The Clymer Mine Disaster: 44 Men Went to Work and Never Came Home

On August 26, 1926, two explosions tore through the Clymer No. 1 coal mine in western Pennsylvania. Of the 57 men underground that afternoon, 44 would never come home.

Rescue crews fought their way through smoke, wreckage and poisonous gas as families gathered outside waiting for news. Survivors crawled more than a mile through the darkness. Some families lost multiple loved ones. And by nightfall, a machine shop had been transformed into a temporary morgue.

But one detail makes the Clymer Mine Disaster even harder to comprehend: the mine normally employed hundreds of men. August 26 just happened to be a light workday.

Nearly 100 years later, Matt and Megh uncover the story of the Clymer Mine Disaster and the small Pennsylvania community that never forgot the 44 men it lost.