The Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 was a five-month strike by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States. It resulted in a victory for the union and was followed in 1903 by the Colorado Labor Wars. It is notable for being the only time in United States history when a state militia was called out (May/June 1894) in support of striking workers.[3]
The strike was characterized by firefights and use of dynamite, and ended after a standoff between the Colorado state militia and a private force working for owners of the mines. In the years after the strike, the WFM's popularity and power increased significantly through the region.
At the end of the 19th century, Cripple Creek was the largest town in the gold-mining district that included the towns of Altman, Anaconda, Arequa, Goldfield, Elkton, Independence and Victor, about 20 miles from Colorado Springs on the southwest side of Pikes Peak. Surface gold was discovered in the area in 1891, and within three years more than 150 mines were operating there.[3][4]
The Panic of 1893 caused the price of silver to crash; the gold price, however, remained fixed, as the United States was on the gold standard. The influx of silver miners into the gold mines caused a lowering of wages. Mine owners demanded longer hours for less pay.[citation needed]
In January 1894, Cripple Creek mine owners J. J. Hagerman, David Moffat and Eben Smith, who together employed one-third of the area's miners, announced a lengthening of the work-day to ten hours (from eight), with no change to the daily wage of $3.00 (~$106.00 in 2023) per day. When workers protested, the owners agreed to employ the miners for eight hours a day – but at a wage of only $2.50.[3][5][6]
Not long before this dispute, miners at Cripple Creek had formed the Free Coinage Union. Once the new changes went into effect, they affiliated with the Western Federation of Miners, and became Local 19. The union was based in Altman, and had chapters in Anaconda, Cripple Creek and Victor.[5]
On February 1, 1894, the mine owners began implementing the 10-hour day. Union president John Calderwood issued a notice a week later demanding that the mine owners reinstate the eight-hour day at the $3.00 wage. When the owners did not respond, the nascent union struck on February 7. Portland, Pikes Peak, Gold Dollar and a few smaller mines immediately agreed to the eight-hour day and remained open, but larger mines held out.[7]
Events of the strike
The strike had an immediate effect. By the end of February, every smelter in Colorado was either closed or running part-time. At the beginning of March, the Gold King and Granite mines gave in and resumed the eight-hour day.[8]
Mine owners still holding out for the 10-hour day soon attempted to re-open their mines. On March 14, they obtained a court injunction ordering the miners not to interfere with the operation of their mines, and hired strikebreakers. The WFM initially attempted to persuade these men to join the union and strike, but when they were unsuccessful, the union resorted to threats and violence. These tactics succeeded in driving non-union miners out of the district.[9][10]
On March 16, an armed group of miners ambushed and captured six sheriff's deputies en route to the Victor mine. A fight broke out, in which one deputy was shot and another hit by a club. An Altman judge, a member of the WFM, charged the deputies with carrying concealed weapons and disturbing the peace, then released them.[9][10]
Involvement of the state militia
After the assault on his deputies, El Paso County[11] Sheriff M. F. Bowers wired the governor and requested the intervention of the state militia (predecessor to the Colorado National Guard). Governor Davis H. Waite, a 67-year-old Populist, dispatched 300 troops to the area on March 18 under the command of Adjutant GeneralT. J. Tarsney. Tarsney found the area tense but quiet. Union president Calderwood assured him that union members would cooperate with his operations, even surrendering for arrest if requested. Convinced that Bowers had exaggerated the extent of the chaos in the region, Tarsney recommended the withdrawal of troops; Waite concurred. The state militia left Cripple Creek on March 20.[3][9][12]
In response to the recall of the state militia, the mine owners closed the mines. Bowers arrested Calderwood, 18 other miners, and the mayor and town marshal of Altman (who had supported the miners). They were taken to Colorado Springs and quickly tried on several different charges, but found not guilty. Meanwhile, outbursts of violence, such as stone-throwing and fights between union miners and scabs, increased in frequency. Stores and warehouses were broken into, and guns and ammunition stolen.[9][13]
In early May, the mine owners met with representatives of the WFM in Colorado Springs in an attempt to end the strike. The owners offered to return to the eight-hour day, but at a daily wage of only $2.75. The union rejected the offer and talks broke down.[9]
County sheriff deputizes an army
Shortly after negotiations with the union ended, the mine owners met secretly with Sheriff Bowers in Colorado Springs. They told Bowers they intended to bring in hundreds of nonunion workers, and asked if he could protect such a large force of men. Bowers said he could not, for the county lacked the financial resources to pay and arm more than a few deputies. The mine owners offered to subsidize an initial force of a hundred or so men. Bowers agreed, and immediately began recruiting ex-police and ex-firefighters from Denver.[3][14]
News of the mine owners' meeting with Bowers soon leaked out, and the miners organized and armed themselves in response. Calderwood was leaving on a tour of the WFM locals in Colorado to raise funds for the Cripple Creek strike, and so appointed Junius J. Johnson, a former U.S. Army officer, to take over strike operations. Johnson immediately established a camp atop Bull Hill, which overlooked the town of Altman. He ordered that fortifications be built, a commissary stocked and the miners be drilled in maneuvers.[3][15][1]
Dynamiting the Strong mine
On May 24, the strikers seized the Strong mine on Battle Mountain, which overlooked the town of Victor.[1] The next day, at about 9am, 125 deputies arrived in Altman and set up camp at the base of Bull Hill. As they started to march toward the strikers' camp, miners at the Strong mine blew up the shafthouse, hurling the structure more than 300 feet into the air. A few moments later, the steam boiler was also dynamited, showering the deputies with timber, iron and cable. The deputies fled to the rail station and left town.[1][16]
A celebration broke out among the miners, who broke into liquor warehouses and saloons. That night, some of the miners loaded a flatcar with dynamite and attempted to roll it toward the deputies' camp. It overturned short of its goal and killed a cow. Other miners wanted to blow up every mine in the region, but Johnson quickly discouraged them. Frustrated, several drunken miners then stole a work train and steamed into Victor. They caught up with the group of fleeing deputies, and a gun battle broke out. One deputy and one miner died, a man on each side was wounded, and six strikers were captured by the deputies.[1][2] The miners subsequently captured three officials of the Strong mine who had been present when the shafthouse was blown up. A formal prisoner exchange later freed all prisoners on both sides.
Calderwood returned during the night and restored calm. He asked saloons to close, and he imprisoned several miners who had instigated outbursts of violence.[17]
On May 26, mine owners met again with Sheriff Bowers in Colorado City. The owners agreed to provide more funding to allow the sheriff to raise 1,200 additional deputies. Bowers quickly recruited men from all over the state, and established a camp for them in the town of Divide, about 12 miles away from Cripple Creek.[citation needed]
Waite intervenes
Warned about the size of the force Bowers was raising, Governor Davis Hanson Waite interceded again in the strike. He issued a proclamation on May 27 in which he called on the miners to disband their encampment on Bull Hill. In a development unparalleled in American labor history, he also declared the force of 1,200 deputies to be illegal and ordered the group disbanded. He also ordered the state militia to be on the alert for a possible move on Cripple Creek. On May 28, the governor visited the miners, who authorized Waite to negotiate on their behalf.[3][1][18]
An initial meeting on May 30 nearly ended in disaster. Waite and several local civic leaders called union president Calderwood and mine owners Hagerman and Moffat to a conference in a meeting hall on the campus of Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Talks were under way and proceeding well when a mob of local citizens attempted to storm the building. Blaming Calderwood and Waite for the violence in Cripple Creek, they intended to lynch both men. As a local judge distracted the mob, Calderwood and Waite escaped out a rear door and onto the governor's waiting train.[18]
Negotiations resumed in Denver on June 2, and the parties reached an agreement on June 4. The agreement provided for resumption of the $3.00-per-day wage and the eight-hour day. The mine owners agreed not to retaliate against or prosecute any miner who had taken part in the strike, and the miners agreed not to discriminate against or harass any nonunion worker who remained employed in the mines.[3][1]
The state militia returns
Cripple Creek, Colo., under martial law in 1894.
With 1,300 deputies still in Cripple Creek, Sheriff Bowers was unable to control the army he had created. On June 5, the deputies moved into Altman, perhaps as a prelude to storming Bull Hill. The deputies cut the telegraph and telephone wires leading out of town, and imprisoned a number of reporters. Concerned that the paramilitary force might get out of hand, Waite again dispatched the state militia, this time under the command of General E.J. Brooks.[3][1]
When Colorado state troops arrived in Cripple Creek early on the morning of June 6, more violence had already broken out. The deputies were exchanging gunfire with the miners on Bull Hill. Gen. Brooks quickly moved his troops from the train station to the foot of Bull Hill. As Sheriff Bowers and Gen. Brooks began to argue about what course of action to take next, the deputies took advantage of the lull and attempted to charge the miners.[19] The miners sounded the whistle at the Victor mine, alerting Gen. Brooks. Soldiers of the state militia quickly intercepted the deputies and stopped their advance. Brooks ordered his men to occupy the top of Bull Hill, and the miners offered no resistance.[20]
The deputies turned their attention to Cripple Creek itself. They arrested and imprisoned hundreds of citizens without cause. Many inhabitants of the town were seized on the street or pulled from their homes, then clubbed, kicked or beaten. The deputies formed a gauntlet and forced townspeople to pass through it, spitting, slapping and kicking them. With Bull Hill in his possession, Gen. Brooks began detaining the deputies. By nightfall, Brooks had seized the town and corralled all of Bowers' men.[1][21]
Illegal sheriff's deputies under military guard in Cripple Creek, Colo., 1894
Waite threatened to declare martial law, but the mine owners refused to disband their deputy force. Gen. Brooks then threatened to keep his troops in the region for another 30 days. Faced with the prospect of paying for a paramilitary force which could only sit on its hands, the owners agreed to disband it. The deputies, which Gen. Brooks had dispatched via rail to Colorado Springs, began dispersing on June 11. The Waite agreement became operative the same day, and the miners returned to work.[22][23]
Union president Calderwood and 300 other miners were arrested and charged with a variety of crimes. Only four miners were convicted of any charges, and were quickly pardoned by the sympathetic populist governor.[23]
Impact of the strike
The Cripple Creek strike was a major victory for the miners' union. The Western Federation of Miners used the success of the strike to organize almost every worker in the Cripple Creek region – including waitresses, laundry workers, bartenders and newsboys – into 54 local unions. The WFM flourished in the Cripple Creek area for almost a decade, even helping to elect most county officials (including the new sheriff).[24]
The Cripple Creek strike also transformed the Western Federation of Miners enormously as a political entity. The year-old union, weak and penniless before the strike, became widely admired among miners throughout the West. Thousands of workers joined the union over the next few years. Politicians and labor officials throughout the country became steady allies of the union, and the WFM became a political force throughout much of the Rocky Mountain West.[23]
But the WFM's success at Cripple Creek also created a significant backlash. The WFM was forever tarred as a dangerous and violent organization in the eyes of employers. Never again would the WFM have in a local strike the level of public support it enjoyed at Cripple Creek in 1894. Indeed, when the union struck the Cripple Creek mines again in 1898, its public support ended after violence broke out. During another strike in 1903–4, whose violent significance earned it the name Colorado Labor Wars, the union went up against the power of the employers and the state combined.[citation needed]
The union's success also altered the course of Colorado politics. Colorado citizens blamed Waite for protecting the miners' union and encouraging violence and anarchy.[25] The backlash led to Waite's defeat at the polls in November 1894 and the election of RepublicanAlbert McIntire. The Populist movement in Colorado never recovered.[24][26]
The Cripple Creek strike of 1894 also hardened the attitudes of mine owners. Under Gov. McIntire, the government of Colorado formed a political alliance with the mine owners. Mine owners increasingly turned to the Thiel Detective Service Company and Pinkerton National Detective Agency for spies, increased the use of strikebreakers, and implemented the lockout and blacklist as a means of controlling union members.[citation needed]
After a nighttime rifle and dynamite attack by striking miners on two mines during the Leadville Miners' Strike in 1896, which succeeded in burning down the surface works of one of the mines, even the pro-union county sheriff requested Gov. McIntire to send in the state militia, and the WFM lost the strike, and its influence in Leadville.[24][27] The collapse of the 1896 Leadville strike caused the WFM to sever its relationship with the American Federation of Labor and to turn strongly to the left politically. After the Colorado Labor Wars, the WFM was instrumental in launching the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905, but withdrew from the IWW a few years later. Although the IWW's heyday was short-lived, the union was symbolically important and the ideals embodied by it continue to deeply influence the American labor movement to this day.[citation needed]
↑ In 1899, after a second WFM strike in Cripple Creek was brutally repressed by the state militia,[citation needed] the far western section of El Paso County was made into its own county. Today, Cripple Creek and the surrounding district lie within Teller County, Colorado.
↑ Each miner carried a rifle, a cartridge belt and five dynamite charges with percussion caps. The hill had been mined with dynamite as well, and the miners had rigged a ballista capable of throwing Molotov cocktails a quarter-mile. The grade of the hill was steeper than that which faced the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill. See Holbrook, p. 81.
↑ Waite did not dispute charges that his administration was partial to union organizing, saying: "Well, what if it is? Is it not the truth that for thirty years the two old parties have been legislating for the creditor class? It is true, and turn about is fair play."
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–1904; the conflicts were thus dubbed the Colorado Labor Wars. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 but left that organization several years later.
William Dudley Haywood, nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
James Hamilton Peabody was the 13th and 15th Governor of Colorado, and is noted by some for his public service in Cañon City and by others for his brutality in crushing the miners' strike in Cripple Creek in 1903–04.
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of North Idaho: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899. This article is a brief overview of both events.
Charles H. Moyer was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and was shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike. He also was a leading force in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, although he later denounced the organization.
Edward Boyce was president of the Western Federation of Miners, a radical American labor organizer, socialist and hard rock mine owner.
John Calderwood was a Scottish-born American miner, and influential labor union leader, who led miners organized by the Western Federation of Miners to victory in the Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894. Little is known about his parentage or life.
M. F. Bowers was an American lawman. He was the sheriff of El Paso County, Colorado, from 1894 to 1896. Prior to becoming sheriff, Bowers had been a saloon bouncer and a night marshal in the town of Altman, Colorado.
Thomas J. Tarsney was a Populist politician and author in Colorado in the late 19th century.
Junius James Johnson was a West Point cadet who became a miner, and later played a significant role in the Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894.
Stratton's Independence Mine and Mill is a historic gold mining site near Victor, Colorado on the south slope of Battle Mountain. Between late 1893 and April 1899, approximately 200,000 ounces (6200 kg) of gold was removed from the Independence Mine.
The Colorado Labor Wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the U.S. state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes.
Emma Florence Langdon moved to the gold mining district of Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1903. She was an apprentice linotype operator who wrote that "women's place should be in the home and not in public life." In spite of such sentiments, she played a very visible role during some very turbulent times. She and her husband were working at the Victor Daily Record, a pro-union newspaper, during a 1903-04 strike of miners in the Cripple Creek gold fields that erupted into the Colorado Labor Wars. Along with many other union sympathizers, Langdon was forced to leave in 1904, and moved to Denver.
In the United States, a Mine Owners' Association (MOA), also sometimes referred to as a Mine Operators' Association or a Mine Owners' Protective Association, is the combination of individual mining companies, or groups of mining companies, into an association, established for the purpose of promoting the collective interests of the group. Such associations are sometimes referred to as MOAs, however, in some cases they may be designated by the state, district, or locale, such as the Cripple Creek District Mine Owners' Association (CCDMOA).
The Copper Country strike of 1913–1914 was a major strike affecting all copper mines in the Copper Country of Michigan. The strike, organized by the Western Federation of Miners, was the first unionized strike within the Copper Country. It was called to achieve goals of shorter work days, higher wages, union recognition, and to maintain family mining groups. The strike lasted just over nine months, including the Italian Hall disaster on Christmas Eve, and ended with the union being effectively driven out of the Keweenaw Peninsula. While unsuccessful, the strike is considered a turning point in the history of the Copper Country.
The Leadville miners' strike was a labor action by the Cloud City Miners' Union, which was the Leadville, Colorado local of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), against those silver mines paying less than $3.00 per day. The strike lasted from 19 June 1896 to 9 March 1897, and resulted in a major defeat for the union, largely due to the unified opposition of the mine owners. The failure of the strike caused the WFM to leave the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and is regarded as a cause for the WFM turn toward revolutionary socialism.
The Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, labor riot of 1899 was the second of two major labor-management confrontations in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho in the 1890s. Like the first incident seven years earlier, the 1899 confrontation was an attempt by union miners, led by the Western Federation of Miners to unionize non-union mines, and have them pay the higher union wage scale. As with the 1892 strike, the 1899 incident culminated in a dynamite attack that destroyed a non-union mining facility, the burning of multiple homes and outbuildings and two murders, followed by military occupation of the district.
The 1892 Coeur d'Alene labor strike erupted in violence when labor union miners discovered they had been infiltrated by a Pinkerton agent who had routinely provided union information to the mine owners. The response to the labor violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year. The incident marked the first violent confrontation between the workers of the mines and their owners. Labor unrest continued after the 1892 strike, and surfaced again in the labor confrontation of 1899.
Adjutant General Sherman M. Bell was a controversial leader of the Colorado National Guard during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903–04. While Bell received high praise from Theodore Roosevelt and others, he was vilified as a tyrant by members of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM).
The Idaho Springs miners strike of 1903 was a labor strike by members of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) against gold mines in the vicinity of Idaho Springs, Colorado. It is one of the strikes of 1903-1904 that are collectively known as the Colorado Labor Wars. The union demanded a reduction in the working day to eight hours, without a corresponding reduction in pay. The strike began on 1 May 1903, and was called off on 1 September 1903. The strike is noted for a dynamite attack on the Sun and Moon mine, and the forcible deportation of 19 union officials and union members from the area.
References
Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: From the Founding of the A.F. of L. to the Emergence of American Imperialism. 2nd ed. New York: International Publishers, Co., 1975. ISBN0-7178-0388-0
Holbrook, Stewart. The Rocky Mountain Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1956.
Jameson, Elizabeth. All That Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. 1998. ISBN0-252-06690-1
Philpott, William. The Lessons of Leadville, Or, Why the Western Federation of Miners Turned Left. Monograph 10. Denver: Colorado Historical Society, 1994. ISSN1046-3100
Suggs, Jr., George G. Colorado's War on Militant Unionism: James H. Peabody and the Western Federation of Miners. 2nd ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. ISBN0-8061-2396-6
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