The term Springhill mining disaster can refer to any of three separate Canadian mining disasters which occurred in 1891, 1956, and 1958 in different mines within the Springhill coalfield, near the town of Springhill in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.
The mines in the Springhill coalfield were established in the 19th 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., whose investors later sold it to the industrial conglomerate Dominion Coal Company Ltd. (DOMCO) in 1910.
Following the third disaster in 1958, the operator Dominion Steel & Coal Corporation Ltd. (DOSCO), then a subsidiary of the A.V. Roe Canada Company Ltd., shut its mining operations in Springhill, and they were never reopened. Today the mine properties, among the deepest works in the world and filled with water, are owned by the government of Nova Scotia and provide Springhill's industrial park with a source of geothermal heat.
Read more about Springhill Mining Disaster: 1891 Fire, 1956 Explosion, 1958 Bump, Aftermath and Representations in Popular Culture
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