Gilpin Observer

BURIED IN SNOW
DISASTROUS AVALANCHE AT CAMP BIRD MINE.

SEEK SAFETY IN TUNNEL

Immense Mill and Mine Boarding House Destroyed—Fireman Killed—Employees Rush Into Tunnel.

Denver.—A Republican special from Ouray Sunday night says:

Seven men were buried under snow for several hours and one met instant death when two slides struck the Camp Bird mine boarding house and mill at 1 o'clock this morning.

Andrew Ekes, fireman, was killed and William Weybright, William Creasy, Samuel Smith, John Anderson and Jerome Andrews were all more or less injured.

The Camp Bird mill, which had recently been installed at a cost of over $400,000, the reading room of the mill and fourteen strings of tramway were carried down with the U. S. slide.

At 6 o'clock this evening a second snow slide occurred at the Camp Bird mine which carried away the Angle station, the shed building of the Camp Bird dump, the blacksmith shop, store room where all the provisions for the mine are kept, and two miles of the Camp Bird tram. The destruction of the provision house is a most serious loss and cuts off the food supply of those at the mine.

The 250 men employed in the mine have taken refuge in the tunnel. Preparations are being made to rescue the imperiled miners and get food to them before the snow makes it impossible to reach them. If food is not rushed through to the Camp Bird miners by tomorrow it may be too late to prevent them from starving to death in the tunnel.

Half of the boarding house building was carried away and the mill was so badly damaged that it will have to be entirely rebuilt. The damage to the buildings and machinery is variously estimated at from $150,000 to $500,000.

It is reported here that when the company rebuilds the mill it will probably be located at Ouray instead of in the gulch near the mine, and will be connected with the mine by a tramway.

Six men were sitting in the reading room of the boarding house shortly after midnight, reading, playing cards and otherwise amusing themselves while the storm raged without. The blinding snow had been falling unceasingly for days and when one of the men went to the door he could not see twenty feet for the blinding flakes that fell, silently, continuously.

Suddenly the men were startled by the sound of the grinding, munching, hissing, roaring avalanche that was sweeping down the mountain side relentlessly toward them. Almost with the first sound of the oncoming horror the mass of the slide struck the building.

The house was crushed like the shell of an egg. The men were thrown with the mass of wreckage into the maelstrom of destruction and hurled underneath the mountain juggernaut.

The slide passed on down the mountain, carrying a long stretch of the aerial tramway with it.

Then it struck the mill where three men were working.

The mill was crushed and the men buried in the snow.

R. A. Smith, William Weybright, Sam Smith, John Anderson, Harvey Briggs and Jerome Andrews were the men in the boarding house.

In the mill were Frank Strickland, a watchman, William Creasy, who was cleaning the stamps, and Andrew Ekes, a fireman.

Weybright, Sam Smith, Anderson, Andrews, Briggs and the three men in the mill were buried in the snow and wreckage. Briggs dug himself out in a few minutes. R. A. Smith was not engulfed, but was stunned by the impact of the slide.

He quickly recovered and with the aid of Briggs began digging for the others.

Supt. William J. Cox was at the mill when the slide struck, but was not caught. He at once put fifty men from the mine to work to rescue Strickland, Creasy, Ekes and the others.

The work was most difficult and dangerous because of the uncertainty whether other slides would follow. The storm was raging violently and greatly impeded the work.

After nearly two hours' work Strickland was found alive, but with a heavy timber across his head and another across his feet, bending him so tightly that he could not move. He was buried underneath nearly eight feet of snow.

Soon after Creasy was found beneath the wreckage of the mill. He is badly crushed and bruised, but not dangerously injured.

Before the men were ordered to cease work on account of the danger of more slides, the men who had been carried down with the boarding house were recovered.

Ekes alone was not found until this morning. When his body was recovered it was found buried under many feet of snow and pinioned in the wrecked machinery of the mill. His death had been instantaneous and he probably never knew what had happened.

County Commissioner R. A. Smith, who is employed at the mill, was the first to bring reliable reports of the disaster to Ouray. He remained at the camp during the night, helping the men recover their buried fellows, and early this morning started for this place on snow shoes.

A dispatch Monday night says:

Nearly 200 men who have been employed at the Camp Bird mine arrived here today, having escaped from the tunnel. All the miners made the trip on foot, a distance of thirteen miles.

Ten men will remain at the Camp Bird as watchmen, and a considerable force will be retained at the mill to clear the wreckage caused by the slide.

It is estimated that the damage done is at least $200,000. One of the transformer buildings at the mine, the carpenter shop and a part of the boarding house were torn away at 8 o'clock Saturday evening.