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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Violence erupts between union workers, protesting wage reductions and increased hours, and company guards at a mine in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on July 11, 1892. These riots resulted in several deaths and the declaration of martial law by the Governor of Idaho. In 1899, escalating violence at a Coeur d'Alene area mine again required military intervention after workers destroyed a valuable piece of machinery. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| April 1892 | Union workers in the Coeur d'Alene mining region of northern Idaho go on strike over reduced wages. Mine owners respond by hiring nonunion workers and armed guards. |
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| July 11, 1892 | Riots break out between union workers and company guards. Several men are killed, and the nonunion workers surrender. The governor of Idaho institutes martial law, and the National Guard is sent to restore order. |
| July 15, 1893 | Union officers, members and sympathizers are arrested. Nonunion workers return to the mines and are provided with military protection. |
| 1893 | The Western Federation of Miners is formed. |
| July 3, 1894 | John Kneebone, a nonunion miner who had testified against the union miners in a trial following the uprising, is murdered. |
| April 29, 1899 | Union workers seize a railroad train and take it to Wardner, Idaho. At the Wardner mine, the workers detonate over 50 boxes of dynamite under one of the world’s largest mining concentrators, destroying the device. |
| May 4, 1899 | Federal troops are sent to the Coeur d’Alene region. Several union members are arrested. |
| November 1899 | 10 union workers are convicted and three are acquitted on charges of conspiracy and of stopping a U.S. mail train. |
