Six Miners Lose Their Lives
Five Fatally Injured and Three Seriously Burned in an Explosion.
Fairmont, W. Va., May 15.-Six minders lost their lives, fiver were fatally injured and three seriously burned in an explosion at the shaft of the Georges Creek Coal and Iron company at Farmington, seven miles west of this city, on the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio this morning. The dead:
MAYNARD BEATTY of Mannington.
JOE NICHOLS of Lonaconing, Md.
J.H. EVERSON of Everson, W.Va.
DAN ALFERREL of Farmington.
JOE DOMINICK, Italian.
TONY PHILLIPS, Italian.
The injured: Charles Carpenter, fatally; Carl Hunter, fatally; Hershel Everson, fatally; Joseph Blaney, fatally; Italian, fatally Jefferson Fast, badly burned; Thomas Bainbridge, badly burned and bruised; Italian, burned and bruised.
The Georges Creek Company had invested fully $1,000,000 in the mine, which is one of the best equipped in the Fairmont coal region. The mine was only recently put into operation, and about 125 men were employed, only forty of this number underground. Of these fifteen were in a portion of the mine that has been worked for some time, and the remainder were working on headings quite a distance away. One of the men in the rooms, it is alleged, had smuggled a torch into the mine, as torches give a better light than the safety lamps prescribed by the company.
At 9:15 o’clock the miner fired a shot, and the smoke, which was very dense, caught fire from the torch and spread to either the gas or dust, and the explosion resulted. Fortunately the mine did not catch fire to any extent. The explosion vent itself through the air shaft and almost demolished the building on the surface in which the fan was located. The men in the headings did not know there had been an explosion until notified. The air was soon turned in and in a short time the headlines were cleared of foul gases and the work of rescuing the unfortunates commenced. It was 5 o’clock before the work was concluded.
Butte Weekly Miner, Butte, MT 15 May 1901
Wolford Family in the Ohio Region of the Northwest Territory 
I grew up in Farmington, WV across from the large building in town that had in large print –
GEORGES CREEK COAL & IRON CO on the side. We always called it the Show Building because
movies were shown there. I was trying to find the connection between the company and Farmington.
My parents still live across the B&O railroad tracks (removed ) from the building. I have a picture of
the Farmington B&O depot and the show building. I can send it to you. My email is below.
Roman Michael Chuby
WVNET
837 Chestnut Ridge Road
Morgantown, West Virginia 26505-2798
(304) 293-5192 x268 office
(800) 253-1558 x268 office toll free
(304) 906-3094 cell
(304) 293-5540 office fax
chuby@mail.wvnet.edu