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48 Monongah, 1907 In the worst mining accident in U.S. history, the coal company hid the truth by reducing the number killed by nearly 200 men and boys. Goods were thrown from the shelves of the company store, the river reached for the railroad tracks, the hill lunged away from itself. The houses on the hill lifted and shook. The bank, not yet finished, trembled but its beams held. Later, the newspapers printed rumors of incredible escapes: men shot straight through air holes, whole as ever, and twice as alive. Children gathered around the entrances. Women tore at their hair and scratched their faces. The dead were taken out as they had gone in, in twos and threes, 49 and carried to the bank like something still valuable and, like something once valuable, they disappeared as the counting began. ...

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