Sep 4, 2026 · 28 min · 10 segments
In this episode of PCCast, Dalton Gackle of the Park City Museum talks about where the Miners Day holiday came from and what mining life was like, plus Wayne McKay discusses the new Historic Mine…
Dalton GackleGuest
Wayne McKayGuest
Parker MalatestaHost
But before that, I'm sure the miners really looked forward to those days of rest because from what I read, it was quite a tedious job.
Can you kind of talk about what maybe a nine to five looked like back in the day? Or I don't know if that's when they were clocking in and just what the conditions were like in the in the work areas.
I mean, you could maybe get an exception for like a really important life event, like for the birth of a child or for like a funeral or something like that, where like everybody would be respectful about like, oh yeah, that specific guy needs that day off.
But otherwise, like for everybody, the mines were trying to operate 24-7, 365 for the most part.
Depending on the year, sometimes they would get Christmas off and maybe one other day.
So you maximum had four or five days off a year per individual person, which sucks, right? That's already not ideal.
And then on top of that, mining, especially in those days, is just the worst conditions, right? You're working underground.
It's wet down there, specifically in Park City, where our mines are notoriously wet underground.
A lot of our miners end up passing away from miners consumption, which specifically here relates to getting silicosis of the lungs as opposed to like black lung back east, like in a coal mine.
But basically your lungs would be cut by these tiny pieces of silicate dust and lungs don't heal, they scar.
And so eventually when your entire lung is just scar tissue, you stop breathing, right? It's not a fun way to go at all.
You know, it's a really tough, horrible life and not until further safety improvements where they have like electric drills that also have a hose attached that like tamp down the dust and, you know, safety regulations from whether they're implemented by the mining companies themselves or the unions or eventually we get Mensha, the counterpart to OSHA, the federal agency overlooking mine safety and that kind of stuff.
Miners, despite all that, are proud of their hard work because they're doing something that's like extracting something physical that is needed around the world.
But before that, I'm sure the miners really looked forward to those days of rest because from what I read, it was quite a tedious job.
Can you kind of talk about what maybe a nine to five looked like back in the day? Or I don't know if that's when they were clocking in and just what the conditions were like in the in the work areas.
I mean, you could maybe get an exception for like a really important life event, like for the birth of a child or for like a funeral or something like that, where like everybody would be respectful about like, oh yeah, that specific guy needs that day off.
But otherwise, like for everybody, the mines were trying to operate 24-7, 365 for the most part.
Depending on the year, sometimes they would get Christmas off and maybe one other day.
So you maximum had four or five days off a year per individual person, which sucks, right? That's already not ideal.
And then on top of that, mining, especially in those days, is just the worst conditions, right? You're working underground.
It's wet down there, specifically in Park City, where our mines are notoriously wet underground.
A lot of our miners end up passing away from miners consumption, which specifically here relates to getting silicosis of the lungs as opposed to like black lung back east, like in a coal mine.
But basically your lungs would be cut by these tiny pieces of silicate dust and lungs don't heal, they scar.
And so eventually when your entire lung is just scar tissue, you stop breathing, right? It's not a fun way to go at all.
You know, it's a really tough, horrible life and not until further safety improvements where they have like electric drills that also have a hose attached that like tamp down the dust and, you know, safety regulations from whether they're implemented by the mining companies themselves or the unions or eventually we get Mensha, the counterpart to OSHA, the federal agency overlooking mine safety and that kind of stuff.
Miners, despite all that, are proud of their hard work because they're doing something that's like extracting something physical that is needed around the world.
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