The explosion at the Lytle Colliery at Primrose, Schuylkill County, in September, 1943, resulted in the deaths of 14 miners, most of whom were from the Pottsville and Minersville area. The photo above shows rescue workers removing a blanket-clad body from the mine while grief-stricken onlookers closely stand by.
The Pottsville Republlican, which had covered the tragedy extensively in its September 24 and September 25, 1943 editions, provided a retrospective on October 15, 1983, a little more than forty years later.
Lytle Mine Tragedy Is a Mere Memory, Now
By Dave Carroll, Staff Writer
It was 40 years ago that 14 miners died in a blast at the old Lytle Colliery in Primrose. Some people still remember that day vividly; others choose to forget.
The old-timers still recall when the whistles blew in the rugged valleys around Minersville summoning a small army of workers to the mines every morning.
They also remember the awful feeling of fear when the mine whistles blew and the ambulance sirens blared signaling that another mine disaster had occurred and that one or more of their colleagues might be dead.
Mine accidents and deaths were commonplace back in the region’s heyday of mining, but very few were as serious or devastating as the mine blast at Lytle Colliery that took the lives of 14 area residents.
There are many people in the Minersville area whose relatives died in the disaster. They can’t forget. John Pielacha, of West West Terrace, whose grandfather, John Pielacha, died in the accident, is one of them.
Pielacha keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings published in The Republican at the time that provides an account of the removal of the dead. The headlines scream: “Killed by the Concussion,” “State Making Investigation of Mine Blast,” “Bodies of 10 Miners Taken Out Saturday Afternoon; Some Badly Burned.”
Accompanying the story are photographs of sullen-faced rescue workers preparing to descend 1,000 feet into the mine to do the gruesome chore of pulling the bodies out of the pit. In another photograph, grief-stricken relatives and friends stand sobbing in mute shock at the mouth of the mine watching as the covered bodies of loved ones, some of them badly burned, are carried away to waiting hearses. Besides those who were killed, seven other miners were injured and treated at area hospitals.
Pielacha said the accident happened in the middle of a busy day about 2 p. m., or 2:30 p. m. in the fall of 1943. The community’s children were just getting out of school when the whistles began to blow. Many ran up to the mouth of the mine to see what happened. Soon the whole state and nation would know the dimension of the tragedy that had struck.
Andy Morasky, 79, of Black Heath, remembers that day well; he was in the mine when the explosion occurred. Morasky was one of the lucky ones because he was working in a part of the mine that received little damage. At the time of the explosion, Morasky was not digging coal, but was working in the belt section that carried the coal, located away from the portion of the mine where the blast occurred. He said he still felt the shock of the air after the explosion.
Morasky recalls there were no special burial or memorial services at the mine and each family had to bury its own. Within a few days of the accident the miners were back at work. Despite the tragedy, Morasky said the miners entertained little thought of leaving the mine.
“We had no other choice. Where else could we go? We had to continue on,” Morasky said.
Accidents at the mine, which was owned by several companies over the years, were nothing new. Five miners were killed there in an explosion in 1929, he said.
Morasky worked in and around the mines for 44 years. He celebrated by 79th birthday September 13 but still is very active. He said he doesn’t think about the accident very much any more.
“No I don’t think about it. That’s in the past,” he said.
The colliery grounds in Primrose now are bare with only a few ramshackle structures from the once busy colliery. The mine produced anthracite and closed for god on February 2, 1950, Morasky said.
Although there is little left remaining of the Lytle Colliery, there are those who won’t forget the 14 men who died there: Michael Liptock; Arch Miller; John Pielacha; John Adams; Andrew Kamykowski; John DiBiase; Robert Edwards; John Dando; Albert Levashouskas; George Bobrick; Steven Keitsock; August Felli; Nicholas Stanko; and Robert Thompson.
News story from Newspapers.com.
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