A fatal underground accident at the Sunshine Mine near Kellogg, Idaho, claimed the life of 26-year-old shaftman Melvin J. Barton. The accident occurred during an important period in the development of the Sunshine Mine, when the operation had become the leading silver producer in the United States and was extending its workings to greater depths beneath the Coeur d’Alene mining district. Barton’s death, documented in detail by the Idaho State Inspector of Mines, provides a valuable historical record of the hazards that accompanied deep-shaft construction during one of the most productive periods in Idaho mining history.
The accident occurred at approximately 2:30 a.m. at the 1,900-foot level of the Sunshine Mine’s new four-compartment vertical shaft. Barton, who was married and had come to the district from Wyoming, was an experienced shaftman who had worked in the Sunshine shaft for approximately six months. His work placed him within a major expansion project intended to improve access to increasingly deep portions of the mine.
Before beginning mucking operations on October 5, members of the shaft crew barred down the exposed rock and examined the walls for unstable material. According to testimony later recorded by the Idaho State Mine Inspector, the workers considered the area sufficiently safe to proceed. A wedge-shaped slab of rock in the shaft wall had been sounded during the inspection. It did not produce the hollow or “drummy” sound that miners associated with loose ground and therefore gave no clear indication that it was unstable.
During subsequent work, the slab suddenly detached from the wall. Barton was buried beneath approximately three feet of broken material. The falling rock crushed his chest and caused probable internal injuries. The state inspector reported that death was instantaneous. The rock slab was large enough that additional workers could have been killed, but one corner of the slab came to rest on the existing muck pile, limiting the extent of the collapse.
A coroner’s inquest was held in the district courtroom at the Shoshone County courthouse on October 7. Evidence presented there documented both the circumstances of Barton’s death and the working conditions surrounding the shaft-sinking operation. Approximately ten men worked at the shaft bottom during each shift. With three shifts operating daily, this represented about thirty man-shifts every twenty-four hours and approximately 900 man-shifts each month.
The investigation also examined the placement of timber supports. The muck pile stood approximately fifteen or sixteen feet below the existing timber. Some crew members believed another timber set should have been installed before the broken rock was removed. The lead man, or “jigger boss,” determined that mucking could proceed and that the following shift could install two timber sets. This arrangement followed instructions left by the shaft foreman. The state inspector nevertheless emphasized that supervisors underground possessed authority to respond independently when immediate hazards became apparent.
The physical evidence revealed why the danger had been difficult to identify. After the slab fell, two smooth fractures became visible behind it. These fractures had not been evident while workers were barring down the shaft wall. The state report therefore preserved an important example of the limits of contemporary ground-testing practices: experienced miners had inspected and sounded the rock, yet concealed geological fractures remained capable of producing a sudden and fatal failure.
Barton’s death occurred while the Sunshine Mine was undergoing rapid expansion. Improvements during the mid-1930s included modernization of the concentrator and construction of the new four-compartment shaft. By 1936 the shaft had reached the 2,300-foot level. Federal records describe the Sunshine that year as the largest silver-producing mine in the United States. The company mined and milled 215,949 dry tons of ore and recovered approximately nine million ounces of silver, along with additional metals. Contemporary federal mining research also described the mine’s deep workings as warm and humid and documented efforts to introduce mechanical mucking equipment into development headings.
The scale of the Sunshine operation placed Barton’s accident within a larger transformation of the Coeur d’Alene district. Shoshone County dominated Idaho production of silver, lead, zinc, and copper during much of the twentieth century. The Sunshine Mine was especially important because its rich silver-bearing ore helped establish the Silver Valley as one of the major precious-metal-producing regions in the United States. By 1931, Sunshine ranked as the nation’s second-largest silver producer, and by 1937 it had become the largest silver producer in the world.
The Idaho State Mine Inspector emphasized one striking fact about the 1936 accident. More than 2,000 feet of the new shaft had been sunk over approximately a year, and Barton’s death was the first fatality associated with that shaft-sinking campaign. That record does not diminish the significance of his death. Instead, the detailed official investigation preserves the human cost that could accompany deep underground development even when crews followed established inspection procedures. The October 5 accident remains a documented episode in the history of the Sunshine Mine, the Silver Valley, and Idaho’s twentieth-century mining industry.
References / More Knowledge:
Campbell, Arthur. Thirty-Eighth Annual Report of the Mining Industry of Idaho for the Year 1936. Idaho State Inspector of Mines, 1937. Idaho Geological Survey. Idaho Geological Survey — 1936 State Mine Inspector Report
Idaho Geological Survey. Current & Historic Mining Activity: 1930–1939. University of Idaho. Idaho Geological Survey — 1930–1939 Mining Reports
Julihn, C. E., and F. W. Horton. The Silver Belt and the Sunshine Mine of the Coeur d’Alene District. U.S. Bureau of Mines, Information Circular 6876, 1936. OneMine — U.S. Bureau of Mines Sunshine Mine Study
Shannon, Michelle A. “Sunshine Mining Company Annual Reports.” University of Idaho Library, Special Collections and Archives, May 20, 2021. University of Idaho — Sunshine Mining Company Annual Reports
Bawiec, Walter J., and Lawrence L. Dee. Historical Perspective of the Mineral Production of Idaho, with Comments on the Hailey 1° × 2° Quadrangle, Idaho. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 2064-T, 2001. U.S. Geological Survey — Historical Mineral Production of Idaho
National Labor Relations Board v. Sunshine Mining Co., 110 F.2d 780, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1940. Justia — NLRB v. Sunshine Mining Company