A Minnesota Mine Dug to the Edge of a Lake. In 1924 the Lake Came In and 41 of 48 Men Never Came Up

There is a lake in northern Minnesota with a boardwalk across it, and under the boardwalk there is a mine. On a February afternoon in nineteen twenty-four the lake went into the mine. It took less than twenty minutes. Forty-eight men were working two hundred feet below the surface when it happened, and seven of them came out, and they came out by the only route there was, which was one ladder in one shaft. And while they climbed, a steam whistle at the bottom of that shaft started to blow. It kept blowing after the seven were out. It kept blowing after the water had risen past the man pulling it. It kept blowing for four hours, until someone at the surface cut the rope, because nobody left below could have been alive to pull it. WHERE IT IS Milford Mine Memorial Park, Crow Wing County, Minnesota, about four miles north of Crosby. The park is free and open year round. A boardwalk crosses the lake to the memorial, where the forty-one names are on the wall, and the capped shaft is a short walk from the parking area. Cuyuna is pronounced kye-YOO-nuh. Hrvatin is pronounced her-VAH-tin, as best I can establish. If you know better, the pinned comment is the place. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society, "Milford Mine Disaster, 1924" Berger Aulie, The Milford Mine Disaster: A Cuyuna Range Tragedy Star Tribune, October 2015, interview material with Frank Hrvatin Jr. MinnPost, February 2013, "Save your breath and start climbing" Brainerd Dispatch, January 2024 InForum, February 2024, centennial coverage National Register of Historic Places, Milford Mine Historic District, 2011 Crow Wing County Parks, Milford Mine Memorial Park Minnesota Historical Society photograph collection, 1924 IF YOU WERE THERE If one of the forty-one names on that wall is family to you, or one of the seven, I would like to hear it. If you were in the auditorium in Crosby for the hundredth anniversary, or if your people worked the Cuyuna Range in those years, the same. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #milfordmine #minnesotahistory #miningdisaster