Crosses of iron : the tragic story of Dawson, New Mexico, and its twin mining disasters
Nick Pappas ; foreword by Richard Melzer
- Albuquerque, New Mexico University of New Mexico Press 2023
- 223 pages illustrations, map ; 23 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-217) and index.
Entombed -- The Birth of Dawson -- The Early Years -- A Model Community -- The Immigrants -- Danger in the Mines -- October 22, 1943 -- The Burials -- The Sorrow -- The Cause -- The Inquest -- Back to Normal -- Oh, No, Not Again! -- What Happened This Time? -- Writing on the Wall -- Closing Time -- Dawson Cemetery -- Down Memory Lane
In October 1913, 261 miners and two rescuers died when a massive explosion ripped through a mine operated by Phelps, Dodge & Company in Dawson, New Mexico. Ten years later, a second blast claimed the lives of another 120 miners. Today, Dawson is a deserted ghost town. All that remains is a sea of white iron crosses memorializing the nearly four hundred miners killed in the two explosions--a death toll unmatched by mine disasters in any other town in America. Now, to mark the centennial of the second disaster, veteran journalist Nick Pappas tells the tragic story of what was once New Mexico's largest and most modern company town and of how the strong, determined residents of the community coped with two heartbreaking catastrophes.