Planning the Strike

The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike marked an intense period in the state’s labor history. In August of 1927, leaders of the International Workers of the World prepared and submitted a strike petition to the Colorado Industrial Commission (CIC). Officially unveiled at a September 4th meeting, it largely focused on demands for better pay and working conditions. It also laid out the plan for a strike that would begin on October 8th. The petition deliberately omitted anything that referred to the International Workers of the World, also called the IWW or Wobblies, because they were not a legally recognized union in Colorado. Instead, they called themselves the All State Conference of Colorado Coal Miners. However, the CIC realized that they were a front for the IWW and rejected their petition on the grounds that it was submitted by an unrecognized union. This meant that regardless of how closely the Wobblies followed the CIC rules, their petition to strike would always be rejected.¹

Deeming any and all IWW strikes illegal backfired on the CIC; it encouraged previously hesitant workers to participate in the Wobbly strike, and the date was pushed back from October 8th to October 18th in order to properly organize the northern and southern coal fields of Colorado.²

On October 17th, coalminers gathered in Lafayette, Colorado to vote on the strike. So many workers were present that they had to move from a local meeting hall to a baseball field. The workers unanimously voted to strike. Afterwards, a few men from each mine were called to a closed door meeting to begin planning the protests.³ Miners began to walk off the job the very next day, officially beginning the 1927-1928 Coal Strike on October 18th.⁴

Government Response

On October 19th, Thomas Annear, the state industrial commissioner and representative of the CIC, stated that the strike was illegal on the grounds that the picketers had not provided 30 days notice. The petition that they had submitted as the All State Conference of Colorado Coal Miners remained, in his eyes, illegal.⁵

On October 26th, Governor William H. Adams issued his first official statement on the strike:

The government’s immediately hostile response to the strike was just the beginning; tensions would only increase for the duration of the strike, and they would eventually lead to bloodshed in Colorado.

Columbine Mine Keeps Running

Columbine Mine was run by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, or RMFC. It was the newest and largest mine run by the company and was surrounded by the company town of Serene. It was also the only large coalmine that remained in operation after the strike began. Picketers were very active at Columbine Mine because it was so close to many other towns, including Lafayette and Erie. It allowed protesters to walk or drive to Columbine while scabs were preparing for work and try to dissuade them from working or convince them to join them in the strike.⁷

Columbine, like other northern Colorado coalmines, operated seasonally. The kind of coal that was rich there could not be stored well, but if it was left out too long it would not burn but could, potentially, spontaneously combust. Normally, coal miners only worked from October to March. The strike coincided with the opportune mining season as well as the time when people needed coal most; they needed it to heat their homes and businesses and provide them with electricity.⁸ The timing of the strike placed more pressure on coal companies, including the RMFC and its lone operating mine at Columbine.

Columbine Mine Workers Negotiate

On October 27th, the workers that had been manning Columbine Mine throughout the strike filed a petition with the CIC to raise their pay and impose better working conditions. The CIC considered this document legal, unlike the petition sent in to get permission for the state-wide strike. This was because the petition was filed separately from the strike by miners that worked while others were protesting. Crucially, the petition, and the miners that filed it, had no affiliation with the unrecognized IWW.⁹

This legal recognition scared mine owners, who believed a CIC decision favoring the miners could encourage strikers to keep pushing for wage increases. Simultaneously, owners feared that a decision against the petition could lead to yet more workers walking off of the job.¹⁰ M. D. Vincent, the Vice-President of the RMFC, penned a response to the petition. He acknowledged that the workers had “causes for just complaint” and stated that the company would be willing to increase wages, however he also claimed that the company was not turning a large profit. He said that if miners considered the difficulties the company faced, it would “consider their complaints, and it will be possible, not all at once, but gradually, to improve the conditions of both miners and operators.”¹¹

Two days after receiving the petition, the CIC announced that the basic wage at the Columbine Mine would be increased from $6.27 to $6.77 per 8 hour day. The decision was to be applicable at all six of the mines owned by RMFC, and many officials hoped it would spark the end of the strike in the northern Colorado coal fields.¹² Many Columbine miners were disappointed with the CIC decision, as they had hoped to earn at least $7.25 per day.¹³ Nonetheless, representatives of the Columbine Mine workers accepted the fifty-cent wage increase on October 30th, and by November 2nd more workers began returning to the job. However, this limited win was not enough to quell the strike in the rest of the state. The IWW encouraged protesters to hold out for the higher wage that they wanted, and the demonstrations continued throughout Colorado.¹⁴

The Strike Continues

During the first two weeks of the strike, meetings, rallies, and parades continued to grow stronger and more impactful throughout Colorado. Many picketers were able to convince scabs to join the strike, impacting coal mine production. On November 4th, as they grew more desperate, Colorado Fuel & Iron, or CF&I, told strikers that they would do anything to protect their property. Up to that point, the company had publicly claimed that production had actually increased during the strike, but the day before they had to lay off half of their steel workers because there was insufficient coal to run the plant. In response to this development, Governor Adams decided to intervene.¹⁵

The Colorado State Strike Police

On November 4th, the same day CF&I laid out their willingness to protect their coal mines, Governor Adams revived the controversial prohibition force used by his predecessor, Governor Clarence Morely. Adams had actually campaigned against the force but brought it back as the state strike police, possibly to avoid calling in the more expensive National Guard.¹⁶ 

The new police force was under the direction of Louis Scherf. He and his men raised tensions with the protesters almost immediately. On November 6th, Scherf and seventeen strike officers arrested seven speakers who were about to address a crowd of protesters in Berwind, Colorado. They beat the speakers and, despite being under orders not to open fire, were all armed with pistols. That same day, roughly one thousand strikers gathered in Lafayette for a rally; two hundred of them then marched into Columbine Mine.¹⁷

On November 7th, Adams further expanded the strike police and sent them to the southern fields. When three thousand people rallied at a monument to the Ludlow Massacre, a 1914 slaughter of coal strikers, four airplanes controlled by the strike police flew overhead. One of them was armed with bombs. Meanwhile, in the north, protesters blocked the road leading to Serene and for the first time were able to halt production at Columbine Mine.¹⁸

Tensions at Columbine Mine

On November 8th, a large parade marched through Serene and the Columbine camp. County sheriffs tried and failed to arrest some protesters, who were defended by swarms of picketers that prevented police from getting close enough to arrest their targets. The picketers also convinced some scabs to join their movement, and the number of people working at the Columbine Mine fell to just 75.¹⁹

The arrests the strike police made in the southern fields may have angered and motivated protesters, as roughly one thousand men, women, and children all demonstrated at Columbine Mine at 4 o’clock on the morning of November 12. Another mass rally was held on November 14th. When it marched through Columbine, Weld County sheriffs were once again unable to arrest anyone due to the sheer size of the crowd. That seems to have been a turning point, as strike policemen then told newspaper reporters that the state strike police officers were going to begin enforcing the law in Weld County.²⁰

Columbine Mine closed for fortification on November 15th. Governor Adams sent twelve strike police officers to the northern coal mine, and when it reopened the next day, it was guarded by thirty-fix armed men and two machine guns. Notably, the state legislature only allocated $18,600 for emergency state police funding. Since November 4th, $16,000 of that money had been spent. By November 17th, only a few hundred dollars remained.²¹ It was crucial for Adams to end the strike before the funding for the state police ran out.

The Columbine Mine Massacre

As the sun rose on November 21st, roughly 500 people arrived to parade through Columbine and Serene as they had for the past few weeks. For the first time, however, they found the gates locked. They were met with local sheriffs, RMFC officials, and at least twenty armed state police. Louis Scherf was among the strike police, and he told the crowd they would not be allowed to protest that day. They insisted on their right to march through the company town, and Scherf demanded to talk to their leaders. The strikers responded by saying they were all leaders.²²

The stories of what happened next conflict. Scherf testified that the crowd stormed through the gate unprovoked and attacked the police with knives and rocks. He claimed he gave them verbal warnings to stop, then fired an ineffective warning shot. Left with no other options, he gave his men the order to fire into the crowd.²³

The protesters that witnessed the massacre were not called to testify but showed up at the Weld County Coroner’s office regardless, insisting on telling their story. They argued that after telling Scherf they were all leaders, he began yelling and threatening them. One of the protesters, Adam Bell, began to argue with one of the police officers, and both men tried to climb the fence. Picketers testified that Bell was pulled over the fence by the policeman and beaten. They claimed that they had no choice but to push the fence down in order to save Bell. They stated that, per strike instructions, they carried no weapons with them. However, they admitted to fighting back when the police began to attack them. In the midst of the violence, the police knocked down the picketing flag bearer and trampled the American flag. One eyewitness claimed a woman named Elizabeth Veranek tried to shield the flag with her own body, after which it was picked up and someone tried to continue marching with it.²⁴

It did not take long for shots to be fired, and World War I veterans that participated in the protests testified that the bullets came so fast that they had to have come from machine guns. People began to flee from the mine and soon returned with cars draped in white flags in order to collect the injured.²⁵

Two men, John Eastenes and Nick Spanandakis, were killed immediately. Jerry Davis, Rene Jacques, and George Kovovitch, died by sunset. Although doctors amputated both of his legs in an attempt to save his life, Mike Vidovich died of gangrene by the end of the week. He was the last to die as a result of the Columbine Massacre.²⁶

Aftermath of the Massacre

In spite of the testimony protesters gave, the County Coroner ultimately ruled that the strikers that had been killed were “assembled and invading the mine property after having been properly and legally warned not to enter,” meaning that the deaths were “not felonious.” ²⁷ No one would be charged for any of the six deaths. Following the Massacre, the IWW largely lost control over the strikes, as many protesters refused to risk their lives.²⁸

The day after the Massacre, Governor Adams ordered 325 men to occupy the area surrounding the mine and declared martial law in the northern fields. He also decided to finally mobilize the National Guard, however he never sent them to the Columbine Mine. Instead, they remained in Denver, ninety miles north east of the site of the Massacre. Despite his activation of the Guard, Adams still trusted the state police, allowing them to deal with any unrest for the remainder of the strike.²⁹ As a result of the martial law in the northern fields, the largest protests shifted to the south. There, demonstrators were often arrested or attacked by the strike police. This went on for for the remainder of the strike, until workers finally voted to end it at a meeting near Walsenburg on February 19th, 1928.³⁰

Significance

Governmental Anti-Reform Sentiment

The Columbine Mine Massacre demonstrates the strong push against reform in the 1920s. Part of this was caused by “the political and economic climate that strangled union and worker initiative.”³¹ Indeed, the Colorado state government’s direct involvement in suppressing the strikes was an effort to protect the interests of large corporations. By refusing to legally recognize the strikes, arresting IWW leaders and protesters, and of course firing upon demonstrators at Columbine Mine, the Colorado government demonstrated its willingness to intervene on behalf of coal companies at the expense of workers. The government’s defense of its actions also demonstrates its anti-labor stance, as Governor Adams blamed victims of the shooting by claiming that Scherf had only “ordered his men to fire only when it appeared that his own life and those of his deputies where in jeopardy.” ³²

Public Anti-Reform Sentiment

The public reaction to the Massacre also demonstrates America’s hostility towards the reform movement in the 1920s. During the First Red Scare, when the workers’ rights movement was tainted with the threat of communism, most Americans were afraid of or unsympathetic towards workers and unions. ³³ Newspaper articles from the wake of the Massacre show the animosity many people held towards striking works. For example, one headline refers to the protesters as a mob and writes that the strike officers were “protecting the Columbine Mine.” ³⁴ The antagonistic manner in which the strikers are discussed, combined with the heroic characterization of the state strike police, exhibits the strong anti-reform sentiment seen during the 1920s. Recognizing the push against reform allows for a deeper understanding of what led to the 1927 Columbine Mine Massacre.

Citations

Bibliography

• “1,000 Coal Miners Are Affected by Columbine Award.” Rocky Mountain News. (Denver, CO), October 29, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19271029-01. 
• “2 Miners Die, 3 Hurt As Police Fire on Mob.” Brooklyn Daily Times. (New York, NY), November 21, 1927.
• “Campbell-Hale, Leigh. Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2023.
• “Columbine Miners Not Satisfied with Wage Increase Given Them.” Daily Times. (Longmont, CO), October 29, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271029-01. 
• “Company Makes Reply to Columbine Miners.” Daily Times. (Longmount, CO), October 28, 1927. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271028-01. 
• “Coroner’s Jury Blames Strikers for Deaths Columbine Mine Battle.” Fort Collins Coloradoan. (Fort Collins, CO), November 25, 1927.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang. 1995.
• “Four Strikers Killed in Riot in Coal Fields.” Buffalo Evening News. (Buffalo, NY), November 21, 1927. 
• “Gov. Adams Meets Striking Miners Not Affiliated With the I. W. W.” Boulder Daily Camera. (Boulder, CO), October 27, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=BDC19271027-01. 
• “Industrial Commission Investigates Demand of Weld County Miners.” Daily Times. (Longmont, CO), October 27, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271027-01.
• “Miners In North Field Accept Pay Increase.” Rocky Mountain News, (Denver, CO), October 30, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19271030-01. 
• “Miners Returning to Work at Columbine Mine, Force Gains 60 Since First Day of Strike.” Longmont Daily Call. (Longmont, CO), November 2, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=LDC19271102-01. 
• “Thousands of Colorado Coal Miners Strike Under Orders of I. W. W.” Boulder Daily Camera. (Boulder, CO), October 18, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=BDC19271018-01.2.9.

Suggested Resources

• “Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection.” Colorado State Library. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=p&p=home&e=——-en-20–1-byDA-img-txIN%7CtxCO%7CtxTA-columbine+mine——-0——.
• “Columbine Mine Incident Collection.” University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/518.
• Kerwin, Hugh L. “Industrial Disputes: Strikes and Lockouts in the United States in November, 1927.” Monthly Labor Review 26, no. 1, (1928): 111-120, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41860658.

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

The textbook chapters from The Story of Our Country (1948) and The Americans (2005) largely reflect the topics historians were writing about during their respective time periods. The Story of our Country focuses more on business than The Americans does, as demonstrated in the visualization to the right. This was fairly consistent with the historical scholarship written shortly after the textbook was published. Some of these monographs include The Dollar Decade: Business Ideas in the 1920s by James Warren Prothro and The Great Crash by John Kenneth Galbraith. These books were both written in 1954 and they address the corporate ideology of the 1920s and the leadup to the Wall Street Crash respectively. ¹ This focus on business reflects the concerns of historians at the time. One way that The Story of Our Country does not fit neatly into the historiographical timeline Goldberg outlines is in its discussion of World War I. The only book that Goldberg references that discusses the war is his own 1999 monograph Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s, which “emphasizes the extent to which conflicts during the decade emanated from World War I.” ² The textbook’s focus on conflict is an outlier in the historiographical discussion of the decade because most books written around the same time focus on business and the economy.

The Americans has a stronger emphasis on people than it does business, which is demonstrated in the word cloud to the right. Ideas about minorities, including women and Black Americans, are featured more heavily in this chapter than they are in The Story of Our Country. Both of these trends are consistent with the books published 10 to 15 years before the textbook. For example, Kristi Andersen’s 1996 book After Suffrage: Women in Partisan and Electoral Politics before the New Deal examines the lives of women after the 19th Amendment was ratified, and the 2002 books “We Return Righting:” The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age by Mark Robert Schneider and Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics and Citizenship of Jim Crow Virginia by J. Douglas Smith examine Black Americans in the North and South respectively. ³ The textbook’s discussion of people that have been excluded from the historical narrative in the past is consistent with much of the scholarship that was published in the years preceding it.

The textbooks have very different focuses when compared to one another. The Story of Our Country has a stronger emphasis on business and the war, taking a broader approach that focuses less on what life was like for everyday people during the 1920s. Voyant’s reader tool (below, left) demonstrates the book’s emphasis on what happened in the war itself rather than how it impacted people. Similarly, the bubbleline tool (below, right) indicates how much more important conflict was in the 1948 textbook’s narrative than it was in 2005. The Americans takes a much more in-depth look at the lives of specific demographics in 1920s society. For example, it has a more robust discussion of the lives of Black people during this time. Even accounting for the outdated descriptions of raced utilized when The Story of Our Country was written, it contains far less description of Black history than The Americans. The latter includes more information about Black experiences during the 1920s, although the organization of its bubbleline indicates it was largely relegated to a single section. Still, comparing the two textbooks demonstrates the vastly different priorities of the time they were written in. Specifically, it shows a concern for business and war in the late 1940s and a focus on the lives of minorities in the mid-2000s.

The reader tool (left) shows how The Story of Our Country discusses war. The bubbleline (right) shows the difference in how both textbooks discuss Black history.

While older history is not necessarily less professional than what scholars produce today, knowing when a historian writes helps to evaluate and understand a source. Society’s values and priorities have shifted drastically over the years and they will only continue to do so; acknowledging what most historians considered important during a certain time period allows readers to understand why scholars may include some information and ignore others. It may also reveal an author’s personal biases, as it is very difficult for anyone, including historians, to completely disregard the prejudices and values of their time when writing. Understanding the era a source was created in allows researchers to recognize not only what a scholar was writing about but why and how they chose to do so.

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

The aftermath of the strikes also reflects the anti-reform sentiment of the time. Dumenil argues that part of the reason for this aggression was “the political and economic climate that strangled union and worker initiative. The considerable power of corporations…gave employers a sympathetic government and public.” ⁴ The state’s involvement in suppressing the strike clearly demonstrates its partnership with corporate powers. The two were so entwined that the government was willing to intervene in order to protect the interests of large companies. Furthermore, Colorado Governor William H. Adams later said that the state police chief had “ordered his men to fire only when it appeared that his own life and those of his deputies where in jeopardy.” ⁵ This demonstrates the anti-labor stance taken up by the government during this time.

Additionally, the lack of any convictions for the killings shows how the public responded to the Massacre. Just four days after the shooting, a coroner’s jury in Colorado ruled that the strikers that were killed had been “assembled and invading the mine property after having been properly and legally warned not to enter,” meaning that the deaths were “not felonious.” ⁶ The verdict of this jury, which was made up of regular Colorado citizens, was a demonstration of how public opinion had turned against labor power in the 1920s. These anti-reform beliefs are also evident in newspaper articles published in the wake of the Massacre. One of these, written and distributed by the United Press, characterized the strike as an attack on police that were “protecting the Columbine Mine.” ⁷ This negative depiction of the strikers and the heroic terms used to describe the police exhibit the widespread anti-labor beliefs discussed by Dumenil.

The 1920s were a time of strong anti-reform sentiment in America. Included in these beliefs were suspicion of and hostility towards unions and pro-labor movements. The Columbine Mine Massacre is one example of a violent reaction to worker strikes. It demonstrates how state governments stepped in to protect large companies and their capital, and also shows the strong anti-labor beliefs held by individual politicians. Additionally, the Massacre’s aftermath, including the lack of a conviction for the killing and the response in the press, illustrates the anti-reform attitude that had taken hold in much of the American populace. Overall, analyzing the Columbine Mine Massacre itself as well as the public and governmental responses to it allows for a deeper understanding of anti-labor beliefs in the 1920s.

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

Lynn Dumenil’s book The Modern Temper discusses the technological boom that the 1920s witnessed, including a 64% increase in industrialization over the decade as a whole. This growth included both the chemical and automobile industries.¹ The former had an important impact on the Nome Serum Run, as it was the H. K. Mulford Company that had manufactured the diphtheria antitoxin.² However, the transportation advancements that were dispersing throughout the mainland United States, such as paved roads and cars, had yet to reach the furthest corners of the country. The Nome Serum Run demonstrates that despite the decade’s improvements in transportation technology and Americans’ increasing ability to utilize them, these developments were not yet able to help those outside of the increasingly urban mainland United States.

Unlike transportation improvements, advancements in newspaper technology did impact the Nome Serum Race, though this influence was largely felt outside of Alaska. Instead, it took place in the minds of people in the contiguous United States. Dumenil writes that “because of developments in technology and distribution, [newspapers] increasingly consisted of syndicated news information and photographs.”³ This system, in which a single news story is written and distributed to numerous papers, was exemplified during and after the Nome Serum Run. One week following the serum’s arrival in Nome, the town’s lone physician Dr. Curtis Welch wrote an article for the United Press that was sent to and published by newspapers across the country, all the way from Nebraska to New Jersey. All of this followed weeks of coverage about Nome’s plight as newspapers from all 48 of the recognized states at that time plus the territories of Alaska and Hawai’i reported on the dog sled relay. This also demonstrates the increasingly national news coverage that people were consuming, as described by Dumenil.⁴  It allowed people throughout the country to eagerly follow the Nome Serum Run, waiting to see if it would be successful.

Left: An article written by Dr. Curtis Welch appears in the February 8, 1925 edition of The Trenton Evening Times, based in New Jersey. Right: The same article appears in The Omaha Daily News, based in Nebraska, on the same day. This is an example of syndicated, national news coverage described by Lynn Dumenil in The Modern Temper.

Technological advancements in transportation and publishing were a large part of life for many in the 1920s. Cars were becoming increasingly available to the American public and connecting the country in new ways.⁵ At the same time, newspaper articles written with a national audience in mind allowed for the spread of information from virtually anywhere in the country. These two factors could help explain why the Nome Serum Run became so prominent for so many Americans: at a time when travel was becoming easier in much of the country, a nationalized newspaper story of what happens when these advancements are unavailable entranced the American public.

1.  Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995), 58. ︎
2. William H. Wilson, “The Serum Dash to Nome, 1925,” The Alaska Journal 16, (1986): 257. ︎
3. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 72. ︎
4. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 73. ︎
5. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 58. ︎

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

Discovering the Epidemic

Established as a Gold Rush town in the late 1800s, Nome, Alaska was home to roughly 1,800 people in 1925.¹ Only one of them was a physician. Dr. Curtis Welch first encountered a suspected childhood diphtheria case in October of 1924, however since no one else in the child’s family was exhibiting symptoms of the highly contagious respiratory disease he dismissed it as a cold. The child died two days later, a tragedy Welch ascribed to malnutrition. On January 20th, however, he officially diagnosed a seven year old Indigenous child with diphtheria after noticing the distinctive smell of the disease. The only antitoxin serum Welch had on hand had expired five years earlier. Realizing that the child was unlikely to recover, he risked administering the expired serum. Welch did not observe any negative reaction to the antitoxin. However, his attempt at treatment was too late, and the child passed away. By this point, Welch was able to conclude that the expired serum, while not harmful, would not be effective enough to fight off an epidemic. He immediately notified the mayor of Nome and they formed an emergency Board of Health to enforce a town-wide quarantine.²

The Call for Help

Welch sent a telegram asking for help from the Public Health Service in Washington, D. C. The group was able to quickly locate 300,000 units of antitoxin in Anchorage, but they immediately ran into the issue of transportation. There were two small planes in Anchorage, however they had been disassembled for the winter. Even if they were functional, they would have likely been useless in the below freezing temperatures and 60 to 70 mile per hour winds of the Alaskan winter.³ Instead, the Board of Health and territorial Governor Scott Bone chose to transport the serum via dog sled along the Alaskan Mail Route, also called the Iditarod Trail.⁴ This route normally took 20 days for one team to complete, but this would have been far too long for Nome to wait. Instead, they decided on a relay team of mushers and their dog teams. With the help of the United States Signal Corps, which operated the Alaskan telegraph system, the Board of Health contacted 20 men who agreed to transport the antitoxin to Nome.⁵ On January 27th, the serum was delivered by train from Anchorage to Nenana. There, 674 miles away from Nome, the race began.⁶

The Great Race for Mercy

From the station at Nenana, William “Wild Bill” Shannon and his team took off towards Tolovana. The 52 miles he covered marked the first leg of the serum run. The race involved 20 men and over 150 dogs in total.⁷ These teams travelled in blizzard conditions, and one musher, Charlie Evans, later claimed that he ran through -64 degree weather during his leg of the trip.⁸ There was a great amount of diversity amongst the mushers, with many European immigrants, native born white Americans, members of Indigenous Athabascan tribes, and men of blended ancestry running on the trail. Details about individual mushers and their experiences during the serum run can be found in the map below.

The Eyes of the Nation

The diphtheria epidemic and the serum run itself became sources of national interest. Newspapers across the country, from Hawai’i to Maine, covered the efforts to save Nome. People eagerly followed the plight in Alaska, and newspaper companies attempted to reach Welch for comment. He later told the Surgeon General that he destroyed all the wires sent to him by the press, saying “I am a physician, not a press agent.”⁹ Still, the newspapers continued to allow people from every state to follow what was happening in the farthest reaches of the American territory. All of this took place in a decade that saw an uptick in interest in national news.

Leonhard Seppala and Togo

In an effort to quicken the relay, Nome’s Board of Health decided to add more mushers to the trip after it had already begun. Leonhard Seppala, a Norwegian immigrant and famed dog sled racer, had already been sent from Nome to Nulato to pick up the serum. He had no way of knowing that more teams had been added or that the serum had actually passed through Nulato already. His trip to Nulato wound up being very fortunate, however, as Henry Ivanoff’s dogs picked up the scent of reindeer only half a mile outside of Shaktoolik. The dogs refused to return to the trail, so upon seeing Seppala Ivanoff waved him down and transferred the serum to him. Seppala, whose team was led by the famous Siberian Husky Togo, headed towards Golovin in Ivanoff’s place.¹⁰.

On his way to Golovin, Seppala had to choose between travelling along the coastline of Norton Bay, adding hours to the run, or cutting 20 miles across the frozen Bay itself. The ice could crack at any time, potentially stranding him and his team on an ice drift. Worse, they could be plunged into the icy sea. Seppala, whose daughter Seigrid had contracted and recovered from diphtheria a few years earlier, decided to cut across the Bay.¹¹

Togo led Seppala’s team in a straight line across Norton Bay. All the while, the man himself listened carefully for the sound of cracking ice, though he could not be sure it was not covered by the howling wind. At one point, the strong gusts blew the sled sideways, taking the dogs with it. Seppala righted them and moved on. Finally, late in the evening, he and his dogs arrived at the shore of Norton Bay. They had successfully crossed the frozen sea. Seppala and his team stopped to rest in the shelter of his friend’s igloo overnight. A few short hours after the team came ashore, the ice of the bay they had just run across began to break. ¹²

Seppala and his team left the next morning. When they finally arrived in Golovin, they had travelled over 91 miles on the serum run.¹³ This was the longest distance covered by any individual team. While this remains the official length credited to Seppala’s team, it does not include the trip they took from Nome to Shaktoolik. In total, the dogs had actually run 268 miles within two days.¹⁴

Gunnar Kaasen and Balto

Seppala transferred the serum to Charlie Olson in Golovin, who then travelled 25 miles to Bluff. There, he handed it off to Norwegian-born musher Gunnar Kaasen and his team, led by the Siberian Husky Balto. The vsibility was so poor that Kaasen nearly directed his team to run straight through a river. He was stopped only by Balto’s refusal to move forward. Not long after they rerouted around the river, Seppala and his team came to Topkop Hill. With a 600-foot summit and no path around it, all mushers dreaded the landmark. Seppala had to get out of his sled and push it from behind while his team pulled it up the hill. During this process Kaasen completely lost sensation in his face.¹⁵

After climbing up and subsequently sledding down Topkop Hill, Kaasen and his team continued on towards Point Safety. However, while passing through Bonanza flats, the intense winds flipped over Kaasen’s sled and pulled several of his dogs with it. After righting the sled, he realized that the serum had been knocked off in the crash. In the low visibility Kaasen had to remove his mittens and search through the snow with his bare hands. Eventually, he was able to find the package and secure it to the sled once more.¹⁶

Kaasen had initially been instructed to stop at Point Safety and transfer the antitoxin to Ed Rohn, who was chosen to run it the rest of the way to Nome. When he arrived, he noticed that the lights were out in the cabin. He realized that Rohn, who was not expecting Kaasen until the next morning, had gone to sleep. Kaasen debated waking Rohn to give him the serum. After considering how long it would take Rohn to prepare his team, and recognizing the dire conditions in Nome, Kaasen decided to bring the serum the final stretch himself.¹⁷

Arrival and Aftermath

Kaasen arrived in Nome at 5:30 in the morning on February 2nd, 1925. He knocked on Welch’s front door, waking him up while his dogs finally took a break. In five and a half days, 20 men and their dogs had covered 674 miles in blizzard conditions and delivered life-saving diphtheria antitoxin to a town on the verge of an epidemic.¹⁸

When Welch opened the package he was horrified to find that the 300,000 units of antitoxin were frozen solid. After radiogramming the Public Health Service, however, he was assured that it could be thawed and used effectively. He began treating victims immediately and on February 21st the epidemic was declared over and the quarantine lifted. It had been just over a month since Welch diagnosed the first case of diphtheria.¹⁹ The serum run had been successful, and Welch and his staff were able to effectively treat the disease.

The crisis faced in Nome spurred the government into action. The Public Health Service shipped a second batch of 1,100,000 antitoxin to Seward, Alaska on the S. S. Alameda. They were taken to Nenana by train, and from there they were transported to Nome by yet another dogsled relay. Many of the mushers that participated in the first serum run likely took part in the second, however because the country’s fascination with Nome died out after Kaasen’s arrival, their names were not recorded. In addition to the new shipment of serum, the epidemic pushed the Post Office to begin planning for an effective airmail service in Alaska. ²⁰ The diphtheria epidemic and the subsequent relay race to Nome sparked fundamental changes in how Alaska was connected to the contiguous United States.

The mushers themselves were rewarded for their efforts, with each one receiving $18.66 from a public donation fund. Additionally, the Territory of Alaska paid them $25 for each day that they were on the trail. Finally, the H. K. Mulford Company, the producer of the antitoxin, sent each of the mushers a medal and sent Gunnar Kaasen an additional $1,000.²¹ However, this reward, along with Kaasen’s overall involvement in the race, proved to be controversial.

The Battle for Credit

Kaasen’s decision to bypass Ed Rohn and deliver the serum himself is still debated. He claimed that he made this choice in order to get the serum to Nome as fast as possible, however Rohn, Leonhard Seppala, and some Nome residents felt that he wanted to earn the good publicity that came with his delivery. The $1,000 he received for his efforts did not help his case.²² What may have been more damaging, however, was the movie deal he signed by the end of the month.

At a time when movies were just beginning to become popular in America, Kaasen and Balto travelled to the contiguous United States on a press tour for their film. At the end of the tour they saw the dedication of the famed Balto statue erected in Central Park. Many claim that this is evidence of Kaasen’s desire for glory, however due to his introverted nature both at home and along the press tour, some argue that the Mayor of Nome may have pressured him into accepting the deal.²³ Regardless, Kaasen’s decision to take the serum to Nome himself and the lasting debate surrounding it demonstrate the questions surrounding glory in the race.

One man who always questioned Kaasen’s decision was Leonhard Seppala. For years, he remained angry that Balto was given the credit he felt belonged to his dog, Togo. After all, Togo and his team had covered more distance than any other team that participated in the run, including their treacherous trip across Norton Bay. Seppala was particularly upset when some newspapers falsely attributed Togo’s impressive run to Balto. In his memoir, Seppala wrote that:

“I hope I shall never be the man to take away credit from any dog or driver who participated in that run. We all did our best. But when the country was roused to enthusiasm over the serum run driver, I resented the statue to Balto, for if any dog deserved a special mention it was Togo.”

Salisbury, The Cruelest Miles, 248-249.

Significance

The Failures of Technology

The Nome serum run took place during a time of great technological improvements. Lynn Dumenil’s book The Modern Temper demonstrates this, including the 64% increase in industrialization over the decade as a whole. Both the chemical and automobile industries played a role in the technological boom of the 1920s.²⁴ The former had an important impact on the serum run, particularly because the H. K. Mulford Company manufactured the diphtheria antitoxin.²⁵ However, the transportation advancements that were dispersing throughout the mainland United States at this time, for example paved roads and cars, were not yet available in the more rural areas of the country. The serum run to Nome shows that in spite of recent improvements in transportation technology, these developments were not yet able to help those outside of the increasingly urban contiguous United States.

The Success of Syndicated News

While transportation improvements proved unable to affect the Nome serum run, improvements in newspaper technology drew people from all parts of the nation into following the race to Nome. Dumenil writes that “because of developments in technology and distribution, [newspapers] increasingly consisted of syndicated news information and photographs.”²⁶ This system consisted of a single news story being written and distributed to papers across the country. Dr. Welch’s account of the diphtheria epidemic, written a week after the serum arrived, is one example of this. He wrote an article for United Press that was sent to and published by newspapers all the way from Nebraska to New Jersey. This followed weeks of news coverage detailing Nome’s struggles, as newspapers from all 48 of the recognized states at that time, plus the territories of Alaska and Hawai’i, published stories about the dog sled relay. In addition to the increase in syndicated news, this shows the uptick in national news coverage that people were consuming during the 1920s.²⁷ People in every part of the country followed the serum run, regardless of how far they were from Alaska. Overall, in spite of transportation technology’s inability to assist in the race itself, advancements in newspaper technology during the 1920s allowed Americans to track what was happening in Nome.

Citations

Bibliography

• Alger, Anna. “100 Years After the Great Serum Run, Balto’s Legacy Endures.” Cleveland Museum of Natural History. January 23, 2025. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.cmnh.org/learn/science-blog/2025/01/23/100-years-after-the-great-serum-run-baltos-legacy-endures.
• Associated Press. “Diphtheria Rages at Nome, Alaska.” Olean Evening Herald (Olean, NY), January 28, 1925.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang. 1995.
• Salisbury, Gay and Laney Salisbury. The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2003.
• Stokes, E. D. “The Race for Life.” Public Health Reports 111, no. 3. (1996): 272-275. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4598014.
• Ungermann, Kenneth A. The Race to Nome: The Story of the Heroic Alaskan Dog Teams That Rushed Diphtheria Serum to Stricken Nome in 1925. New York: Harper & Row. 1963.
• Wilson, William H. “The Serum Dash to Nome, 1925.” Alaska Journal 16 (1986): 250-259.
• Welch, Curtis. “Nome’s Solitary Physician Tells Gripping Story of Diphtheria Epidemic.” The Times (Trenton, NJ) February 8, 1925.

Suggested Resources

• Rozell, Ned. “Sled Dogs Were Lifesavers in the Serum.” Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Accessed March 19, 2026. https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/sled-dogs-were-lifesavers-serum-run.
• “Serum Run of 1925.” Alaska State Archives. Accessed March 19, 2026. https://archives.alaska.gov/education/serum.html. 
• “Serum Run Resources.” University of Alaska Fairbanks. Accessed March 29, 2026. https://library.uaf.edu/aprca/research-guides/serum-run.

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

I also know that the 1920s were a prosperous time for the United States. Following the end of World War I, America became the main trading partner for the European countries that were rebuilding after the war, leading to a strong American economy. Finally, I think of the Harlem Renaissance, part of which took place in this decade. A great deal of art, music, and literature was produced by Black residents in Harlem during these years.

Immediately after searching for “the 1920s” in Google Images, I noticed photos featuring headlines announcing that women had gotten the right to vote. I think this confirms some of my ideas about the 1920s, since the ratification of the 19th amendment was such an important milestone in American history. It also meant that the 1920s were the first decade in which women were able to vote, allowing them to start accruing more direct political power and influence during this time. Because the 19th amendment was so impactful, I am not surprised that photos related to it feature prominently on the Google Images page.

I also noticed pictures of women dancing with shorter hair and dresses, which is also in line with what I had expected to see. In some of these images, the women are dancing while men play clarinets and trombones near them. I did not initially consider the importance of music outside of the Harlem Renaissance, and these images expand my understanding of the 1920s as the “Jazz Age” as well a time when the Harlem Renaissance produced great works of art. Many other pictures are related to Prohibition, specifically protests against it. This is something that I expected to see in these photos, as banning the sale of alcohol had an incredibly large impact on the culture and experiences of people living in the 1920s. One aspect of this time that I think was missing from the images was crime. I know that Prohibition led to an increase in organized crime and the illegal sale of alcohol, so I am surprised that there are no images of prominent gangsters like Al Capone. The same goes for the Harlem Renaissance, as nearly every picture on Google Images only shows white Americans. Overall, it seems like the images tend to focus on Prohibition, women’s suffrage, or the glitz and glamour associated with the “Roaring 20s.”

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz