Hidden burial ground for 1912 explosion victims
There's a wooded hillside in West Virginia that few people know is the resting place of more than 80 miners killed over 100 years ago. They were killed on March 26, 1912 in the underground explosion at the Jed Coal and Coke Company mine in McDowell County. The underground explosion was set off when a miner's open-flame lamp ignited methane gas — the cause of many mining disasters at the time. More than a century of overgrowth has erased any trace of the burial ground known locally as Little Egypt. "It's completely unmarked, completely unknown," said Ed Evans, West Virginia lawmaker. "I imagine most people in McDowell County wouldn't even know they're here." Many killed were European immigrants, who came with very little and were employed to work the most dangerous jobs underground. "Wouldn't it be nice if they just had a big state marker here that memorialize them, that they are laying here and they are buried here and they should be remembered in some way," said Evans.
