Clark County NV Archives Obituaries.....DARRINGTON, Walter March 1919
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gerry Perry missgerry@cox.net June 1, 2004, 1:27 am

Las Vegas Age - 3/22/1919


THE GREEN MONSTER MINE CLAIMS VICTIM



GOODSPRINGS MAN, WORKING ALL ALONE UNDERGROUND DIES HORRIBLE DEATH



    The lifeless body of Walter DARRINGTON, a well known and respected

citizen of Goodsprings, was discovered on the 200 foot level of the Green

Monster mine, about 20 miles from Goodsprings, last Friday, Mar. 15th.

    Mr. DARRINGTON had a lease on the Green Monster, a property belonging to

the Hearst interests, and had been working a crew of men up to the first of

the month.  Owing to the low price of metal, he had laid off his crew and

was working the property all alone.  His many friends had remonstrated with

him and insisted that he have someone with him in case of accident, but Mr.

DARRINGTON had scoffed at the idea.

    The last time he was seen in Goodsprings, where he had gone for

supplies, he had made a date to meet Mr. James E. COX of that place on the

5th of March.  He didn't keep his engagement and, after a week had passed,

Mr. COX became alarmed and went out to the mine to investigate.  Arriving

there, he found everything in order, except for the fact that the place

where DARRINGTON lived didn't seem to have been inhabited for some time.

Mr. COX descended the shaft and on the 200 foot level a few feet from the

shaft, he found the lifeless, mangled body of his friend.

    Investigation proved DARRINGTON had been injured some 800 feet from

where the body was found.  He had evidently been working there in the roof

of the stop, when several large boulders had caved in, breaking the scaffold

on which he had been working and burying him beneath them in the bottom of

the winze.

    One leg had been broken and terribly crushed and there were bruises on

the head and body.  The evidence showed that the injured man had managed to

extricate himself from under a rock weighing some seven or eight hundred

pounds.  Then, badly mangled as he was and suffering from severe loss of

blood and in that awful blackness which only those who have been many feet

underground without a light can appreciate, he began to fight for his life.

To begin with, he dragged himself up a 25-foot ladder, then crawled 15 feet

on his stomach with only his hands to aid him, and then up another ladder

thirty feet this time; then for 750 feet he worked his way prone, upon the

ground to within about 20 feet of the station on the 200 foot level.

Frequent pools of blood told the tale of a period of rest, and there were

evidences in one place that he had been caught between the rails and that he

had worked for sometime before freeing himself.  How many hours or days this

painfully labored journey in the darkness consumed, no one knows.  We can

only guess at hours of agonizing pain, and more agonizing thirst, until the

end, when he laid his head upon his arm and fell asleep.

    Death had evidentally occurred a week or ten days previous to

the finding of the body.  Whether he suffered long, or whether there was

intense pain; whether he lived days and suffered for the want of eat or

drink, or whether the fighting spirit of the man caused him to go on and on

after unconsciousness to where the body was found, will never be known by

his friends.

    Walter DARRINGTON was a native of England, and although 68 years of age,

had the vitality and appearance of a man of 15 or 20 years younger.  He has

spent many years in mining camps, haing been present at the Cripple Creek

boom.  He had no near relatives as far as can be learned.

    The body was shipped to Las Vegas and interred in the Las Vegas

Cemetery.









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