The Western Federation of Miners

Coeur d’Alene & Cripple Creek Strikes

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The Western Federation of Miners formed today, May 13, 1893, in Butte, Montana. The WFM was one of the more militant unions of its era. They often fought pitched battles with cops and company thugs over wages and working conditions. Some of the founding members of the WFM had participated in the Coeur d’Alene strike in 1892. After company guards shot five of their comrades, they disarmed the guards and drove a hundred scabs out of town. President Harrison sent federal troops and arrested 600 strikers, holding them in a stockade.

One of the WFM’s most violent struggles was the Cripple Creek Strike, in Colorado. The sheriff hired thousands of gun thugs to intimidate the miners, but he quickly lost control of them. The governor had to call out the state militia. However, in an extremely rare move, he sent them to protect the miners from the company’s thugs, rather than to suppress them.

Pinkertons Frame Big Bill Haywood

In 1899, miners seized a train in Coeur d’Alene. They filled with 3,000 pounds of dynamite and drove it into the Bunker Hill Mine. Governor Steunenberg asked President McKinley for help. The president sent in the military, which arrested 1,000 miners and imprisoned them in bullpens. The governor deposited $35,000 into his bank account after the arrest, likely a bribe from the mine owners. An anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, assassinated President McKinley in 1901. Former union-member, Harry Orchard, assassinated Steunenberg in 1905. Pinkerton agent James McParland tried to frame Big Bill Haywood, but Clarence Darrow got him off. McParland was the same agent who framed the 20 Irish miners who were executed as Molly Maguires in 1877. Orchard was a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners’ Association.