but some bodies were never retrieved, and single workers may have vanished without record. The fire persisted, so miners sealed off the offending levels, which remained hot for several years.