Front Porch: 52 years later, Sunshine Mine disaster feels like yesterday

On this day 52 years ago I found myself standing in a mountainous area near the unincorporated community of Big Creek, Idaho, between Wallace and Kellogg, as the biggest and most deadly mine disaster in the history of the state was unfolding.

Earlier that morning, as a staff writer for The Spokesman-Review, I had been working on a story at the federal courthouse building in downtown Spokane. When I came back into the newsroom, City Editor Paul McNabb told me that a fire had broken out underground at the Sunshine Mine, and men were trapped. He had already dispatched a photographer and a reporter, and he wanted two others up there.

He knew this was going to be big.

And so, two of us dropped everything and beat it up there. I was wearing a dress, heels and hose, as we women reporters did back in the day – hardly what was needed for the work ahead in the terrain of the area.

That afternoon a huge rescue and recovery mission began. It would turn out that of the 173 miners who were working underground that day – 80 were evacuated, 91 perished from carbon monoxide poisoning and two were rescued alive. The body of the final missing miner was located on day 10.

At the outset only a handful of local news media was on site, including broadcast journalists and representatives from the Associated Press and United Press International. Overnight, media from across the country and the world gathered there on the mountainside to report on what was happening.

I’m not going to revisit here the events of the disaster itself, but rather just share an old reporter’s personal memory of a pivotal experience that happened half a century ago right in our own backyard, a view from one (of many) who worked to tell the story to the public. It is startling to me that it was truly that long ago because it’s so easy for the sounds to fill my ears, my eyes to take in the sights and my nose to smell again the damp dewy early mornings of those days in May 1972.

The principals of the story, of course, are the miners and rescuers and the families and the North Idaho communities of all involved. There are very few still around (let alone alive) who experienced it from the other side of the note pad, so to speak.

So I’ll take a moment now.

The S-R rotated crews in and out to try to capture everything that was happening, day and night. Mostly it was Tom Burnett, who normally covered the police beat; general assignment reporter Kent Swigard; photographers Jim Shelton and Larry Reisnouer, and myself. And a whole bunch of people behind the scenes, from editors to typesetters, whose names don’t make it out into the public.

This was way before today’s technology, when reporting involved (literally) a lot of legwork. From the mountainside, a photographer would shoot rolls of film and drive them back to Spokane for processing when the relief photographer arrived on scene, always keeping in mind upcoming deadlines. For example, there was a Montana edition of the paper back then, for which copy (our stories) had to be turned in by 6 p.m. Deadline for local editions was about 11 p.m.

A representative from UPI managed to get a bank of telephones set up in a building at the mine site, so we reporters could dictate our stories over those phones to our newsrooms. If we had a portable typewriter and time enough, we’d write them up first; otherwise, we dictated from notes.

It was a slow process.

The first several days, we were all there pretty much all the time. Whoever was the lead writer on a particular shift caught everyone up. One person would cover the main story, or more than one, if it required people at different locations. Another would work on sidebars. We coordinated on site with the photographers as things developed. But first, we’d have to find one another. Remember, no cellphones yet.

There was a hunger for stories, but when it got down to a waiting game – when it became about the body count, how many were found that day – it got harder to produce fresh material. Sounds cold, but there was a job to do.

Sometimes Tom and I would sit late at night and chat with Marvin C. Chase, general manager at the mine (who insisted on his middle initial being used), and who would tell us stories of mine legends and superstitions. There in the dark, where men were dead or dying or imperiled 1,600 meters below where we sat, it was spooky as all get out.

The National Guard had been called in to keep things calm. Some in my profession (national press folks, I should note) got to sticking cameras up the noses of family members who were gathered waiting for news, and nerves got raw. Fencing was put up to keep reporters and photographers away from family.

One day – now more appropriately dressed in pants and flannel shirt and boots (not fancy ones) – I took a head-clearing breather of a walk down one of the unpaved roads, which happened to be near the area fenced off for the miners’ families. A National Guardsman inside the enclosure called out to me and asked if I wanted to come in through the back gate.

He assumed I was a family member. And I let him.

I tried to be respectful with those I talked with, and I backed off when privacy was wanted. But, here was a moment when my gender helped me get the story. I’ve had numerous conversations with peers about the ethics of that.

The most outstanding part of that 10-day experience, from a personal and professional viewpoint, was late in the afternoon on day seven. Jim and I were the only ones there from the S-R. I was dictating my story for the Montana edition, when I heard a hubbub. I scooted away from the phone for a minute and caught some mine personnel talking, when I heard the word “survivors.”

Back on the phone quickly, I asked for Paul McNabb. When he got on the phone I said, “Paul, I think there may be survivors.” It was a stop-the-presses moment.

I can’t tell you what took place in the Review Tower that night, though I know it was an awful lot. Paul sent Tom, Kent, Larry and Jack Roberts (the S-R’s City Hall reporter) back to the mine, and we all did our jobs.

I was on the story of the survivors, so Jim and I were up front just behind the rope in the press area, jam-packed against other media guys vying for a good view of the tunnel through which we, by then, knew two survivors would be emerging. On my left was a seasoned Life Magazine photographer (we’d had some conversation earlier and I was familiar with his work), who was as excited as if it was his first big story.

It truly was a cool, misty and foggy night. And then we saw a dim speck of light moving at the back of the entrance to the mine, which slowly got bigger and brighter as Tom Wilkerson and Ron Flory emerged with hard hats on, lights guiding their way, surrounded by those who helped get them out, as well as medical personnel. A lot of us were crying by then, including my new friend from Life, especially as the men’s wives ran up to embrace them.

I always thought “light at the end of the tunnel” was a metaphor. Not so that night.

There’s more that’s remembered, more to tell – but no longer so many people around who shared the experience of telling the story.

Tom Burnett, who went on to become founding editor of the Rathdrum Star, died a number of years ago. Jim Shelton died long before that. Kent Swigard left journalism and lives on the East Coast. Larry Reisnouer eventually became S-R photo editor, but I haven’t seen him in forever. I occasionally see Paul McNabb at lunch gatherings of S-R “old timers.”

But that’s how it goes. That time half a century ago is like yesterday to me, but the world ever turns, and, likely, there will hardly be a mention of the Sunshine Mine Disaster today, even in regional media.

And because somewhere deep inside me there is still some old reporter’s ink flowing, I’d like to add some pertinent information, beginning with the fact that a cause for the fire was never found.

An investigation into what happened deep underground on the east side of Big Creek waterway on May 2, 1972, revealed weaknesses in the administrative setup of safety/health programs for miners, which served as a catalyst for the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. It is said to have substantially decreased the number of mining fatalities.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.