Colorado Coalfield War

Miners in Primero recover casualties from the 31 January 1910 explosion that killed 75 at the CF&I mine.

In 1903, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was taken over from its founder, John C. Osgood, by a group of Colorado-based board members and investors with the support of John D. Rockefeller. Osgood was the wealthiest Coloradan at the time, and founded the Victor-American Fuel Company later that year.[13]

Colorado Fuel and Iron's treatment of its workers degraded after its sale to John D. Rockefeller, who gave his portion of the company to his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr. as a birthday gift. The company already had a history of buying political figures and banking "graft," but Lamont Montgomery Bowers–who was hired to “untangle the mess”–caused additional issues.[14]^:78[15]^:3 Bowers, made chairman of the CF&I board in 1907, admitted that company had "mighty power in the entire state." Under his leadership, every employee–regardless of citizenship status–as well as company mules were registered to vote. The workers were coerced to vote for the company's interests.[14]^:29 He cut the Sociological Department and embraced the idea of a hands off approach to employee management. This caused rampant dishonesty in middle management, to the detriment of the mine workers.[5]^:266

Between 1884 and 1912, Colorado's fatality rate among miners was more than double the national average, with 6.81 miners killed for every 1,000 workers (against a national average of 3.12).[16]^:147 In the decade preceding the 1913-1914 Strike, CF&I mines had been involved in several major accidents.[17] These included the 31 January 1910 explosion that killed 75 at the Primero Mine[18][19] and the Starkville Mine explosion that killed 56 on 8 October of that year.[20] Both of these accidents took place in Las Animas County, part of what became the strike zone and where the Ludlow Colony was established.[17] These incidents raised the fatality rate in Colorado to above 10 deaths per 1,000 workers, three times the national average.[16]^:147

In April 1912, the Northern Colorado Coalfield Strikes slowly ended following several years of striking and negotiations. This strike had seen internal tensions between different districts of UMWA miners, as some members of neighboring districts were recruited as strikebreaker, leading some members of the Industrial Workers of the World, through their publication Industrial Worker, to claim "autonomous district organization is on par with scabbery."[21]

Since the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–1904, CF&I had spent $20,000 annually on private detectives and security to monitor and infiltrate unions. Bowers viewed these private investigators as “grafters” and sought to cut ties with them. However, local CF&I fuel manager E. H. Weitzel retained Pinkerton detectives in the southern Colorado coalfields to monitor the collective organizing of miners in the region.[14]^:62–63

The Copper County Strike of copper workers in Calumet, Michigan, for nine months from 1913 to 1914, ran concurrently with the Colorado strike, and both strikers and Guardsmen were aware of the events in Michigan through coverage in Collier's and other nationally circulating publications.[22][23]

The Coalfield Strikes of 1913-1914 began in the late summer of 1913 when the United Mine Workers of America organized its regional District 15, led by John McLennan, to represent southern Coloradan coal field workers and put forward demands to Colorado Fuel and Iron.[11] Demands that emphasized enforcement of new regulatory laws were not met.[3][5]^:266 Among the demands unheeded was the enforcement of a mine-safety bill passed in 1913 which required better ventilation in the mines, but which had no enforcement provision.[24]^:127

In Southern Colorado, an expanded strike began on 23 September 1913 during a rainstorm. That day, the strike peaked with up to 20,000 miners and family members being evicted from company housing. Prior to the eviction, there had been plans to move them all into union supplied tents.[3]^:266 Eight tent colonies were supposed to have been constructed with materials from the UMWA in anticipation such an eventuality, but most of the tents arrived late, leading some families to resort to using furniture as improvised shelters.[25] Despite internal statistics at CF&I that suggested only 10 percent of miners were union-members, Rockefeller was informed soon after the strike began that between 40 and 60 percent of the miners in the strike zone had left work, which became roughly 80.5 percent–7,660 men–by the 24th.[25] The day the strike was declared, Mother Jones led a march on the Trinidad town hall, giving a brief speech outside and inside:

"Rise up and strike! If you are too cowardly, there are enough women in this country to come in here and beat the hell out of you. [...] When we strike, we strike to win."

— Mother Jones, Speech at Trinidad City Hall, 23 September 1913.[16]^:238–239

Most sheriffs and deputy sheriffs in the area were affiliated with Colorado Fuel and Iron and acted as an initial force against the strikers. Their numbers were bolstered as the strike began by recruiting of new sheriffs and deputies, including Karl Linderfelt, who later led the militia. Many of those deputized, and at least 66 in two days, were from Texas, while others were from New Mexico.[26]

Baldwin-Felts detectives with M1895 machine gun aboard Death Special.

General John Chase had been the leader of the National Guard during the suppression of the 1903-1904 Cripple Creek Strike and was disposed positively towards the mine guards and hired detectives that would eventually supplement his ranks. CF&I vehicles and other infrastructure were regularly employed by the Guard for the duration of the strike. Chase, in his position at the head of the Colorado National Guard, embraced an aggressive stance against the strikers.[14]^:141

Though there were strikes in places such as Walsenburg and Trinidad, the largest of the strike colonies was in Ludlow. It had around 200 tents with 1,200 miners. The escalating situation caused Governor Elias Ammons to call in the Colorado National Guard in October 1913, but after six months all but two companies were withdrawn for financial reasons. However, during this six-month period, guardsmen were allowed to leave if their primary livelihood was threatened and many of the guardsmen were “new recruits”–mine guards and strikebreakers in National Guard uniforms.[11]

As was common in mine strikes of the time, the company also brought in strikebreakers and Baldwin-Felts detectives. These detectives had experience from West Virginia strikes in which they had defended themselves from violent strikers. Balwin-Felts detectives George Belcher and Walker Belk had killed UMWA organizer Gerald Liappiat in Trinidad on 16 August 1913, five weeks before the strikes began.[5]^{:219[note d]}

Further detectives were brought into the state once the strike commenced. Upon arrival, these between 40 and 75 detectives were deputized as county sheriffs.[14]^:88–89 The Baldwin-Felts were also responsible for the recruitment of mine guards meant for service directly under CF&I.[27]

The Baldwin-Felts and CF&I had an armored car nicknamed the Death Special, which was equipped with a machine gun,[4] as well as eight machine guns purchased by CF&I from the Coal Operators' Association of West Virginia–a mining company association.[1] Three additional machine guns reached the strike zone by the end of the conflict, though how these weapons were sourced is uncertain.[26] Death Special was constructed at a CF&I shop in Pueblo for company use against their striking workers and passed on to the militia later in the conflict.[27] Prior to being distributed to the militia, company-employed detectives were accused of firing randomly into and above the miners' colonies from Death Special.[4]

The strikers also armed themselves through private sales, primarily through local private dealers. Colorado gun dealers are recorded as having sold to both sides in the various calibers that were commercially popular at the time–especially .45-70 and .22 Long Rifle.[28] Dealers in Walsenburg and Pueblo also sold explosives to both sides of the conflict, though the investigating congressional committee noted they did "not believe a majority of the people of Colorado indorse [sic] such actions."[26]

Due to the influence of the Colorado National Guard and Greek Union leaders, such as Louis Tikas in Ludlow Colony, the strike had become relatively peaceful by the beginning of 1914. The strikers and the Guardsmen sat opposite each other at Ludlow, with brown tents for the soldiers appearing on the opposite side of the track from the white ones belonging to the colonists starting in November 1913.[32]

UMWA strikers at the Forbes Colony, 1914. After the 10 March destruction of the colony, Joseph Zanetell (light cap, in front of chimney) would lose two newborn twins to exposure.[16]^{:270[note e]}

There was still tension, though, and on 14 January Linderfelt was accused of hitting Tikas while at Ludlow in retaliation for Tikas not divulging the whereabouts of a boy related to an incident in which Linderfelt and his men ran into barbed wire on a path. The official report by the National Guard detachment commander at Aguilar to General Chase on 18 January denied the claim, as did a telegram to Governor Ammons sent personally from Linderfelt.[33][34] Lawson, however, asserted in a telegram to Gov. Ammons that Linderfelt had used the "vilest of language" towards the boy in question and had said to the strikers "I am Jesus Christ, and my men on horses are Jesus Christs, and we must be obeyed." Lawson also suggested Linderfelt had acted with the intention of provoking the strikers to violence.[34]

National Guardsmen with a M1895 machine gun on Water Tank Hill, an elevated position that overlooked the Ludlow tent colony.

Guardsmen taking cover during the Ludlow Massacre, 20 April 1914.

On the morning of April 20, 1914, the day after the Eastern Orthodox Church's Easter Sunday and after months of increased tension between the armed factions, the Ludlow Massacre occurred. On Sunday, 19 April, it was reported that a group of union-aligned women playing baseball at Ludlow exchanged insults with National Guardsmen, one of whom is reported as saying to the women, "Go ahead, have your good time to-day, and to-morrow we will get your roast."[25] On the morning of 20 April, Tikas was summoned by soldiers claiming a woman sought to speak to her husband, a supposed resident of the Ludlow Colony. Tikas refused the initial invitation to meet in the soldiers' tent. Major Patrick Hamrock, the Irish-born leader of the "Rocky Mountain Sharpshooters" and a veteran of the Wounded Knee Massacre,[14]^:213 persuaded Tikas to meet at the Ludlow train stop. Tikas told his agitated fellow Greek strikers to remain calm.[25]

Sensing the militia's intent to act that day after seeing machine guns placed above the colony and choosing to disobey Tikas, strikers took cover in hastily constructed fire positions.[14]^:214–215[35] Accounts of who fired the first shot differ, but fighting began or escalated after the militia at Ludlow detonated warning charges to notify Linderfelt's troops stationed at Berwind Canyon and another detachment at Cedar Hill.[7]^:220[14]^:216 By 9:30 AM, the gunfire had begun to reach its peak intensity.[14]^:217 Families of the strikers sought shelter in cellars beneath their tents as the fighting raged through the morning and until past 5 PM.[14]^:221 National Guardsmen fired a machine gun from Water Tank Hill, an elevated position above the colony that had served as an observation post for much of strike.[36] A twelve year old, Frank Snyder, left his shelter and was hit by a bullet that removed much of his head, killing him instantly. National Guardsman Pvt. Martin was fatally shot in the neck.[16]^:2 In total, some 177 militia and soldiers participated in the fighting.[14]^:221

A pumpman for the Colorado & Southern train that passed through the town named M. G. Low helped use a train engine to protect some of those fleeing the battle and directed them towards cover.[14]^:217 At the end of the battle, a fire began and the colony burnt down. Tikas and other strikers were found shot in the back, along with others killed in the combat. Eleven children and two women were found suffocated by smoke in one of the subterranean cellars. All together, at least 18 of the union side had been killed, while Martin is the only confirmed casualty from the Guard.[16]^{:2, 222–223} During the 1915 Commission on Industrial Relations Congressional hearings on the massacre, Rockefeller maintained that he was not aware of any animosity among the deputized militia subsidized by CF&I, nor that had he ordered the massacre, despite accusations to the contrary from activists including Margaret Sanger.[37][38]

Colorado National Guard troops outside the Ludlow Home Saloon, 1914

The news of the massacre soon reached the other tent colonies, including the large group of strikers in Walsenburg. The response was an decentralized expedition throughout Southern and Central Colorado known as the "Ten Days War."[1] At this point the union made an official "Call to Arms",[1] a departure from their previous policy of suppressing violence on the part of the strikers. This led to widespread violence across the Southern Colorado Coalfield area, unlike the small pockets of violence that occurred in canyons in the early days of the strike.[15]^{:3–4, 6}

Popular opinion began to side with the miners. Newspapers that had previously sided with the company and Ammons, such as the Daily Camera and Rocky Mountain News, began to sympathize with the strikers and blame "dilly-dallying" on Ammons' part for the deaths.[14]^:244–245

Strikers sought revenge on non-striking miners, attacking Southwestern Mine Co.'s Empire Mine on Wednesday, 22 April, only to relent after a 21-hour siege. Armed strikebreakers killed two strikers at the loss of the mine's superintendent. A minister named McDonald from nearby Aguilar heard the fighting and rightly fearing the strikers intended to kill all those at the Empire Mine. He and the Aguilar mayor negotiated a ceasefire that resulted in the strikers withdrawing.[5]^:186[14]^:248–249 However, before the siege broke, national news outlets began erroneously reporting that the families trapped in the Empire Mine were likely suffocated.[39] Three mine guards were killed at Delagua, where four attempts were made by strikers to take the town, and another was killed at Tabasco.[5]^:189[39]

Arrested President John McLennan, who led UMWA District 15 at the start of 1913-1914 Strike, with Major Patrick Hamrock following the Ludlow Massacre.

By the evening of the 22nd, Lt. Gov. Fitzgarrald was attempting to secure a ceasefire through UMWA's influential Denver lawyer Horace Hawkins. The following day, John McLennan, the president of UMWA District 15 when the strike was declared, was arrested by militia at the Ludlow stop on his way from Denver to Trinidad. Hawkins made a ceasefire conditional on McLennan's release, which was secured. Despite union anger at Hawkins for negotiating, they observed the truce along what had become a 175 miles (282 km) front.[5]^:190

At midnight on 22 April, a call went out for all National Guardsmen to head for the strike zone. Chase had claimed prior to Ludlow that he was able to muster 600 men to return to the field at a moment's notice, yet only 362 men reported for duty. Seventy-six soldiers of Troop C–nicknamed "Chase Troop" as two of the general's sons along with other family members were part of the unit–mutinied, as they had been forced to stay in an uncomfortable Guard armory since returning from their initial deployment to the strike zone. Troop C did not return to coalfields for the duration of the conflict. Two 3 inches (76 mm) field guns and 220 rounds of shrapnel shells were brought with the 23-car train of 242 soldiers going south from Denver on 23 April.[5]^:189 Empty carts were attached to the front of the engines to protect against dynamite traps.[14]^:247 A group of pro-strikers sought to deliver weapons by car before Chase's troops arrived in Walsenburg and, despite delays, managed to bring guns and ammunition to the strikers before the train full of troops reached the strike zone. The newly arrived troops were then spread out in attempts to bring the region under their control.[14]^:248–249

Lt. Karl Linderfelt (center) with two of his brothers (left) and Major Patrick Hamrock (right).

Through the day on 25 April the Chandler Mine near Canon City was fired upon. A non-striking miner was killed and a mine guard seriously injured before National Guardsmen arrived.[14]^:258 Most of the civilian population of Walsenburg fled as sporadic violence began to overrun the city. Striking Greek miners, dissatisfied with a perceived lack of response from union officials to Ludlow, began organizing guerrilla attacks in the town and attacked the McNally Mine located nearby, killing one.[14]^:259–260

A sit-in by over a thousand members of the Women's Peace Association–led by Alma Lafferty, Helen Ring Robinson, and Dora Phelps–paralyzed the Capitol building on 25 April.[14]^:251[24] These women forced a "drawn and haggard" Ammons to send a request for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send federal troops to the strike zone.[16]^:279–281

The northernmost battle took place on 28 April at the Hecla mine in Louisville. The mine was owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, which had hired the Baldwin-Felts to help protect its property between Denver and Boulder.[40] During the ten-hour battle, Captain Hildreth Frost led a small contingent of troops that had been among those rotated off the southern front. Several mine guards were seriously injured during the fighting.[5]^:197

On 28–29 April, the National Guard fought strikers in the Battle of Walsenburg for control of the town and the hogback which overlooked it. Two strikers were killed on the 28th, including one by friendly fire. Colonel Verdeckerg, who was placed in command of the Guard at Ludlow following the massacre, was ordered by Chase to take 60 men to Walsenburg to retake the town on the morning of the 29th.[5]^:206 Verdeckberg was ordered to hold the town until federal troops arrived then retire back.[14]^:266 Several men of this detachment–Lieutenant Scott, Private Wilmouth, and Private Miller–were wounded by gunfire in the afternoon, while Walsenburg-native and medic Major Pliny Lester was killed tending to either Scott[5]^:207–208 or Miller.[14]^:266 At 5 PM that day, an unarmed pro-union man named Henry Llyod on a motorcycle was killed by strikers in an incident of mistaken identity.[5]^{:206, 222}

Part-owner John D. Rockefeller, Jr. refused President Wilson's offer of mediation, conditioned upon collective bargaining, leading Wilson to exert pressure on Ammons and other elected officials in Colorado and threaten to deploy federal troops. The Mexican Revolution meant that any deployment of an already reduced and largely deployed Army would be a risky move.[14]^:253 Earlier in April, the Tampico Affair had raised tensions and on 22 April U.S. sailors fought the Mexican military at the Battle of Veracruz. On 28 April, Wilson spoke with Secretary of War Lindley Garrison and ordered the Department of War to begin moving units towards Colorado while preparing to federalize National Guard units.[14]^:257 Wilson would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 the same day for the first time since 1894 and for only the ninth time since the law's enactment.[41]^:208 Garrison's stated goal for the federal troops was to "preserve [...] an impartial attitude." Only after this intervention to disarm did the war end.[16]^:282

On 29 April, Lawson issued an order for remaining armed miners to stand down.[42] On 2 May, a proclamation from Garrison was issued, stating that "all persons 'not in the military service of the United States'" were to disarm, although this statement was understood as only disarming the strikers, as Wilson had received assurances from Ammons that the militia was withdrawing and did not need to turn over their weapons.[43]

The strike continued until the union ran out of funds in December 1914. While Wilson succeeded in bringing order to the situation, he demonstrated support for the labor union and the miners' unconditional surrender to the companies was seen as a defeat for Wilson.[10]

Fatalities during the strike are generally assumed to be under-reported, as Las Animas County coroner's office reports more bodies related to the strike than appear in contemporary news reports.[5]^:119 The office recorded 232 violent deaths from the beginning of 1910 to March 1913 with only 30 deaths resulting in a trial, which a later congressional committee would claim demonstrated a pattern of disinterest in recording fatalities associated with the mining companies. It has been suggested that this policy of under-reporting deaths in deference to the mining interests continued during the strike's violence.[26] Modern and contemporary estimates of fatalities vary widely, but following the Ludlow Colony's destruction an estimated 30 strikebreakers, National Guard, and mine guards were killed while a handful of pro-union fighters are reported to have died.[16]^:278–279[5]^:222–223 Clara Ruth Mozzor–a social worker who would later become the first female Assistant Attorney General of Colorado–wrote for International Socialist Review in 1914 that "waste and ruin, death and misery were the harvest of this war that was waged on helpless people. Mothers with babies at their breasts and babies at their skirts and mothers with babies yet unborn were the targets of this modern warfare."[44]^{[note f]}

Six mines and several company towns, including the abandoned Forbes, were damaged or destroyed.[16]^:279 The Associated Press estimated the financial cost of the strike at $18 million (equivalent to $459,448,505 in 2019). CF&I lost $1.6 million with $5.6 million still on hand, while the UMWA spent $870,000.[16]^:283–285 By 1915, CF&I mines had reached 70 percent of their pre-strike outputs.[16]^:282

Major Patrick Hamrock and Lieutenant Karl Linderfelt were tried in independent court-martials from the rest of the National Guard and militia involved in the suppression of the strike, as they faced additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon in relation to the deaths of strikers in custody at Ludlow, including Tikas. Hamrock was charged on 13 May 1914 with arson, manslaughter, and murder, for all of which he pleaded not guilty.[45] Linderfelt admitted to striking Tikas with his Springfield rifle. The military court found Linderfelt guilty of the assault on Tikas, "but attach[ed] no criminality" to his actions.[14]^:285–287

In a Trinidad court, John Lawson was found guilty of murdering Nimmo by Judge Granby Hillyer in 1915 and sentenced to life imprisonment.[46] The UMWA maintained Lawson's innocence,[47] and his conviction was overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court in 1917.[48] Of the 408 strikers charged with a crime–many with murder–there were four convictions. All four were overturned on technicalities.[14]^:340 Four men charged in relation to Major Lester's death were acquitted following their trial being moved from Huerfano County to Castle Rock in Douglas County.[14]^:323

Rockefeller, Jr. (right) and Mackenzie King (center) with a miner at the Valdez Mine during their 1915 tour of CF&I holdings.

Pro-union publications lamented the failure to secure immediate significant structural change in the relationship between miners and the CF&I and criticized the Guard and militia's response and actions at Ludlow.[49] The UMWA purchased a 40-acre lot that contained the Ludlow Colony and some of the land around it and began work on the Ludlow Monument at the site in 1916. It was dedicated in 1918.[50] Frank Hayes, UMWA President from 1917 to 1919 and Lieutenant Governor of Colorado from 1937 to 1939, wrote a song in tribute to the striking miners entitled "We're Coming, Colorado" set to the tune of "Battle Cry of Freedom."[51]^:290[52] Folk musician Woody Guthrie released "Ludlow Massacre" in 1944.[53]

Three years after the 10-Day War, on 27 April 1917, a Victor-American Fuel Company mine in Hastings, near the former Ludlow camp, caught fire, killing 121 miners.[54] They are commemorated by a marker nearby the monument to the victims of the Ludlow Massacre. Victor-American mines had been targeted during the strike, and some were destroyed during the last week of April 1914.[55]

Rockefeller hired future Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King in June 1914 to help create a system by which miners could have internal representation within CF&I.[56][57] Rockefeller also hired Ivy Lee, an early practitioner and pioneer of public relations, and met with Mother Jones, which resulted in Rockefeller and King taking a tour of the CF&I mining communities in 1915.[58][59] These efforts would evolve into the Colorado Industrial Plan, better known as the Rockefeller Plan and the archetype for employee representation plans, as well as the creation of a CF&I company union. Through his connections with the YMCA, Rockefeller sought to encourage moral reform and provide social services that would support the miners, resulting in the YMCA creating a Mining Department and building a branch in Pueblo to serve the workers at the CF&I Minnequa steel mill there.[58] In 1917, CF&I board chairman Lamont Montgomery Bowers took over the company at the behest of Rockefeller.[60]

In 1971, Mary T. O'Neal published the only eyewitness account of the Ludlow Massacre.[61][62] The conflict has also inspired many academic histories, including The Great Coalfield War by South Dakota Senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, co-authored with Leonard Guttridge, and published the same year as the former's presidential run.[63] Controversial historian Howard Zinn said Ludlow and the strike were “the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history."[64] In 1997, field work began on the University of Denver's Ludlow Massacre Archaeological Project, with research from the program published in multiple academic mediums.[65]

On 19 April 2013, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order creating the Ludlow Centennial Commemoration Commission in preparation for the hundredth anniversary of the Massacre a year later.[66][67] A Greek Orthodox Easter service at the memorial site took place on 20 April 2014.[68]

Following the killing of George Floyd in May 2020–among other instances of U.S. police officers killing and injuring African-Americans–widespread protests and civil unrest erupted in major U.S. metropolitan areas. The resulting riots and acts of anti-police violence led the Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board to call for the invocation of the 1807 Insurrection Act, favorably citing its usage in the Colorado Coalfield War.[69]

• Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894
• Colorado Labor Wars
• Columbine Mine massacre
• Copper Country strike of 1913–14
• Denver Streetcar Strike of 1920

^ a. The Battle of Blair Mountain, also involving the Baldwin-Felts and UMWA, is considered the largest labor uprising in the U.S. by number of combatants.

^ b. All but two companies of militia and Guardsmen–composed largely of mine guards–withdrawn after six months because of budgetary constraints.[4]

^ c. Lt. Linderfelt was convicted of assault for beating Tikas the day of the massacre.

^ d. Belcher would later be killed during the strike, most likely by Louis Zancanelli.[5]^:219

^ e. The Zanetell family's furnishings from the Forbes Colony survive on permanent display in the Colorado History Museum.[70]

^ f. Mozzor was at her admittance to the bar in 1915 the youngest woman lawyer in Colorado and in 1917 became the first woman to serve as Assistant Attorney General of any US state.[71][72]