| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 130.3

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| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 130.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

Voices of the Knox Mine Disaster: Stories, Remembrances, and Reflections on the Anthracite Coal Industry's Last Major Catastrophe, January 22, 1959. By Robert P. Wolensky, Kenneth C. Wolensky, and Nicole H. Wolensky. (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2005. xi, 286p. Notes, glossary, illustrations, index. $12.95.)

There have been many coal mine disasters in Pennsylvania that took more lives, but few can match the horror and drama of the Knox Mine disaster. Explosions or fires kill large numbers quickly: the Avondale fire took 110 lives, and the Darr Mine explosion 239. The 12 men who died in the Knox mine were victims of an illegal shaft breaking through the river bottom under the rampaging waters of the icy Susquehanna on January 22, 1959. Their lives were taken perhaps in minutes, perhaps days or even longer, as the water advanced inexorably through the tunnels. Their bodies were never recovered. Thirty-three men escaped after a harrowing trek through the maze of shafts and tunnels in search of higher ground and a way out. Billions of gallons of water surged through the interconnecting mines, effectively ending more than a century of mining in the northern anthracite field.

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