Michael J. and Lillian Hannigan

MICHAEL J. HANNIGAN WAS BORN in Ireland in 1878 and emigrated to the United States in 1898. On June 11, 1902, he married Laura Lillian (Allen) Sudrow, a native of Wisconsin, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Hannigan was, in all probability, employed as a miner.

The first evidence of the family’s presence in Nevada appears in the March 23, 1906 edition of the Goldfield News and Weekly Tribune, which lists Hannigan as a member of the arrangements committee for the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration, describing him as a “prominent Irish American.” By this time, the family included a daughter named Frances. The Hannigans later relocated to Tonopah, where Michael found employment at the Tonopah Belmont Mine.

Hannigan was on shift at the Belmont Mine in the early morning hours of February 23, 1911, when a fire broke out shortly after 2:30 a.m. at the 1,166-foot station. When the day shift arrived at 7:00 a.m., smoke was issuing from the main shaft in such volume that entry was forbidden. Miners instead entered through the Desert Queen Mine, which was connected to the Belmont by an underground tunnel. By shortly after 8:00 a.m., conditions deteriorated to the point that it was deemed necessary to bring the men to the surface.
Many were rescued, but several remained underground—including Mike Hannigan. All subsequent efforts to reach them failed.

As news spread, crowds of miners, family members, and the morbidly curious gathered at the top of the Belmont shaft, waiting as cages came up bearing men—dead or alive. On a hillside roughly a quarter mile from the mine stood a small group of six women, wives and sisters of the entombed men. The Tonopah Daily Bonanza reported on February 24:
“Of the number, but one is missing. She is the wife of Michael Hannigan, a former Goldfield man. Within a few days, if the All-Seeing One is good, she will clasp in her arms a tiny mite of humanity to console her for the loss of the husband and father who went to his death in a brave effort to protect the property of his employers.”

Laura Hannigan’s absence was entirely understandable—she was in the final days of pregnancy.

A coroner’s jury convened on February 27 to investigate the deaths. It was determined that Hannigan had fallen from the cage ascending the east Belmont shaft while in a weakened condition caused by partial asphyxiation, leaving him unable to maintain his position of safety. Hannigan, along with Nick Olevich and Matt Slemsekm, had initially been rescued by Belmont Mine fire hero “Big Bill” Murphy, and all of them perished. Testimony was given by John Hannigan—Michael’s brother, proprietor of a Tonopah men’s clothing store known as The Toggery, and an employee of the Tonopah Mining Company’s Silver Top Mine—who stated that he identified his brother by a watch and a distinctive cut on his face.

In its findings, the jury ruled that mine management and supervisory personnel demonstrated a lack of knowledge and experience in responding to such emergencies and further failed to foresee or properly appreciate the grave danger presented by a mine fire. Seventeen men lost their lives as a result of the disaster.

Michael Hannigan was laid to rest in the Old Tonopah Cemetery during a mass funeral for many of the miners who perished, the sad funeral proceeding down Main Street in a blizzard. His brother John was appointed administrator of the estate and was represented by attorney Hugh Brown, who would later play a significant role in Nevada legal history as the founder of the state’s first bar association.

Mining exacted its toll on John Hannigan as well. He died in Colfax, California, in February 1918 after seeking treatment for silicosis. Laura Hannigan, Mike’ s widow and John’s sister-in-law, accompanied his remains back to Tonopah, where he was buried in the New Tonopah Cemetery.

As with so many of the stories connected to the Old Tonopah Cemetery, this one bears a final and sorrowful codicil. On April 11, 1911, Laura Hannigan gave birth in Goldfield to the couple’s second daughter, Lillian Agnes Hannigan. The infant lived only three days. She was buried in her father’s plot in the Old Tonopah Cemetery, a quiet and heartbreaking postscript to the Belmont Mine disaster and a stark reminder of the losses borne by Tonopah’s mining families.