Editing Monongah, West Virginia (section)

===Monongah mining disaster===
{{Main|Monongah mining disaster}}
Monongah suffered the loss of all 358 miners underground and an engineer on the surface when [[Fairmont Coal Company]] Mines No 6 and No 8 exploded at 10:30 am on December 6, 1907. The dead consisted of 171 Italians, 85 Americans, 52 Hungarians, 31 Russians, 15 Austrians, and 5 Turks. Three more people died in the aftermath, yielding a total of 361 victims. This [[mining accident]] left approximately 250 widows and 500 fatherless children.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}

Mayor W.H. Moore, along with D.F. Morris, William Gaskins, and John Boydoh served on the Monongah Relief Committee, formed soon after to help manage the aid effort. Mayor Moore headed the Monongah Mines Relief Committee after Monongah and Fairmont decided to merge their committees into a joint effort.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ma1IAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22consolidated+coal%22+monongah&pg=PA136 History of the Monongah Mines Relief Fund, pp 9–10], books.google.com; accessed June 18, 2017.</ref>

Memorials were erected in the center of town to recognize the centennial of the mining disaster on December 7, 2007. One memorial, titled ''Monongah Heroine'', consists of a statue of a mother holding a baby with a young child beside her. It is dedicated to the widows and mothers of the miners who died. The inspiration for the statue is reported to have come from Catarina Davia, a woman widowed by the disaster.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} Feeling betrayed by the coal company for lack of compensation after her husband's death she vowed to make the 1.3 mile trek from her home to the mine to steal a satchel of coal every day until she died. She didn't only do this once every day but she did it twice. Her house was still standing until an accidental fire burned the house down on September 10, 2010. A second memorial, consisting of an engraved metal bell and plaque, was placed by the Italians to recognize the many victims from [[Molise]] in southern Italy.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}

Father [[Everett Francis Briggs]], a Roman Catholic missionary of the  [[Maryknoll]] order, oversaw the memorial project and died just a few days after its completion. On February 21, 2002, the West Virginia Legislature (House Concurrent Resolution no. 40) resolved "to name the bridge which traverses the West Fork River in Marion County, located .12 miles west of county route 27/2, the ''Father [[Everett Francis Briggs]] Bridge''", in honor of Briggs' dedication to the forgotten victims of the 1907 tragedy and the mine widows.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}