The Monarch No. 2 after the explosion on January 20, 1936. Note the smoke and massive hole in the roof of the Monarch’s tipple. A crowd of people stand in front of the mine entrance.

Ninety years ago, catastrophe struck communities across the northern coalfield. On January 20, 1936 at 6:20 a.m., an explosion tore through the Monarch Mine No. 2, killing eight miners working the graveyard shift. Their names were Ray Bailey, Oscar Baird, Steve Davis, Tony DeSantis, Joe Jaramillo, Kester Novinger, Tom Stevens, and Leland Ward. The explosion was the deadliest mining accident in Boulder County’s history. There were a total of ten men underground at the time of the blast. Nick DelPizzo and Bill Jenkins escaped by running nearly a mile underground and climbing 300 feet to the surface through an air shaft. Had the blast occurred 10 minutes later, approximately 130 men beginning the day shift would have been underground.

The disaster was the kind of event that many Louisville residents remembered vividly for their entire lives. Betty Ross Marino, just ten years old at the time, remembered waking up to the sound of sirens. Donald Stevens was five years old when his father, Tom Stevens, died in the explosion. 70 years after the accident, he could still remember how he heard the news after coming home to find his mother and aunt crying in the dining room of his home. Doris DeSantis Winslow learned that her father, Tony DeSantis, was in the mine during the explosion while she was at school. When rescuers recovered her father’s body later that day, she was “devastated.”

Men, women, and children standing outside the entrance to the Monarch No. 2 awaiting news of the explosion’s victims. Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Z-3977.

The Monarch No. 2 was located near the current site of the Flatirons Mall in Broomfield. Many Louisville residents worked there or knew people who did. The National Fuel Co. operated the mine, which had a reputation for being dangerous and poorly managed when it came to safety. After the explosion, a coroner’s jury ruled that the disaster was a result of the company’s negligence. In the main haulage way of the Monarch, there was a leakage of methane gas and an accumulation of several inches of coal dust. National Fuel Co. had failed to respond to a previous order from the State Mine Inspector to address this condition. It took just one spark to cause the methane gas and combustible coal dust to explode. If the initial blast didn’t kill the eight men who perished, they were either killed by falling rock or poisonous gas.

Rescue and recovery efforts were dangerous and required extensive manpower. Several teams of rescuers took shifts clearing hundreds of tons of rubble. Within a few days, rescuers recovered the bodies of all but one of the miners, Joe Jaramillo. Jaramillo was a mule driver at the Monarch, and he remains buried at the former site of the mine. He was the only victim of the accident who rescuers were unable to recover. His wife and children waited over the course of more than two weeks for news before the state mine inspector called the search off on February 6. National Fuel Co. erected a monument in honor of Jaramillo at the site of the mine. It has since been moved to Frank Varra Park.

 A rescue team at the entrance of the mine. Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Z-3978.

The deaths of these miners left a gaping hole in their families. Jaramillo’s eldest son, Joe Jr., left school at the age of 14 following his father’s death to begin mining coal to support his mother and siblings. Adeline DeSantis, wife of Tony DeSantis and mother of six, outlived her husband by more than 50 years. Every single year until her passing she posted an “In Memoriam” for Tony in the Louisville Times.

It was no secret that coal mining was dangerous. Miners put themselves at tremendous personal risk to make a living. Though the Monarch Mine explosion was extraordinary because of its scale and death toll, death and injury in the mines had always been a frequent feature of life for Louisville families. 90 years after the Monarch No. 2 Mine explosion, the Museum invites the community to remember the eight men who tragically lost their lives in 1936 as well as all those workers and families who endured the harsh realities of industrial life during Louisville’s coal mining days.