Sunshine Mine Fire: Looking Back Forty Years Later

Could it really have been forty years ago that we arrived back in Kellogg from a track meet to have the principal of the school meet our bus and tell us of the tragic fire at Sunshine Mine?

I was a junior in high school as the nursing home across the street became a makeshift morgue. Could I really understand at that time what it meant to lose 91 lives?

As I reflected on the event today did I realize it would be as fresh a memory today? When I talked about it today at school it seemed like yesterday.

Did I ever think about how much this effected so many families in the Silver Valley of north Idaho that day? I think it was too huge for me to comprehend. 

Did I say prayers today for the families of those lost miners? Yes.

I took the picture above at the Sunshine Mine Memorial at Big Creek Idaho by Kellogg.

Click here for a recent NPR feature on the disaster.