by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

Sewanee Classics professor Chris McDonough’s two documentaries plumb unspoken truths in the history of Plateau coal mining and raise troubling questions. Released in 2018, “Mine 21” steps back in time to revisit the tragic 1981 Whitwell coalmine explosion McDonough calls “the local nine-eleven disaster ... none of us know about.” “Ghosts of Lone Rock,” still under production, documents the operation of the Lone Rock mine in Tracy City where in the late 1800s angry local miners replaced by leased convicts rose up in rebellion against the mining company. At a June 28 Monteagle Sunday School Assembly program, McDonough talked about the two documentaries and what prompted him to pursue the projects.

McDonough learned about the Mine 21 explosion from Tony Gilliam, a University HVAC technician who once worked at the mine. “How do I not know about this?” McDonough asked Gilliam. Student Kelsey Arbuckle had the same question. She learned her grandfather died in the explosion from a newspaper anniversary-account of the tragedy. Arbuckle sought out McDonough who had blogged on the topic. Still more secrets surfaced. Arbuckle’s grandmother, Barbara Myers, sued the mining company and the federal government testififying before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy. A cigarette lighter ignited the methane explosion in the mine. Thirteen miners died. Temperatures reached one-thousand degrees. According to McDonough, following a Whitwell screening of Mine 21, a woman rose to her feet and addressing her father, a miner who appeared in the documentary, said, “I never heard this story before.” Her father replied, “How could I tell you? I could tell Chris. But I couldn’t tell this to you.”

McDonough became aware of the convict lease system employed at the Tracy City Lone Rock mining operation from University researcher Camille Westmont’s work on the cultural memory of coalmining. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited slavery except in the case of convicted criminals, a law that remained on the books in Tennessee until this past November. In the late 1800s, mining companies throughout southern Appalachia leased convicts to work in the coal mines. Promotional literature for the Assembly from the 1880s touted the “picturesque” Tracy City mining district as a tourist attraction. But visitors expressed horror at the convicts’ circumstances. One wrote, “to think of human beings subjected to this slow torturing existence, can you call it life?” Eighty-five percent of the convicts were African Americans; over 200 were children under age 11. During the mines 25 years of operation, 1871-1896, 10 percent or more of the convicts died. “Where are they? Is there a mass grave in Tracy City?” McDonough speculated.

A descendant of one convict recounted how her great uncle, a white man, was arrested and sent to Lone Rock for bouncing a check to buy shoes. He tried to escape and was shot. Prior to his death, he was tortured by being lowered into a well filling with water. McDonough emphasized local people felt tremendous sympathy for the convicts, but despised the mining company for giving the convicts their jobs. In 1892, armed men ordered the convicts from the mines at gunpoint, loaded them on a train, sent them them ‘away,’ and burned the stockade.

McDonough praised the skill of filmographer Stephen Garrett who directed the award winning “Mine 21” documentary. To view “Mine 21,” visit YouTube or Alexander Street videos. Garrett is also directing the upcoming “Ghosts of the Stockade,” being made in partnership with the nonprofit Blacks in Appalachia. View the trailer at <slgarrett.com/ghosts-of-lone-rock>.

The coal mines brought prosperity to the Plateau, McDonough stressed, and a unique culture. The miners “loved working in the mines” where camaraderie and rules entirely different from those above ground held forth. The University and Assembly owe their existence to the mines, McDonough insisted. “We are here, because there was a train.” The train made the Plateau accessible, but the train existed to transport coal from the mines.