The Coal Glen Mine Disaster - a CACKLE cache
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A small tupperware container with a few trade items hidden at the memorial to a forgotten tragedy.
North Carolina Central Area Cache Loggers Enterprise (NC-CACKLE) is a loosely formed group of cachers dedicated to the betterment of Geocaching in the Sanford/Lee County and surrounding areas.
The following is excerpted from "The Coal Demon of Deep River", an article from The State Magazine, June 1987 issue:
The Short Lived Carolina Mine
In 1921 one of the most important events that ever occurred on the Deep River Coal Bed took place. The Carolina Coal Company was formed with the intention of developing a mine near Farmville across the river from the Egypt Mine. The mining town that would arise was to be called Coal Glen. The Carolina Mine is often called the Coal Glen Mine, or the Farmville Mine.
The Carolina Mine was the most ambitious mining operation ever begun on the Deep River Coal Bed. In 1923, its first year of full-scale operation, its output more than doubled the best of the Old Egypt Mine. Once again the future looked bright for a mine on the Deep River- Coal Bed. But the profits never came.
At seven in the morning on May 25, the morning shift, numbering seventy-four miners, descended into the dark of the Carolina Mine. Two and a half hours later the first of three terrific explosions tore through the mine. Its vibrations were felt as far as a mile away. Families and company officials rushed to the mine entrance Poisonous, yellow gas billowed from the mine entrance, making rescue impossible. It took five days to pull all the bodies from the mine. The story made front page news all across the country.
Fifty-three men died that morning.
The Carolina Mine closed four years later. Ironically, it was not a mine explosion that closed the mine, but water and human carelessness. Rains swelled the Deep River in 1929 and the mine began to flood through an air shaft. The water was pumped free, but no precautions were taken against subsequent flooding. The mine flooded again in 1930 putting an end to the Carolina Mine, after less than mine years of operation. The flood waters, the prohibitive cost of transportation, the accidents, and the market crash of 1929 had conspired to bankrupt the Carolina Coal Company. Another Deep River mine had closed in failure.
The Carolina Mine was opened again between 1947 and 1951 but failed to turn a profit and was allowed to reflood. It has not been opened since.
The entrance to the Carolina Mine can be found today in the parking lot of the General Timber Lumberyard off Farmville Mine Road. It has been incorporated into a garden near the company's office building. All that can be seen inside the shaft is some old equipment and a track disappearing into water about fifteen feet down.
The real testament to the tragedy history of mining on the Deep River Coal Bed is located three hundred yards from the Carolina Mine shaft, at the entrance to the lumberyard. It is the Farmville Cemetery. Miners who fell victim to each of the three major explosions are represented there. There is a plaque, dedicated to the victims of the Carolina Mine disaster, standing among the graves. Its engraving begins with the terrible date: May 27, 1925 . . .
You can easily see the memorial from the cache site. Take some time to remember those that lost their lives. The actual entrance to the coal mine is still there, on private property at the General Lumber Timberyard. If you ask permission, like we did, they will be happy to direct you to it. The Garden is pretty overgrown, but you will find it at the base of the flag pole. Remember to ask permission first.
The following gives you one more glimpse of the scope of the tragedy: It is from the website rootsweb.com:
The Coal Glen-Farmville Mine Disaster was the worst industrial accident in North Carolina history. Though more recent incidents such as the flash fire at the Imperial Food Products Plant in Hamlet on Septmber 3, 1991, which killed 25, and the spectacular explosion at West Pharmaceuticals in Kinston on January 29, 2003, are more in the public consciousness, the Coal Glen Disaster killed 53 men, made 38 women widows, left 79 children fatherless, made Farmville a ghost town, and virtually put an end to coal mining in North Carolina.
FYI:
This cache would count for Page 61 on the North Carolina Delorme Challenge (GCTYE6), and for Chatham County on the North Carolina County Challenge (GC19YRC)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ybbx sbe gur zrzbevny, gura ybbx nebhaq.