Fraterville Mine disaster
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Fraterville Miners' Circle
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Fraterville Miners' Circle
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| Location | Leach Cemetery Lane Rocky Top, Tennessee |
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| NRHP Reference # | 04001459 |
| Added to NRHP | January 5, 2005 |
The Fraterville Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion that occurred on May 19, 1902 near the community of Fraterville, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. There were 216 miners who died as a result of the explosion, either from its initial blast or from the after-effects, making it the worst mining disaster in the state's history. The cause of the explosion, although never fully determined, was likely due to the build-up of methane gas which had leaked from an adjacent unventilated mine.
Shortly after the disaster, the bodies of 89 of the 216 miners killed in the explosion were buried in what became known as the Fraterville Miners' Circle at Leach Cemetery in the nearby town of Coal Creek (modern Rocky Top). In 2005, this circle was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Fraterville Mine was one of several mines located in the coal-rich Cumberland Mountains of western Anderson County, Tennessee. The mine and its namesake community were situated near the heart of the Coal Creek Valley, a narrow north-south oriented valley slicing between Walden Ridge to the east and Vowell Mountain to the west. Tennessee State Route 116 connects Fraterville with Briceville to the south and Rocky Top to the north. This stretch of Route 116 has been renamed "Fraterville Miners Memorial Highway" in honor of the victims of the mine explosion.
The Coal Creek Coal Company, organized by Knoxville businessman E.C. Camp, began work at the Fraterville Mine in 1870. Coal Creek Coal developed a reputation for fair contracts and fair pay, and the company's Fraterville Mine was considered one of the safest in the region. The company never took part in the state's controversial convict leasing system and paid in cash (rather than scrip), and thus avoided much of the labor unrest that plagued neighboring mines during the Coal Creek War in the early 1890s.
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