Ludlow Massacre

The Ludlow Massacre arose from a 1914 confrontation between striking coal miners and their families and the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel and Iron Company guards. The Colorado National Guard machine-gunned and set fire to tents where the striking miners and their families lived. Five miners, two wives, and twelve children died, most of them by suffocation while hiding in a cellar under a burning tent. The miners fought back, and more than 75 people were killed in the course of the war, roughly as many on the mine owners’ side as strikers. The Ludlow Massacre is considered the deadliest labor struggle in American history.

A union has preserved the site with a memorial marker and information panels. The cellar still exists. 

Here are some of my photos from the massacre site and the nearby coal field.

Ludlow was located where the eastern Colorado plains give way to the mountains.

Interpretive signage at the Ludlow Massacre site.

The memorial

Steps leading down into the cellar.

View up from the cellar.

Coke ovens at Ludlow used to burn impurities out of the coal.

Coal tailings from one of the Ludlow mines.

The Hastings Mine was one of the Ludlow-area mines. Twelve miners were killed at the Hastings mine in 1912 from an explosion of gas due to a defective lamp. 121 men died in an explosion at the mine in 1917.