Dual Disasters: The Dawson Mine Explosions

Episode 87

Hidden beneath the hills of northeast New Mexico lies a ghost that industry left behind. Dawson was once a model mining town — a company-built community boasting schools, golf courses, and an opera house. Phelps Dodge called it progress. But twice, in just ten years, that progress went up in smoke.

In 1913 and again in 1923, massive explosions ripped through Dawson’s coal mines, killing 383 miners — fathers, sons, and brothers — in two of the deadliest mining disasters in American history.

This episode digs deep into how “safety-forward” operations, good intentions, and one impatient decision turned an idealized town into a field of iron crosses. We’ll explore coal dust explosions, early fire protection efforts underground, and how greed, apathy, and bad timing turned progress into tragedy.

Because when profit becomes the accelerant… all it takes is a spark.

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Inner Sanctum Acknowledgments:
Eternal gratitude to our Inner Sanctum patrons, Jenny Mercer and Laura Pisciotta, for helping us bring light to the stories others would rather leave in the ashes.

Listener discretion is advised.

Background music by Not Notoriously Coordinated 

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Sources: 

• Pappas, Nick. Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and Its Twin Mining Disasters. Foreword by Richard Melzer. University of New Mexico Press, 2023. ISBN 978-0-8263-6528-6 (paper), 978-0-8263-6529-3 (electronic).
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2023940430. https://a.co/d/8sTa5em

• Sharpe, Tom. “Remembering the Dawson Mining Disaster, 100 Years Later.” The Santa Fe New Mexican, October 19, 2013.
  https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/remembering-the-dawson-mining-disaster-100-years-later/article_446074ce-ea6b-54cf-a818-992408f6a398.html

• Villa, Elizabeth. “Dawson, NM: Booming Mine Town Turned Ghost Town.” New Mexico State University Archives Blog, posted May 3, 2022.
  https://nmsu.libguides.com/blogs/asc/openstacks/posts/Dawson-NM-Booming-mine-town-turned-ghost-town

• Hawker Vanguard. “Eerie Enchantment: Dawson, New Mexico.” KOB4 News, published November 1, 2024.
  https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/eerie-enchantment-dawson-history/