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Cripple Creek is a statutory city that is the county seat of Teller County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 1,155 at the 2020 United States Census. Cripple Creek is a former gold mining camp located 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Colorado Springs near the base of Pikes Peak. The Cripple Creek Historic District, which received National Historic Landmark status in 1961, includes part or all of the city and the surrounding area. The city is now a part of the Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.
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.
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.
The Harlan County War, or Bloody Harlan, was a series of coal industry skirmishes, executions, bombings and strikes that took place in Harlan County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. The incidents involved coal miners and union organizers on one side and coal firms and law enforcement officials on the other. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. It was a nearly decade-long conflict, lasting from 1931 to 1939. Before its conclusion, an unknown number of miners, deputies and bosses would be killed, state and federal troops would occupy the county more than half a dozen times, two acclaimed folk singers would emerge, union membership would oscillate wildly and workers in the nation's most anti-labor coal county would ultimately be represented by a union.
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 in support of striking workers.
The bituminous coal miners' strike was an unsuccessful national eight-week strike by miners of bituminous coal in the United States, which began on April 21, 1894.
Eben Smith was a successful mine owner, smelting company executive, railroad executive and bank owner in Colorado in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
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.
The West Virginia coal wars (1912–1921), also known as the mine wars, arose out of a dispute between coal companies and miners.
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.
Karl E. Linderfelt was a soldier, mine worker, soldier of fortune, and officer in the Colorado National Guard. He was reported to have been responsible for an attack upon, and the ultimate death of, strike leader Louis Tikas during the Ludlow Massacre. He was the son of librarian Klas August Linderfelt.
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 Colorado National Guard consists of the Colorado Army National Guard and Colorado Air National Guard, forming the state of Colorado's component to the United States National Guard. Founded in 1860, the Colorado National Guard falls under the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
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 Colorado Coalfield War was a major labor uprising in the southern and central Colorado Front Range between September 1913 and December 1914. Striking began in late summer 1913, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) after years of deadly working conditions and low pay. The strike was marred by targeted and indiscriminate attacks from both strikers and individuals hired by CF&I to defend its property. Fighting was focused in the southern coal-mining counties of Las Animas and Huerfano, where the Colorado and Southern railroad passed through Trinidad and Walsenburg. It followed the 1912 Northern Colorado Coalfield Strikes.
Anti-union violence in the United States is physical force intended to harm union officials, union organizers, union members, union sympathizers, or their families. It has most commonly been used either during union organizing efforts, or during strikes. The aim most often is to prevent a union from forming, to destroy an existing union, or to reduce the effectiveness of a union or a particular strike action. If strikers prevent people or goods to enter or leave a workplace, violence may be used to allow people and goods to pass the picket line.
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.
Patrick J. Hamrock[α] (1860-1939) was an Irish-born American soldier who served in multiple conflicts as part of the U.S. Army and Colorado National Guard. He led a portion of the militia that participated in the Ludlow Massacre, part of the 1913-1914 Colorado Coalfield War. After the First World War, he served as Colorado’s Adjutant General and head of the Colorado Rangers.
References
- Holbrook, Stewart. The Rocky Mountain Revolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1956.