How many miners were underground in Bunker Hill during its heyday?
Bunker Hill ran a crew of about 400 at its height. Also people in charge have to know where all of those people are at any given time, in case there is an emergency, and how we’re going to get them out, and they learned at the Sunshine fire it’s not all that easy to figure out where people are, and what an alternative escape route might be, and how many there are, and who they are. It’s not like at my job, where if I go in and out to do some errand nobody cares. You need to know where everybody is all the time and what they are doing. Q: Why do you suppose the Sunshine Mine disaster didn’t happen at Bunker Hill? A: A lot of it, I suppose, is luck, but in addition, the Bunker Hill is actually a real leader in terms of instituting safety procedures. Even in the early part of the 20th century, Bunker Hill hired the best mining engineers they could have; its presidents tended to be mining engineers; they had a lot of underground experience. They were tied to the Kellogg community, so that
