Devil's Triangle Essay

Deep in the mountains of Anderson County, Tennessee you will find a dying coal mining community. A community that was once full of joyous people who lived simple. There were six days of hard labor and then a day of rest. The people who lived here believed in work. They were hard working people who were not afraid to get their hands dirty, but in most cases, their lungs. “Coal mining, beginning in the 1870s, for a time was the major employer in the Triangle area.” (Devil’s Triangle) Most men in this area were coal miners who risked their lives for terrible wages and poor working conditions. Most miners did not work in the mines as a choice, they did it mostly because that was the only job available in this area. This would soon change due to many of the mines closing.
My family had lived in this area and worked in the mine. Then they would come home and work on the farm. This was the case for most …show more content…
They considered them to be replaceable. This means little was done to keep them safe. Because the safety of the workers was lacking there were many disasters. Often it was an explosion due to an accumulation of methane gas. The gas would get trapped because the lack of vents. Donald Miller said in his article, “The working conditions in the mines were horrific. You went into the mine early in the morning, five-thirty, six o'clock. And you descended into a deep void, an area completely devoid of light.” (Miller) In the “Worst US Mine Disasters” article, we the reader, receive a few facts about mining disasters during this time. One is, “Year with largest number of mine disasters overall: 1910 (25 disasters: 19 coal, 6 metal/nonmetal)” (Worst US Mine Disasters) I had a cousin in my family lose his life in one of the mining disasters in Anderson county. This was very hard for my family because he helped my grandfather cut trees to sell to lumber companies.so for a while the Phillips family struggled with