Philip Duke

Fort Lewis College

The Ludlow, Colorado Coal Miners’ Massacre of 1914: The Greek Connection

On 20th April, 1914, the coalfield wars of southern Colorado, which pitted striking coal miners and their families against the Colorado state militia and hired company mercenaries, finally resulted in tragedy when over twenty individuals were killed, the youngest of whom was only three months old.  This massacre was the culmination of two decades of increasing industrial unrest as miners sought some modicum of workplace dignity in the face of an intransigent management.  Although the strike was in the short term unsuccessful it marked ultimately somewhat of a sea change in labor-management relations in this country.  Pivotal to any success that the strike may have had was the role of Greek and Balkan miners who had recently immigrated to the USA, and in particular that of the strike's leader, Louis Tikas, a Greek American originally from Crete.  Although the coalfield wars can be seen primarily as a clash of socio-economic classes, nevertheless in many ways it was also a clash of cultures.  The latter is the focus of this paper.  The research is part of the ongoing Colorado Coalfield Wars Archaeological Project, which has been engaged in the excavation of Ludlow and the adjacent town of Berwind. Archaeological remains include camp and tent remains, latrines and the everyday material objects of working-class life, which together provide a unique and complementary source of information to the historical record.