History of Pleasant Grove's Mining Disaster

Pleasant Grove is a small community on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. The people that settled there in the late 1800’s were farmers by trade. In 1816, Woodward Iron and Coal Company opened a mine in the community and became the employer of most of the men in the area.

It was a chilly damp November morning when the miners left their homes and headed off to the Woodward #3 mine. November 22, 1922 started as all mornings started in this small farming and mining community between Bessemer and Birmingham Alabama, with Children watching their fathers and older brothers leaving for work at the Woodward # 3 mine just as they did every other morning. Children would run alongside their fathers as they drove the truck to work with their lunch buckets and containers of milk in hand. Children would make a game of racing the family truck down the dirt drive to the main street. This morning was no different. The younger children went to school, the men went to work.

These men, old and young passed the Methodist church and the town cemetery on their route to the mine. Arriving to start their shift that morning, no one knew that so many would never make it out at the end of the day.

Everything was normal and work was progressing until the middle of the afternoon when there was an accident. Three mine cars loaded with coal from deep inside the mines were being hauled to the mine entrance. As they reached the top of the incline there was a break in the cable and all three cars roll back into the entrance of the mine. As they rolled back, they severed an electric cable, which caused a spark. When the spark ignited the coal dust, there was an explosion in the mine opening. The explosion which was both heard and felt in Birmingham, which is nine miles away. Over 400 miners were inside the mine at the time. The wreckage of the coal cars, the fires, and the poisonous gasses that remained in the mine entrance trapped them inside. The fifty men that were working in and around the mine entrance were immediately killed as the flame shot out of the mine and across the yard to the Tipple. At this point, no one knew the fate of the others trapped inside.

The family members heard the explosion from all over the community in western Jefferson County.  The noise caused all the women and children to come out of their homes and start heading to the mine.  They came on foot and in cars and trucks.  They carried the small children and the older children helped with their brothers and sisters.  No one knew what to expect.  There was smoke over the mine and they knew that they were going into a situation they had all dreaded and feared.  No one at this time knew how bad it was and the community raced to the number three mine. 

Men told of stepping into slight niches and blocking themselves in with their own clothing to escape the gas. The rescue of the men trapped inside continued all night with family standing as close to the mine as allowed. Mothers, wives, and children watching as one by one a man would struggle to the top and exit the mine. They would gather the miner close and hurry home relieved that their little family had been spared the fate of the families of those 89 that never made it out.

The news reported the next day that the vigil went on all night with men struggling to exit the mouth of the mine. Some men appeared leading the wounded out with them. Some of the men that eventually were found dead had gone back to help others. This was a community in every sense of the word and everyone felt the effects of that day. These men were family, friends, and co-workers and they were heroes going through a nightmare of unfathomable proportions.

Most of the ones that died are buried in the small Pleasant Grove cemetery. The cemetery that is right outside the entrance to the #3 mine. The cemetery is located directly across the street from the Pleasant Grove Methodist Church. Tombstones that state that men like B.T. Dobbs a thirty three year old man were killed in the Woodward Iron Company’s #3-coalmine explosion November 22, 1922.

Twenty one year old Hershell Warnick and Tom C. Warnick, his thirty eight year old brother both were lost that day.

Young men like Hugh Connell who was just twenty-four and men like fifty eight year old D. A. Buzbee all left families grieving their loss.

Their tombstones stand as silent tribute to the 89 men, marking the most tragic day in the history of one small farming community in Alabama.

The scramble that took place inside the mine made news once survivors came out of the mine. The stories told that were then reported in the newspaper about the acts of individuals. One such story told of the Foreman that asked thirty men to remain and help secure the area with canvas and stone to block the “after-damp gas”. One man refused to stay and his body was later found, once the fans had been turned on and the air cleared, just a few feet from the brattice they had built.

Many men were able to escape using the underground tunnels arriving at the other entrance in the neighboring town of Dolomite several miles away. The tunnels had allowed them to escape the gases which were released by the explosion at the front of the mine