Columbine Mine massacre

Adam Bell; Amelia Milka Sablich Jesse F. Welborn; Louis Scherf The Columbine Mine massacre occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado.

In the midst of the 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike across the state, workers had been picketing one of the few remaining operating mines, in Serene.

The company town of Serene, Colorado, nestled on a rolling hillside, was the home of the Columbine mine.

That morning, the recently disbanded state police known as the Colorado Rangers were recalled to duty and would meet the picketers and bar their path.

[6] The miners were surprised to see men dressed in civilian clothes but armed with pistols, rifles, riot guns and tear gas.

Mrs. Elizabeth Beranek, the mother of 16 children and one of the flag-bearers, tried to protect him by thrusting her flag in front of his attackers.

Jerry Davis grabbed one of the fallen flags as hundreds of angry miners surged through the entrance, others scaled the fence east of the gate.

Miners later claimed that their ranks were decimated by a withering crossfire from the mine tipple – a structure where coal was loaded onto railroad cars – and from a gun on a truck near the water tank.

Frank Kovich of Erie, Rene Jacques, 26, of Louisville, and 21-year-old Jerry Davis died hours later in the hospital.

The Flag of the United States Davis carried was riddled with seventeen bullet holes and stained with blood.

Some witnesses identified a mine guard who had climbed the tipple and may have operated the machine gun mounted there, providing one possible explanation for the discrepancy in testimony.