spookysouthwest: These small white crosses, lined up all together in tidy rows, can be found at the
spookysouthwest: These small white crosses, lined up all together in tidy rows, can be found at the Dawson Cemetery in northeastern New Mexico. Dawson is now a ghost town with very little remaining, but in the early 20th century it was a booming coal mining town of more than 9,000 people. It was also the site of one of the worst mining disasters in American history. On October 22, 1913, a mine explosion killed 263 men, mostly Italian and Greek immigrants. Only ten years later, 123 men died in a similar mine explosion, many of them being the sons of the men who were killed in the first disaster. The Phelps Dodge Corporation, which owned the mine, paid for the small white iron crosses to commemorate the dead. Many families were unsatisfied by these generic grave markers, and instead chose to spend their own money on more elaborate headstones. -- source link