State Capitol’s stunning beauty came at a terrible cost

[Omaha Steve]

Tomorrow April 28th is Workers Memorial Day. I will be at the Omaha service. This is for all workers regardless of union membership.


http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4855

By Randy Croce
26 April 2011

ST. PAUL - The stunning beauty of the Minnesota State Capitol came at a cost – at least five workers died building it. These men had been virtually forgotten, but will finally be publicly recognized for the first time during the Workers Memorial Day ceremony Thursday.

Every April 28, the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council holds a ceremony to remember workers killed and injured on the job and to renew the call for workplace safety. This year’s event will be at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Workers’ Memorial Garden on the state Capitol grounds.

Fittingly, the names of the workers who died in the Capitol’s construction between 1898 and 1903 will be read, along with the names of building trades workers who died on Minnesota job site accidents or from work-related illnesses during the last year.


Workers hoist and place the stone to construct the Capitol in St. Paul.

Unknown for decades
Newspaper articles and records of the Capitol Commission reported that six workers died during the construction, but no source listed all the names. Only two or three of the workers were known to the Capitol Historic Site office. Over the last year, Dave Riehle, John Sielaff and Victoria Woodcock discovered the identities of five of these workers (and as yet unconfirmed clues about the sixth victim) through their research for the Labor Education Service project, “Who Built the Capitol?”

The first worker to lose his life on the Capitol project was Felix Arthur, who came north with the marble shipped to St. Paul from a quarry in Nelson, Georgia. He was working on a stone polishing machine when he got caught in the flywheel. He died in the hospital several hours later, on May 5, 1898, at the age of 25.


FULL story at link.

[WillyT]

1. HUGE K & R !!!

Thank you for posting this!

:hi:

:kick:

[crickets]

2. I didn't know we had a Workers Memorial Day.

I do now - thanks for posting this! K&R

[Omaha Steve]

3. More info about it here

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/safety/memorial/

I attended today's ceremony in Omaha. No press info to post yet. Ne. is 5th on the deaths per 100,000 list in the USA.