The Banner Mine

One hundred and twenty-eight men, and the convict-lease system that put most of them there

At 6:30 in the morning on 8 April 1911 an explosion tore through the Banner Coal Mine near Littleton, in northwestern Jefferson County, Alabama. The mine, west of what is now Highway 78, was the pride of the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company, then owned by Tennessee Coal and Iron. When the gas and dust settled, 128 men lay dead in the dark corridors, the largest loss of life in an Alabama mine up to that time and still among the 15 deadliest coal mine disasters in the country's history.

The exact cause is unknown. Most likely an accidental spark ignited gas in the air. The blast itself killed seven men and knocked out the ventilation fan, and with the fan gone, blackdamp rose through the workings and suffocated 121 more. About 40 men dug their way out through the rubble.

Most of the dead had not chosen to be there. They were convicts, leased to the company from the state prisons and from Jefferson County; the Encyclopedia of Alabama counts 125 of the 128 as convicts, and another tally records 72 Black convicts among the casualties. Alabama had leased prisoners to contractors since 1866, and the system paid both the state and industry well, so every attempt to reform it had failed. The state's mines were deadly besides, with more than 1,000 deaths between 1900 and 1910. Only weeks before Banner, a bill to abolish the lease had passed the Senate on 23 February 1911, then died in the House, put off to the last day of the session.

The explosion gave the new governor, Emmet O'Neal, who had taken office in January, the momentum he needed. After much compromise the legislature passed a mine safety bill on the last day of the session, and O'Neal signed it on 18 April 1911. It called for more state mine inspectors at better pay and set standards for nearly every piece of mining equipment and procedure. It was also hedged in industry's favour: inspectors could investigate accidents but not publish their findings, and the law said nothing clear about a company's liability for the dead. The convict lease survived the disaster too. Alabama did not abolish it until 1928, the last state in the nation to end the practice.