Flip to Pinkerton agents battling with striking steel workers, Homestead, PA, July 7, 1892.Close Window
Credit: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives,m273LattimerMarch
On September 10, 1897, 150 recently deputized Coal and Iron Police under the command of Luzerne County Sheriff James Martin opened fire on some 400 unarmed immigrant miners marching from Harwood to the coal patch town of Lattimer, killing 19 and wounding 36 others. The Lattimer massacre, as it soon became known, outraged the nation, and drew renewed attention to the presence in Pennsylvania of private police forces employed by coal operators and other industrial enterprises.
