The Columbine Massacre

No, not that one - the Columbine Mine Massacre, in Serene, Colorado. It happened today in 1927: a coal miners' strike had been going on for five weeks, shutting down every one of the 14 coal mines in northern Colorado except for the mighty Columbine. The Columbine normally employed 500, and they successfully lured 150 scabs to work during the strike by granting a fifty cent per day raise. On the morning of November 21, striking miners approached the company town for a routine peaceful protest as they had for several weeks. But that morning state police in civilian clothes, backed up by company security, barred the protesters' entry.

Four days earlier, machine guns had been brought to Serene. As a Boulder paper put it (misplaced modifiers are not new):

Machine guns are the best answer to the picketers. Posted at the Columbine mine, willing workers go to work while picketers slink back. Machine guns manned by willing shooters are wanted at other Colorado mines...

It was these guns, and these "willing shooters", who met the picketers that morning. The police denied the picketers entry to the town; the picketers insisted that the town was not private property. There was a sudden scuffle, with the police beating popular strike organizer Adam Bell about the head. Gravely injured, Bell collapsed to the ground, and the miners surged through the gate to protect him. The police retreated, then opened up with deadly fire directly into the crowd. At least six picketers died; more than sixty were injured. No police were shot: this was an IWW action, and they were never violent (unlike the UMWA, who responded to violence with violence) - nor was there a violent response to this massacre. Union organizers counseled angry miners with Joe Hill's words: "Don't mourn, organize."

After this strike ended, the Columbine and its parent company became a union mine. Other companies tried to force it out of business, but the Columbine miners were so supportive of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company that they voted to loan part of their increase in wages back to the company.

More on the Columbine Strike story is here.