Nova Scotia suffers its first serious mining…
February 1891 CE
Some of the victims are ten to thirteen years old.
Rescue efforts throughout that afternoon and evening are made easier by the lack of fire in No. 1 and No. 2, but the scale of the disaster is unprecedented in Nova Scotian or Canadian mining history, and the subsequent relief funds will see contributions come in from across the country and the British Empire, including Queen Victoria.
A subsequent inquiry will determine that sufficient gas detectors in working order had been present in the two collieries; however, the ignition source of the explosion is never determined, despite investigators having pinpointed its general location.
Coal mining led to economic growth, with its incorporation as a town in 1889.
The mines in the Springhill coalfield had been established in the nineteenth century, and by the early 1880s were being worked by the Cumberland Coal & Railway Company Ltd. and the Springhill & Parrsboro Coal & Railway Company Ltd.
These entities merged in 1884 to form the Cumberland Railway & Coal Company Ltd., which its investors will sell in 1910 to the industrial conglomerate Dominion Coal Company Ltd. (DOMCO).
All coal mining will have ceased in the area by the early 1970s.
The community is famous today for both the Springhill Mining Disaster and being the childhood home of international recording star Anne Murray, who is honored by the Anne Murray Centre, a popular tourist attraction.
As of 2015 the mine properties, among the deepest in the world, will be filled with water and provide Springhill's industrial park with geothermal heating.
Geothermal energy from the waters of the abandoned mines are capable of providing heating and cooling for large buildings through the use of heat pumps.
Because the water in a mine circulates by convection, shallow wells produce water of a temperature significantly higher than groundwater of the same depth.
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