FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
By Michael Punke
The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began just before midnight on June 8, 1917. Sparked by a tragic accdent more than two thousand feet below ground, a fire in the Granite Mountain shaft spewed flames, smoke, and posionous gas through a series of underground tunnels.
Within an hour, more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, 163 of them would be dead.
BR>While the disaster is compelling in its own right, Fire and Brimstone also tells a far broader story. Butte, Montana, on the eve of the disaster was a volatile jumble of antiwar protest, an abusive corporate master, seething labor unrest, divisive ethnic tension, and radicalism both left and right. It was a powder keg lacking only a spark, and the mine fire would ignite strikes, murder, ethnic and political witch hunts, occupation by federal troops, and ultimately a battle over presidential power.
Hardcover, dust jacket, 338 pages, $10.00
