I want to share more of Jerry Dimas' memoirs of growing up in Madrid, NM, surrounded by the mines, the company town, and the incredible toughness of the mining families to endure adversities such as the Depression, the floods, the fires, and the dangers of the mines themselves. Here is Jerry's recounting of a coal mine blast that occurred when he was in grade school:
Entrance to the Morgan Jones Number four Mine, Madrid, NM circa 1925
"When I was in the third or fourth grade, the Morgan Jones Mine had an explosion. The mine office had an emergency whistle to inform the towns-people that a coal mine blast had happened. The whistle or horn stayed on until the towns people ran to the mine to see if the miners were okay. Our mom and dad told us about some of the men who did not survive the explosion. A member of my father's family was one of the miners killed in the explosion. The father of one of the miners was there looking for his son, but could not find him. The mine was still belching out coal dust and men were coughing and wheezing. As they were coming out, some of the miners were barely alive, some were burned and could not be recognized. One father looking for his son only recognized him by his wedding ring, as the son had just been married a few weeks earlier. He was burned beyond recognition.
Miners at Foreman's Cabin, Madrid, NM circa 1925
"Two of my school mates also lost their father. The principal from Madrid Elementary School went to our classroom and asked these two girls to come to the office, that there was an emergency and they were needed at home. It was only then we that we knew that their father worked at the Morgan Jones Mine and that something had happened to their father.
"The only way the mine office knew that Morgan Jones had blow up was that he was a Mexican man who was the rope rider.** He advised the mine office by some kind of system they had -- like a Morse code or teletype system. And he said in the only words he knew 'Morgan Jones Boom-Boom.'
The Breaker at Morgan Jones Mine, Madrid, NM circa 1925
"For a while the Morgan Jones was shut down till some of the natural gas was removed so the men could go back down again and dig for coal. There were two types of coal -- one was anthracite and the other was bituminous. One was soft coal and the other was hard coal. The coal was used for the war effort. When WWII ended, that was the end of Madrid. Natural gas was the fuel of the future, not coal. Madrid died after that. Families slowly moved out and Madrid became a ghost town. A few families stayed on and eventually they left the town too. Our family left in 1956 when we migrated to California to look for a better future for all of us.
The Tipple, Morgan Jones Mine, Madrid, NM circa 1925
"But I remember the breaker, the tipple, the power house, the locomotive, the mine office, the company store, the town boss Oscar Huber and his son Joe, and other families who lived there. I also remember the locomotive that used to go to Waldo and bring up the water for the town. Us kids would sit along the tracks and watch that locomotive struggle up the hill to haul that large black tanker full of water."
Women Waiting for the Water Train, Madrid NM circa 1925
**Tail Rope Rider: In bituminous coal mining, one who works on trains of cars hauled by tail-rope haulage system at mine, coupling and uncoupling cars, and hooking and unhooking cable to and from trains. Also called tail-rope man.
Many more photos taken of Madrid, NM between 1920-1950 can be found in the albums on the right hand side bar.
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
