During the Great Coalfield Strike of 1913 and 1914 the prison obtained the lease for the Nonac Mine south of Caņon City. The mine was operated by ten prisoners and produced fifty tons of coal per day. Governor Ammons secured the lease and approved the operation due to the fact that the prison could not get the coal it needed to maintain necessary operations during the strike. This was the first time in Colorado's history that coal was mined by a state agency. According to Warden Tynan who was quoted in the Florence Citizen at the time:
"Ever since the strike began the prison management has been held up in the price. The big companies which had contracted to supply us coal were unable to meet the terms of their agreement after the shutting down took place and we were compelled to buy it wherever we could get it and pay exorbitant prices for it. We were forced to close the limekilns and water plant and save what coal we could for the purpose of heating the prison and operating its electric light and heat, two of the essential things at the institution.
Governor Ammons secured a lease on the Nonac mine and men have been put to work there as a means of solving the problem with which we are confronted. We will only mine coal for the prison or such other public institutions, as may need it. (According to the article he is referring to the sanitarium in Pueblo and the reformatory in Buena Vista.) At present we will confine ourselves to the demands of the penitentiary. We will not merchandise coal nor sell a pound of it to the public. We have plenty of miners to get out all of the coal the state may need during the continuance of the strike . . . .
The working of the mine is only temporary and was forced upon us by the emergency resulting from the existing coal strike . . . ."
On May 7, 1914, the day the Caņon City Daily Record reported the deaths at the Chandler strike, Warden Tynan commented on the prison run mine, as paraphrased:
He (Tynan) was forced to open a mine in order to supply his institution with coal and because he did so with the full sanction of the governor and others in authority he was called a "scab herder" and resolutions were passed condemning him.
He said that it was grossly unjust and that he was glad for an opportunity to explain just why he opened a mine.
He scorned the lawless acts of the strikers, upheld the governor in his method of handling the situation and declared in well worded sentences that he stood for law and order and wanted to see it predominate.
While Tynan promised the mine was only a temporary operation it was still in existence when Best was warden as evidenced by the photos in the Best album. These photos show prisoners who worked the mine, the location of the entrance, and the mule teams used in the mine in 1932.
"State Operating No. 5 Mine." Florence Citizen 22 January 1914.
"Warden Thomas J. Tynan Tells of Mining Coal." Caņon City Daily Record 7 May 1914.
MCP = Museum of Colorado Prisons, Caņon City, Colorado.
1 MCP: Photograph of the entrance to the prison-operated coal mine, Watson Collection - Best Album, September 28, 1932.
2 MCP: Photograph of the coal chute at the prison-operated coal mine, Watson Collection - Best Album, September 28, 1932.
3 MCP: Photograph of the entrance to the prison-operated coal mine, Watson Collection - Best Album, September 28, 1932.