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The Hecla Mine compound was the site of sustained violence between strikers and <br />strikebreakers in the days following the Ludlow Massacre in April 1914 in southern <br />Colorado, where a strike had also been in effect. The Ludlow Massacre refers to the <br />deaths of 20 people, some of them women and children, by the Colorado state militia. <br />The news inflamed striking coal miners along the Front Range. By April 1914, their strike <br />had been going on for four years. The UMWA immediately issued a call to arms for <br />Colorado striking miners. The governor then ordered law officers to confiscate machine <br />guns and searchlights from coal mines. However, gunfire broke out near Louisville before <br />this could be done. The Hecla Mine and the town of Louisville itself were subject to about <br />fourteen hours of nearly continuous gunfire between the strikebreakers who were at the <br />Hecla and the strikers. Several men were injured and one died of his injuries. The state <br />militia was brought in to establish peace, then federal troops were called in. The federal <br />troops set up camp just east of Louisville. When the violent conflict had ended, bullet <br />holes covered some of the buildings in the Hecla Mine compound. <br />Two recent Louisville Historian articles show the extent to which the Casino building was <br />at the center of events taking place during the Coal Wars in Colorado. <br />The Winter 2014 issue of The Louisville Historian, viewable online at <br />http://www.louisvilleco.gov/home/showdocument?id=1132, extensively described the <br />strike events and activity at the Hecla in a lead article written by Ron Buffo. He wrote the <br />article in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the strike violence in 1914, and he also <br />led a driving tour in April 2014, of historical sites relevant to the strike violence, that <br />included a stop by the Casino building. <br />5 <br />