Helper UT mine disaster (#0096)

In keeping with this trip's honoring of monuments that don't really work, here and the next picture are two. Both are well-crafted, but are on the edge of a pull-off on a dangerous curve with heavy and fast traffic. The pull-off itself is wide, but it looked to mainly be a place for trucks to stop.

This monument is for the Castle Gate mine disaster, one of the largest mine disasters in the U.S., where 171 men were killed (all of the men in the mine plus one rescuer) from a series of three explosions related to improper damping of coal dust. To compound the disaster, due to decreased demand at the time, the mine had just recently laid off many of the unmarried miners and miners without dependents, thus the disaster took a heavy toll on fathers and families

Due to the angle of the sun, this isn't a particular good picture, but looking at a larger version of it will indicate the extensive detail of faces and mine equipment on the memorial.

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Gate_Mine_disaster