Today marks the 123rd anniversary of the arrival of black coalminers to Roslyn. The miners were brought in by the Northern Pacific to help break a strike in the young mining town. It seems that the white miners were demanding an eight hour work day, not an eleven hour day. With the first train load of strikebreakers they were actually taken just north of town to Ronald and Mine #3. With the strikebreakers came 48 armed guards. It was the armed guards that caught the attention of the Territorial Governor, Eugene Semple. Semple didn't like the idea of an armed militia running around Central Washington, so he ordered the Sheriff to arrest the guards and the strikebreakers on trespassing charges. Mine #3 maybe didn't actually belong to the Northwest Pacific Coal Company, it was a matter currently in the courts. Eventually the strike and the charges against the guards and strikebreakers were settled. It was then that the black strikebreakers began to move into Roslyn, making it one of, if not the most, integrated cities in Washington. Tonight pictures of Roslyn and Ronald.
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