Darr Mine

History & local legend

On December 19, 1907, an explosion at the Darr coal mine near Van Meter in Westmoreland County killed 239 men and boys. Many were immigrants, and some had recently come from the nearby Naomi mine after another fatal explosion earlier that month. Seventy-one Darr victims were buried together at Olive Branch Cemetery; forty-nine of them were unidentified.

A tradition of miraculous survival grew around the miners who were absent that day. December 19 was the Feast of St. Nicholas for worshippers following the Julian calendar. Many Greek Catholic and Orthodox miners chose to attend religious services in Jacobs Creek, across the Youghiogheny River, rather than go underground. Their families credited St. Nicholas with preserving their lives.

A centennial account recalled John Manack and his son Steve among those attending the observance when the explosion occurred at about 11:30 a.m. Reports describe roughly two hundred men spared because they were at church. The story is remembered both as an act of religious devotion and as a narrow escape from a disaster that devastated the surrounding mining communities.