Word: tunneling
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Gauley Bridge is a disheveled village on the forest-fringed New River of central West Virginia. There six years ago, a construction company named Rinehart & Dennis began to excavate a three-mile waterpower tunnel for a subsidiary of Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. Last week Rinehart & Dennis were putting in last licks on their tunnel. But many a man who began the digging in 1929 was not alive to see the finish in 1936. Some had died of silicosis, incurable lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust. Pneumonia and tuberculosis had caused the deaths of others...
Silicosis is due to inhalation of fine, sharp particles of sand, sandstone or quartz, all of which contain silica, by miners', sandblasters, quarrymen, tunnel borers. The silica particles erode the delicate lining of the lungs, make them vulnerable to the germs of pneumonia and tuberculosis. If those diseases do not kill, the silica victim usually wastes away to death because his clogged lungs transmit insufficient oxygen to his blood...
...waterpower tunnel was begun at Gauley Bridge along the forest-fringed New River in southern West Virginia, with cheap transient labor, black and white, from mountain districts as far away as Georgia. The tunnel went through white sandstone and quartz which were 99% pure silica. Every blast of dynamite puffed deadly silica dust down the throats of sappers who wore no protective masks over their mouths & noses. Rapidly men began to die of silicosis, pneumonia and tuberculosis. When workmen refused to go into the tunnel heads, foremen, according to subsequent court testimony, often clubbed them on. But the foremen dutifully...
Digging of the Gauley Bridge tunnel ended in 1932. By that time about 500 silicosis deaths had spread terror throughout the territory. A smart Kentucky lawyer went over the mountains, instigated damage suits against Rinehart & Dennis. Some relicts won. Some derelicts won. Many lost or sued too late to accomplish anything for themselves. But as a result West Virginia passed its silicosis compensation law, which in turn prompted the radical press to dig up the Gauley Bridge skeleton, rattle its bones...
...picture is charged with unintentional humor. Richard Dix brings this out when that grim square jaw of his goes into action and he tells Madge Evans, blinded wife and bereaved mother, "Kiss me and tell me to go back into the tunnel." But everybody knows that the fault is in the script, and Mr. Dix, with years of variegated experience behind him, is easily the best...