Talk about a single complex question that has a lot of complicated answers. But it is one of the most important ones to get as correct as possible. So, let’s begin with the shortest and simplest answer, if that is all you are here to get:
No.
They did not need to be classified as “gaseous” by the knowledge and standards of 1907 or any year prior. Though the local Fairmont district was considered to be one of the more generally “gaseous” areas of the broader Pittsburgh Seam, mines #6 & #8 in Monongah were, surprisingly, not “gaseous”.
Deputy Mine Inspector LaRue and several others who had plenty of personal background in “gaseous” mines, locally and around the country at the time, testify and confirm that #6 & #8, “produced some gas, but they were not dangerously gaseous.”
So, by their own words & knowledge of their time, the mere presence of gas does not imply or classify a mine as “gaseous”. That still holds true today.
Yeah, it could happen from time to time, place to place with underground work. You’ve gotten lucky with *this* spot. So far.
For more on:
- Inspector LaRue’s testimony: (Report of Hearings before the Joint Select Committee of the Legislature of West Virginia, pages 515 – 520)
- Basics of Coal Mine Methane: Global Methane Initiative PDF
- Vocabulary: What classifies a mine as “gaseous”?, What are “damps”?
© 2026 Katie Orwig. All Rights Reserved.
