Graven Images: the Bearcreek Cemetery and the Smith Mining Disaster

MontanaHistoricalSociety

Montana Department of Transportation historian Jon Axline explains how the Bearcreek Cemetery is a time capsule that provides a wealth of information about a once-thriving coal town that, essentially, no longer exists. The cemetery also contains the remains of many of the men who were killed in the 1943 Smith Mine disaster, the worst coal mining disaster in Montana history. What the cemetery tells us about that community is extraordinary and provides a unique peek into Carbon County’s past.