Sonderegger 26
November 13, 2026
Northern Center, Northern Michigan University
The Power of Place
Northern Center Ballroom IV
9 a.m. The Barnes–Hecker Disaster - Zach Lanciani, Student, Northern Michigan University –
10 a.m. The Mansfield Mine Disaster - Russ Magnaghi, Professor Emeritus History, Northern Michigan University
The Mansfield Mine disaster took place on September 28 1893. The mine was located under the Michigamme River some nine miles from Crystal Falls. It was thought there was enough rock between the mine and the river but this was not the case. The river brought through and 27 multi-national miners were killed.
11 a.m. Keynote Address: Power of Place - Sandra Clark, Director, Michigan History Center
Why should we care about a sense of place that supports tourism, builds community and helps our children feel connected and secure in their place in the larger world? How do we create this sense of place?
12 p.m. - Lunch Provided in Ballroom III
1 p.m. Minnesota's Response to a Mining Tragedy: The Milford Disaster, Mine Safety, and "(Long) Memory" - Gary Kaunonen – Education and Program Manager, Minnesota Discovery Center
Situated in singer/philosopher U. Utah Phillips' concept of "The Long Memory," this presentation looks at the 1924 Milford Mine Disaster as a catalyst for working-class action. The event, the Milford Mine's flooding, occurred on February 5, 1924. The collapse of the mine's surface layer—under Foley Lake—sent millions of gallons of cold, muddy water into the Milford's depths. The flooding happened so fast that 41 of the 48 mine workers on shift perished. A state-led inquiry, just months after the tragic event, absolved the mining company and its owner George H. Crosby of any culpability for the disaster. Despite the tragedy, mining continued at the Milford until 1932. Eight years after the Milford Disaster, the aptly named company town, Crosby, elected the United States' first communist mayor, Karl Emil Nygard, in 1932. This move towards worker control—of an entire town—was no doubt a response to working conditions that precipitated and followed the tragic events at George H. Crosby's Milford Mine. While Nygard's mayoralty was short lived, the struggle to memorialize the Milford's dead had an even longer arc. Established as a National Historical District in 2011, the Milford Mine Memorial Park's three-phase implementation was completed in 2017.
2 p.m. Case Studies on European mining disasters: Transnational Disasters to Transnational Heritage: Connecting Coal Mining Cultural Routes in Italy and Belgium - Mark Rhodes, Associate Professor of Geography, Michigan Technological University
For the past century, mining sites across Europe have increasingly found themselves integrated in new and unexpected ways. Today, the European Mining Route of Saint Barbara Foundation (also known as Mines.B) brings together mining heritage from seven different countries into a coalition using sustainable tourism to preserve, access, and interpret mining heritage. This lecture isolates two of these heritage sites to illustrate the historic and contemporary linkages between Belgian and Italian mines and mining heritage. Using primarily ethnographic data collected during a six-month European Union Fulbright Fellowship, I map out how these mining heritage sites now serve as cultural resources for the public benefit. The Serbariu mine (now the Italian Centre for Coal Mining Culture) served as a key resource to the Italian war effort, while the Belgian Bois du Cazier coal mine, and contemporary museum and World Heritage Site, still negotiates its memorial landscape honoring the Marcinelle disaster which killed many Italian post-war “guest-workers.” The coexistence of these two interconnected sites along the same route on opposite sides of Europe further points towards the direction of mining heritage as an increasingly transnational, yet community-integrated, process.
3 p.m. Where Was the Union? Labor and the Barnes-Hecker - Daniel Truckey – Director, Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center
4 p.m. UP in the U.P.: Songs and Stories about Mining Towns - Bill Jamerson – Historian and Singer/Songwriter