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1932 Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster
The Moweaqua Coal Mine disaster happened on December 24, 1932, in Moweaqua, Illinois. The disaster was caused by a methane gas explosion killing 54 miners. The explosion occurred shortly after the day shift started, sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 Christmas Eve morning. Less than three years later (1935), the dangerous mine closed permanently. The ''Moweaqua Coal Mine Museum'', founded in 1986, contains many mining artifacts that recall the disaster and the work of the miners. History of Moweaqua coal-mining industry A large coal seam was first found in Moweaqua on October 3, 1889, after two months of drilling by the Samuel Warner and Son firm as reported in the Moweaqua Call-Mail, the local newspaper. Two years later in November the first mining shaft site was commissioned a few blocks from the railroad depot, but under a new drilling company called the Cochran Coal and Mining Company under James G. Cochran. Ground was broken for mine construction on December 21, 1891, on land b ...
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Moweaqua, Illinois
Moweaqua is a village in Shelby and Christian counties, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,764 at the 2020 census. Geography Moweaqua is located at . According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Moweaqua has a total area of , all land. Demographics As of the 2020 census there were 1,764 people, 877 households, and 598 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 817 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 95.92% White, 0.91% African American, 0.34% Native American, 0.40% Asian, 0.34% from other races, and 2.10% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.36% of the population. There were 877 households, out of which 64.99% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.11% were married couples living together, 8.44% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.81% were non-families. 25.66% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.57% had someone liv ...
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Gas Explosion
A gas explosion is an explosion resulting from mixing a gas, typically from a gas leak, with air in the presence of an ignition source. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propane, butane. In industrial explosions many other gases, like hydrogen, as well as evaporated (gaseous) gasoline (American English)/petrol (British English) or ethanol play an important role. Industrial gas explosions can be prevented with the use of intrinsic safety barriers to prevent ignition. Lower and upper explosive limits Whether a mixture of air and gas is combustible depends on the air-to-fuel ratio. For each fuel, ignition occurs only within a certain range of concentration, known as the upper and lower flammability limits. For example, for methane and gasoline vapor, this range is 5-15% and 1.4-7.6% gas to air, respectively. An explosion can only occur when fuel concentration is within these limits. List ...
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Carbide Lamp
Carbide lamps, or acetylene gas lamps, are simple lamps that produce and burn acetylene (C2H2) which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water (H2O). Acetylene gas lamps were used to illuminate buildings, as lighthouse beacons, and as headlights on motor-cars and bicycles. Portable acetylene gas lamps, worn on the hat or carried by hand, were widely used in mining in the early twentieth century. They are still employed by cavers, hunters, and cataphiles. Small carbide lamps called "carbide candles" or "smokers" are used for blackening rifle sights to reduce glare. They are sometimes referred to as "smokers" because of the sooty flame produced by acetylene. Mechanism A mining or caving lamp has calcium carbide placed in a lower chamber, the generator. The upper reservoir is then filled with water. A threaded valve or other mechanism is used to control the rate at which the water is allowed to drip into the chamber containing the calcium carbide. By ...
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Pana, Illinois
Pana is a small town in Christian County, Illinois, United States. A small portion is in Shelby County. The population was 5,199 at the 2020 census. History The area around Pana was first organized as Stone Coal Precinct in 1845. The county's precincts became townships in 1856, and Stone Coal Precinct became Pana Township, Christian County, Illinois. In 1856, the village of Pana was incorporated. The name "Pana" is believed to have been derived from the indigenous tribe, the Pawnee. It developed at the intersection of east–west and north–south railroads, and had supplies of fuel and water for the steam engines of the railroad. This became a center of coal mining in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In April 1899 what is known as the Pana riot broke out after a violent confrontation between black and white miners. Initially a white man was killed (by a policeman, it was later discovered), and white union miners attacked black replacement workers who had been recruite ...
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Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (after Rockford), and the largest in central Illinois. Approximately 208,000 residents live in the Springfield metropolitan area. Springfield was settled by European-Americans in the late 1810s, around the time Illinois became a state. The most famous historic resident was Abraham Lincoln, who lived in Springfield from 1837 until 1861, when he went to the White House as President of the United States. Major tourist attractions include multiple sites connected with Lincoln including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices State Historic Site, and the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery. Springfield lies in a valley and pla ...
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Illinois Central Railroad
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety. The Canadian National Railway acquired control of the IC in 1998, and merged its operations in 1999. Illinois Central continues to exist as a paper railroad. History The IC was one of the oldest Class I railroads in the United States. The company was incorporated by the Illinois General Assembly on January 16, 1836. Within a few months Rep. Zadok Casey (D-Illinois) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives authorizing a land grant to the company to ...
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American Red Cross
The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the designated US affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the United States movement to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The organization offers services and development programs. History and organization Founders Clara Barton established the American Red Cross in Dansville, New York on May 21, 1881, and was the organization's first president. She organized a meeting on May 12 of that year at the house of Senator Omar D. Conger ( R, MI). Fifteen people were present at the meeting, including Barton, Conger and Representative William Lawrence ( R, OH) (who became the first vice president). The first local chapter was established in 1881 at the English Evangelical ...
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Tipple
A tipple is a structure used at a mine to load the extracted product (e.g., coal, ores) for transport, typically into railroad hopper cars. In the United States, tipples have been frequently associated with coal mines, but they have also been used for hard rock mining. Operation Basic coal tipples simply load coal into railroad cars. Many tipples had simple screening equipment to sort coal pieces by size before loading. Today, a coal mine facility usually includes a coal preparation plant which washes coal of soil and rock, before loading it for transport to market. The term "tipple" may be used interchangeably with coal prep plant. Tipples were initially used with minecarts, also called ''tubs'' or ''tram cars'', or ''mine cars'' in the U.S. These were small hopper cars that carried the product on a mine railway out of the mine. When a mine car entered the upper level of the tipple, its contents were dumped through a chute leading to a railroad hopper car positioned on a track r ...
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Sinkhole
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ''ponor'', swallow hole or swallet. A ''cenote'' is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. A ''sink'' or ''stream sink'' are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock. Most sinkholes are caused by karst processes – the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks, collapse or suffosion processes. Sinkholes are usually circular and vary in size from tens to hundreds of meters both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. Sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. Formation Natural processes Sinkholes may capture surf ...
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Illinois State Library
The Illinois State Library is the official State Library of Illinois located in Springfield, Illinois. The library has a collection of 5 million items and serves as regional federal documents depository for the state. The library oversees the Talking Book and Braille Service which offers audio and braille library service to Illinois residents with print disabilities or other disabilities. The library maintains the Illinois Center for the Book, the Illinois Digital Archives and the Illinois Veterans History Project. Building The original state library was located next to the office of Stephen A. Douglas while he was Secretary of State. It moved into the west wing of the State Capitol's third floor in October 1887. The Illinois State Library is currently housed in the purpose-built library rededicated as the Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebratio ...
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Coal Mining Disasters In Illinois
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some i ...
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1932 Disasters In The United States
Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 193 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * January 1 – Year of the Five Emperors: The Roman Senate chooses Publius Helvius Pertinax, against his will, to succeed the late Commodus as Emperor. Pertinax is forced to reorganize the handling of finances, which were wrecked under Commodus, to reestablish discipline in the Roman army, and to suspend the food programs established by Trajan, provoking the ire of the Praetorian Guard. * March 28 – Pertinax is assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, who storm the imperial palace. The Empire is ...
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