[3] The strike was characterized by firefights and use of dynamite, and ended after a standoff between the Colorado state militia and a private force working for owners of the mines.

[citation needed] In January 1894, Cripple Creek mine owners J. J. Hagerman, David Moffat and Eben Smith, who together employed one-third of the area's miners, announced a lengthening of the work-day to ten hours (from eight), with no change to the daily wage of $3.00 (~$106.00 in 2023) per day.

Union president John Calderwood issued a notice a week later demanding that the mine owners reinstate the eight-hour day at the $3.00 wage.

On March 14, they obtained a court injunction ordering the miners not to interfere with the operation of their mines, and hired strikebreakers.

[9][10] On March 16, an armed group of miners ambushed and captured six sheriff's deputies en route to the Victor mine.

An Altman judge, a member of the WFM, charged the deputies with carrying concealed weapons and disturbing the peace, then released them.

[9][10] After the assault on his deputies, El Paso County[11] Sheriff M. F. Bowers wired the governor and requested the intervention of the state militia (predecessor to the Colorado National Guard).

Governor Davis H. Waite, a 67-year-old Populist, dispatched 300 troops to the area on March 18 under the command of Adjutant General T. J. Tarsney.

Convinced that Bowers had exaggerated the extent of the chaos in the region, Tarsney recommended the withdrawal of troops; Waite concurred.

[9][13] In early May, the mine owners met with representatives of the WFM in Colorado Springs in an attempt to end the strike.

[9] Shortly after negotiations with the union ended, the mine owners met secretly with Sheriff Bowers in Colorado Springs.

They told Bowers they intended to bring in hundreds of nonunion workers, and asked if he could protect such a large force of men.

As they started to march toward the strikers' camp, miners at the Strong mine blew up the shafthouse, hurling the structure more than 300 feet into the air.

Bowers quickly recruited men from all over the state, and established a camp for them in the town of Divide, about 12 miles away from Cripple Creek.

[citation needed] Warned about the size of the force Bowers was raising, Governor Davis Hanson Waite interceded again in the strike.

In a development unparalleled in American labor history, he also declared the force of 1,200 deputies to be illegal and ordered the group disbanded.

Concerned that the paramilitary force might get out of hand, Waite again dispatched the state militia, this time under the command of General E.J.

[3][1] When Colorado state troops arrived in Cripple Creek early on the morning of June 6, more violence had already broken out.

As Sheriff Bowers and Gen. Brooks began to argue about what course of action to take next, the deputies took advantage of the lull and attempted to charge the miners.

[1][21] Waite threatened to declare martial law, but the mine owners refused to disband their deputy force.

The WFM flourished in the Cripple Creek area for almost a decade, even helping to elect most county officials (including the new sheriff).

[24] The Cripple Creek strike also transformed the Western Federation of Miners enormously as a political entity.

Politicians and labor officials throughout the country became steady allies of the union, and the WFM became a political force throughout much of the Rocky Mountain West.

Indeed, when the union struck the Cripple Creek mines again in 1898, its public support ended after violence broke out.

During another strike in 1903–4, whose violent significance earned it the name Colorado Labor Wars, the union went up against the power of the employers and the state combined.

[24][27] The collapse of the 1896 Leadville strike caused the WFM to sever its relationship with the American Federation of Labor and to turn strongly to the left politically.

Although the IWW's heyday was short-lived, the union was symbolically important and the ideals embodied by it continue to deeply influence the American labor movement to this day.