The PA Historical and Museum Commission and the citizens of Sheppton, Schuylkill County will hold a ceremony on August 22 commemorating the 1963 Sheppton mine disaster and rescue with an official state historical marker.

The event will begin at 10:00 at Schoolhouse Road outside of Sheppton with a reception to follow at the Sheppton Fire Hall.  For more information contact Carol Zielinski by sending an email to: missfaberge@fabergefollies.biz.

On August 13, 1963 a coal mine cave-in trapped three miners in the Oneida Slope No. 2 coal mine near Sheppton.  For five days the miners were out of touch with the surface while they searched for a way out of the mine.  One of the miners was separated from the other two and was never found.

On August 17 officials from the state Department of Mines and Mineral Industries began to drill a 6-inch wide borehole into the mine in an attempt to reach them more than 300 feet below.

Late on August 18 contact was made through the borehole with the miners and news of the “Mine Miracle” was headlines around the world.

For seven more days rescue efforts continued as larger and larger boreholes were drilled into the mine.  Finally on August 27, the two surviving miners, wearing parachute harnesses and football helmets were pulled from the mine.

Rescue efforts as a result of a mine cave-in utilized, for the first time, a borehole technique that has become ubiquitous worldwide for similar mine disasters.  The same technique was used at Quecreek and Chile in recent decades.  The event prompted revisions to state mining regulations and to the federal Coal Mine Safety Act.

Click Here to read an article from the Hazleton Standard-Speaker commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Sheppton mine disaster, rescue.

More Background: Sheppton Mine Memorial

NewsClips:

Sheppton Mine Disaster, Rescue Historic Marker Dedication Aug. 22

Wilkes-Barre Firm Donates Mine Elevator To Mining Museum

8/10/2015