At approximately 9:37 in the morning, methane gas that had accumulated in the mine found an ignition source. The United States Bureau of Mines investigation would later reveal troubling details: men were allowed to smoke underground, and blasting fuses were lit with matches. Any spark could have triggered the catastrophe. The Bureau's report determined that 30 men died instantly in the explosion itself. The remainder perished from injuries or suffocation as carbon monoxide and methane filled the tunnels. The blast occurred so deep underground that the surface remained oblivious to the horror unfolding below. Families went about their Saturday morning routines, unaware that their worlds had already ended.

Smith Mine No. 3 sat between the small towns of Bearcreek and Washoe in Carbon County, near the Beartooth Mountains. The mine had operated for years, extracting coal from seams beneath the Montana prairie. That Saturday, the reduced weekend crew reported for work as usual. When the explosion ripped through the tunnels, those who survived the initial blast faced a race against time as toxic gases flooded the workings. Rescue crews mobilized, but the mine's depth and the spread of lethal gases made recovery operations dangerous and slow. All 74 bodies were eventually recovered from the tunnels. The mine never reopened. Its dark passages remain sealed, a tomb in all but name.

Investigators pieced together the sequence of events. Methane, the deadly firedamp that has killed miners for centuries, had built up in the workings. Ventilation systems existed but proved inadequate against the invisible accumulation. The cause of ignition was never definitively established, though the evidence pointed toward human error compounded by lax safety practices. Men smoking in a methane-filled environment. Matches struck to light blasting fuses. Any of these could have provided the spark. The disaster ranked as the 43rd worst coal mining accident in American history according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a grim position on a list that includes the 1907 Monongah catastrophe in West Virginia that killed 362.

A highway plaque now stands near the sealed mine entrance, marking the spot where dozens of families lost fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Memorials rise in the cemeteries of Bearcreek and nearby Red Lodge, the Carbon County seat. The Smith Mine Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, preserving the site and its somber history. The disaster devastated the tight-knit communities that depended on the mine. Bearcreek never fully recovered from the loss of so many working-age men in a single morning. The population dwindled as families moved away and the mine stayed closed. The town survives today as a shadow of its former self, population measured in dozens rather than hundreds.

The landscape around the former Smith Mine looks peaceful now. Rolling prairie stretches toward the Beartooth Range, and little visible evidence remains of the industrial operation that once employed much of the local population. But the memory persists. Every February 27th, the anniversary passes over Carbon County, and those who know the history remember the morning when an explosion that nobody heard changed everything. The three survivors carried their stories for the rest of their lives. The sealed mine keeps its secrets. The memorials stand in their cemeteries, listing the names of 74 men who went to work on a Saturday morning and never came home. Montana's worst coal mining disaster left no physical scar on the land, only an absence where families used to be.