[2] Local miners had first organized under the Knights of Labor and were, by 1914, earning union wages and benefits under representation of the UMW District 21.
As that governing agreement was scheduled to expire July 1, 1914, Bache announced in March that he intended to turn his mines into non-union operations.
Bache informed Pete Stewart, executive with the UMW, then shut down his mines and prepared to reopen them on an open shop basis on April 6.
Hearing rumors of a possible armed confrontation with the disgruntled miners, Bache bought a number of Winchester rifles and ammunition, and surrounded his principal mining plant at Prairie Creek, No.
As the union men advanced on the site, the employees deserted the mine which filled with water once the rioters had destroyed the main pumps at the operation.
Bache obtained from the federal District Court an injunction against the union miners and others taking part in the violence, including among them the president of No.
On Sunday night, July 12, about midnight, there was a fusillade of shots into the homes in the small village of Frog town, about a mile and a half from Prairie Creek mine.
On the night of the July 16, the union miners' families who lived in Prairie Creek were warned by friends to leave that vicinity in order to avoid danger, and at 4 a.m. a volley of many shots fired into the premises began the following morning the attack.
21 funds, and before daylight on July 17 began an attack upon the men whom Bache had brought together, and proceeded to destroy the property and equipment again.
A large, union backed force with guns attacked the Prairie Creek site and other properties belonging to Bache, from all sides later on in the day.
The assailants took some of Bache's employees prisoners as they were escaping, and took them to a log cabin behind the schoolhouse near the mine where the first riot meeting was held.