These photographs appeared in an August 1934 edition of the Harrisburg Telegraph newspaper. It captured a group of men and mineworkers outside a bootleg mine on Short Mountain in Wiconisco Township.

Three men had been trapped in the mine, part of the old Short Mountain Colliery complex abandoned by the Susquehanna Collieries Company in the early stages of the Great Depression, when a series of collapses buried them alive.

All three died as a result of the collapses. They were:

Earl Motter, 30

Eugene Pinkerton, 34

Harry Spacht, 30

More than 3,000 people arrived at the makeshift mine as rescue efforts took place. The bodies were recovered and the mine opening was blasted shut.

“Bootleg” mining was illegal and dangerous. But for thousands of mineworkers thrown out of work by the closure of mines throughout the anthracite region, out of work mineworkers turned to the jobs they knew best.

They went out to the mountainside, dug their own makeshift slopes and tunnels, and reentered the collieries they knew still had valuable coal they could sell to keep their struggling families alive.

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