When this February 1953 photo was taken, Mel Tyler was loading coal into rail cars at the Landsburg mine. He kept score with chalk marks on a wooden board. He was 500 feet underground and during the first four hours of his shift, had already filled 30 mine cars. The loaded cars were subsequently pulled by electric winches to the bottom of the slope for hoisting to the surface where they were initially processed through the tipple.
This coal mine was originally called Danville when it opened in 1937. Its first portal was on S.E. 253rd Street (formerly called the Morris Mine Connection Road), but generally known as the lower leg of the Summit-Landsburg Road. It connects to Landsburg Road S.E. near a bridge over the Cedar River. By 1953, a new entryway into that same seam of coal was opened in Ravensdale, immediately north of Kent-Kangley Road. The mine was operated by Palmer Coking Coal Company, which by the 1950s was the top coal producer in King County with nearly 90,000 tons of annual production coming from one surface and three underground mines.
Coal mining was a dangerous job. Two years before this picture was taken, the New Landsburg mine claimed the life of a Black Diamond miner, John Henry, who in Oct. 1951, fell 100 feet down a chute. Another tragedy struck in Jan. 1954, when Harry English was trapped by a cave-in. After seven days the search was called off and his body was never recovered.
Still, most occupational hazards weren’t lethal. During Melvin Tyler’s years working underground between 1949 and 1955, he suffered seven injuries in a variety of jobs illustrating the dangers miners faced every day. While serving as a rope rider in 1949, Tyler was spragging a mine car (i.e. placing a bar against the axle of the cart to prevent it from rolling downhill) when he stepped on the edge of a rail tie spraining his ankle. A year later, Mel was packing timber and suffered two accidents in the space of two months – one after a timber he hoisted fell on his hand, and the second when a large piece of coal dropped from a chute wounding his left foot.
In January 1951, Tyler was working as cager, a job that involved coupling and uncoupling mine cars to the steel cable that pulled them up the slope to the surface. He was caught between the bumpers of two coal cars and damaged his legs. Then two weeks later he cut his hand with an axe. In July 1953, Tyler was sticking a file into a timber, but used the wrong end and lacerated his right hand. Mel Tyler’s final injury occurred on Jan. 26, 1955, when uncoupling cars at the bottom of the slope. A loaded mine cart rolled down from behind pinning his knee.
History doesn’t record when or if Mel Tyler returned to work after that knee accident. But three days later, on Jan. 29, 1955, a tragic and unexpected cave-in at Landsburg Mine extended to the surface and filled the lower tunnels with water, mud, and debris claiming the lives of four coal miners: John Kovash, age 45; Nathan Russell, 49; Frank Stebly, 58; and Louis Vaienti, 58. Described in last week’s column, it was the deadliest coal mine accident in 25 years, and the last multiple-death coal mine accident in Washington State.
Thomas Melvin Tyler was born in Black Diamond on October 5, 1924. His father, Carlton Tyler worked at the mine office, while his mother, Annie (Carr) died when he was 4 years old. Mel served in the Army during World War II, yet didn’t marry until he was 40, then to Wilma McLaughlin who already had six children. A daughter, Lorraine Tyler was born to the couple in 1964. Mel Tyler died on Jan. 29, 1993, as the result of a skull fracture suffered in a vehicle accident less than a mile south of the Whitney Bridge. He was 68 years old. Genealogical information about the Tyler family was provided by Donna Brathodve, a Ravensdale historian.
