The Deep Dark

On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine in Kellogg, Idaho, on their daily quest for silver. From his office window, safety engineer Bob Launhardt could see the air shafts that fed fresh air into the mine, which was more than a mile below the surface. Sunshine was a fireproof hardrock mine, full of nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There were many safety concerns, but fire wasn’t one of them. So when thick black smoke began pouring from one of the air shafts, Launhardt was as amazed as he was struck with fear.

When the alarm sounded, less than half of the dayshift was able to return to the surface. The others were too deep in the mine to escape. Scores of miners died almost immediately, but in one of the deepest corners of the mine, Ron Flory and Tom Wilkinson were left alone and in total darkness, surviving off a trickle of fresh air from a borehole. The miners’ families waited and prayed, while Launhardt refused to give up the search until he could be sure that no one was left underground.

In The Deep Dark, Gregg Olsen looks beyond an intensely suspenseful story of the rescue and into the wounded heart of Kellogg, a quintessential company town that has never recovered from its loss.