Qualla: Columbine Mine Massacre

Columbine Mine Massacre: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikepascoe, CC BY-SA 4.0. "Who are your leaders?" shouted Louis Scherf, head of the Colorado Rangers. "We're all leaders!" came the reply from five hundred coal miners gathered at the gate of Serene, Colorado. It was just before dawn on November 21, 1927. Some miners had brought their wives and children. They carried three American flags. Five weeks into the Colorado Coal Strike, they had come to picket one of the few mines still operating in the state. What happened next would leave six strikers dead and dozens wounded, a tragedy that has been largely forgotten while the earlier Ludlow Massacre of 1914 dominates Colorado labor history.

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Image: Mikepascoe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbine Mine Massacre: The Company Town on the Hill

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Author Unknown, Public domain. Serene was a company town, owned entirely by the mining corporation, its houses, its stores, its streets. The Columbine mine sat on a rolling hillside, one of the few coal operations in Colorado that had not shut down during the 1927-1928 strike. For two weeks, strikers had condu...

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Image: Author Unknown | Public domain

Columbine Mine Massacre: Men in Civilian Clothes

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikepascoe, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Colorado Rangers had been officially disbanded, but that morning they were recalled to duty. The miners arriving at the north gate were surprised to find men in civilian clothes blocking their path, armed with pistols, rifles, riot guns, and tear gas. Behind them, mine guards...

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Image: Mikepascoe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbine Mine Massacre: The Disputed Machine Guns

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikepascoe, CC BY-SA 4.0. What happened next remains contested. The state police later testified they had not used machine guns. The miners and some witnesses insisted machine guns had been fired into the crowd. Six strikers died. Dozens more were wounded. Some witnesses identified a mine guard who had cl...

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Image: Mikepascoe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Columbine Mine Massacre: The Forgotten Massacre

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mikepascoe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Colorado remembers the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, when National Guard troops and company guards attacked a tent colony of striking miners, killing approximately twenty-one people including eleven children. That tragedy sparked national outrage and contributed to labor reforms. The ...

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Image: Mikepascoe | CC BY-SA 4.0