'Crosses of Iron' digs deeper into Dawson and the mines that built it

These days, there’s little to see of Dawson, a ghost town off an unpaved road in northeast New Mexico. A locked gate blocks trespassers from entering what is now a private ranch.

Nearby, though, is something noteworthy and open to the public — the Dawson Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The cemetery is filled with crosses, some with names, some not. They were mineworkers who died in accidents when Dawson was a thriving coal town in the first half of the 20th century.

Two were major mining accidents, and they form the centerpiece of a new book — “Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico and Its Twin Mining Disasters” by Nick Pappas.

The first disaster was on Oct. 22, 1913, when 261 miners and two rescuers died in a mine explosion.

The second disaster, on Feb. 8, 1923, took the lives of 120 miners. Some of them were related to those who had died 10 years earlier.

The book describes in compelling detail the rescue efforts, the rescuers, the victims, the families of victims and the investigations into the cause of the explosions.

One week before the 1913 explosion, the book explains, the state mining inspector visited Dawson for a routine examination of its mines.

He found the ventilation system, the equipment and the shot-firing system (used to dislodge coal inside mines) all modern and first-rate. The inspector, however, flagged the presence of flammable coal dust, which is caused by crushing or grinding coal.

Pappas takes the reader well beyond the drama of the book’s title and into a broad range of connected subjects and interminable characters. These are some of the subjects:

• The history of Phelps Dodge & Company, its top executives, its ownership of mines in Dawson and elsewhere, and the company’s decision to quickly shutter the Dawson mines.
• The company’s creation of Dawson as a model company town. There was a 1,000-seat, multipurpose opera house, a mercantile store that held fashion shows and sold furs, a 32-bed, two-ward hospital and dispensary, an outdoor swimming pool, a golf course and a bank that could handle money to transfer to immigrant workers’ family in their home countries.

Dawson’s miners and their families did not live in huts or tented coal camps. Phelps Dodge provided 600 comfortable rental homes, as well as rooms to rent in boarding and lodging houses.

And as it grew, the town opened four schools, established two churches, and opened a bakery, a barber shop, a hotel, a photo studio, restaurants and other businesses.

• An early chapter is devoted to a concise biography of John Barkley Dawson, for whom the town was named. Born in Kentucky, Dawson was a cattle driver, a farmer, a pioneer, rancher and Texas ranger, though never a mine owner.
• Profiles of a few of the many Italian and Greek immigrants — some from the same families — who worked the Dawson mines. They were part of a wider immigration wave to the United States from Europe in the early 20th century.

“Mining firms found them a good source of labor,” Pappas said in a phone interview. As well, Mexicans and New Mexicans were hired to work in Dawson’s underground mines.

• The sometimes contentious relationship between Phelps Dodge and organized labor. Labor unions sought better working conditions and higher pay for miners, sometimes striking if demands weren’t met.
• The subject that brings the ghost town to life — literally and figuratively — is the vibrant Dawson New Mexico Association. It still holds reunions on Labor Day weekend every other year to celebrate the family members who lived — and died — in Dawson and to exchange stories and photographs of those past times.

The nonprofit association accepts private and corporate tax-deductible donations that help run the reunions and maintain the historic Dawson Cemetery. Donations may be mailed to the association, 528 N. First St., Raton, N.M. 87740.

“I want to acknowledge the support from the Dawson community,” Pappas said. “It was essential to my entire enterprise. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

An Albuquerque resident, the 68-year-old Pappas has been a journalist since 1976, including six years at the Albuquerque Journal.

Here’s an interesting sidebar. A woman born in Dawson in 1930 gained national fame as a civil rights activist and cofounder of the National Farm Workers Association with César Chávez. Her name? Dolores Huerta. Huerta’s uncle, Marcial Chavez, died in the 1913 disaster, the book reports.

On April 28, 1950, the last carload of coal was dumped. Later that night Dawson residents jammed the opera house to hear a musical performance by guitarist and fellow Dawson miner Augustine Hernandez. In the performance was a special song he composed for the occasion, “Adiós Dawson!”