Rim Rock Drive road-building disaster (Colorado National Monument)

Description

On December 11, 1932, nine men were killed during the construction of Rim Rock Drive over the Colorado National Monument. Elbert Miracle, who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps at the time and was helping to build Rim Rock Drive, gives a description of the accident in his oral history interview. According to Miracle, the men were building an “open-faced tunnel” into rock. Crews were trying to hurry so that Thomas Secrest, who headed the operation, could get through the area when he came later to the Monument. A man named Halloway was on top of the rock with a jack hammer when a shot of dynamite was exploded in the tunnel below. Several other men were also working up top. Miracle does not explain exactly how the accident happened, but three men, including his brother-in-law, were pitched off the side of the rock and into a canyon, where they died. Miracle says that five other men died on top of the rock. All told, nine local men died (“Monument canon to be memorial to nine who died in rockslide on Rimrock Road Tues. afternoon,” Daily Sentinel, 13 December 1932). Miracle names seven of the deceased: Halloway, Bill (or possibly Bob) Fuller, Buster Marlen, Clyde Vanloon, Harley Beeson, Carmichael, and Rupp. Miracle had a stomach issue at that time, and was some yards away from the worksite dealing with his issue when the accident happened. He helped retrieve the bodies after the accident. Mike “Reveille” Marshall, the commanding officer of the Civilian Conservation Corps during that time, lays the blame for the accident at the feet of Thomas Secrest. Secrest, he said, was ruthless in his treatment of the CCC workers, and drove them to be unsafe in their work by insisting on unrealistic progress in the road’s construction. Complaints about lack of attention to safety protocols were filed after the accident.