An Ohio coal fire set in 1884

In the fall of 1884, during a strike over wages, miners pushed burning mine cars into the mines at New Straitsville in Perry County. The fire got into the coal seam and was not found for days. In 1936 the WPA began walling it off, driving tunnels through the coal and packing them with clay; about 350 men worked on it in 1938. Ohio History Connection's accounts say the fire has never fully gone out, and in 2003 smoke rose from the soil in the Wayne National Forest. The orange is ODNR's map of old underground mines: about 46% of the village sits over them. Sources give Oct. 11 or Nov. 13, 1884 as the day it started.

Have you been to New Straitsville, or the Moonshine Festival? Did you know about the fire?

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Sources:
- Ohio History Connection (Ohio History Central / Ohio Memory), New Straitsville Mine Fire: 1884 strike, burning cars pushed into a mine, discovered days later, WPA barriers from 1936 (about 350 men in 1938), smoke in the Wayne National Forest in 2003. Sources give Oct. 11 or Nov. 13, 1884 as the start
- Mine outlines: ODNR abandoned underground mine maps; share of the village over mapped mines computed by Cracked Buckeye from Census 2024 place boundaries