Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Near here at Harwood, on Sept. 10, 1897, immigrant coal miners on strike began a march for higher wages and equal rights. Unarmed, they were fired upon at Lattimer by sheriff's deputies. Nineteen marchers--Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian--were killed. The majority of the dead were buried in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Hazleton. Others were interred in St. Joseph's & Vine Street Cemeteries, Hazleton, and in St. Patrick Cemetery, McAdoo.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
On September 10, 1897, a group of unarmed immigrant coal miners—Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian—marched from Harwood toward Lattimer demanding higher pay and fair treatment. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the peaceful column, killing nineteen and wounding many more. The dead were laid to rest in the ethnic parish cemeteries around Hazleton, and the massacre became a rallying cry for the growing labor movement in the anthracite fields.
Why it matters
The Lattimer Massacre exposed the deadly cost of industrial labor conflict and galvanized immigrant miners in the fight for workers' rights.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the 1890s, the anthracite coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania ran on the labor of immigrants. Men who had arrived from Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, and other parts of eastern and southern Europe went down into the mines and worked long, dangerous days for wages that the companies could cut almost at will. They were often looked down upon by earlier arrivals and treated as disposable.
The country as a whole was in a hard stretch. A severe economic depression had gripped the nation, work was insecure, and tensions between labor and the powerful industries that employed them were sharpening across America. In the coal patches, resentment over low pay and unequal treatment had been building for years.
That summer of 1897, it boiled over into the open, and immigrant miners who had long been told to be grateful for whatever they were given decided to march for something better.
People & events
On September 10, 1897, striking coal miners set out from Harwood on a march toward Lattimer. They were demanding higher wages and fair, equal treatment — the same rights other workers claimed. Crucially, they were unarmed, walking in the open to make their case.
At Lattimer they were met by a sheriff's posse of deputies, who opened fire on the column. Nineteen of the marchers were killed, and many more were wounded. The dead were Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian — the very immigrant communities whose labor the mines depended on.
Their funerals became a wrenching public mourning. Most of the fallen were buried in St. Stanislaus Cemetery in Hazleton, with others laid to rest in St. Joseph's and Vine Street Cemeteries in Hazleton and in St. Patrick Cemetery in McAdoo. Scattered across those ethnic parish cemeteries, the graves marked not just personal loss but a wound felt across the whole coal region.
Its place in the American story
The Lattimer Massacre forced the country to look at the deadly cost of industrial conflict. Here were unarmed workers, gunned down for marching, and the shock of it rippled well beyond the anthracite fields.
It became a rallying point for the labor movement, and especially for the immigrant miners who had so often been dismissed as unorganizable. In the aftermath, unions in the coal fields grew stronger, as men who had been divided by language and nationality recognized how much they shared. The event helped knit those communities into a labor force willing to stand together.
More broadly, Lattimer stands among the grim landmarks in America's long, painful road toward recognizing the rights of working people. It is remembered as a moment when the ordinary, foreign-born laborer — the person most easily overlooked in the story of American industry — was thrust to the center of the national conscience.
If you visit
This is a memorial, and it deserves to be approached as one. The mood here is solemn: you are standing near the ground where unarmed men were killed for asking to be treated fairly.
Take time to consider the names and origins the marker records — Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian. These were immigrants far from home, and the sweep of parish cemeteries around Hazleton where they were buried tells you how deeply the loss was woven into the surrounding communities. Visiting one of those cemeteries can make the human scale of the event real in a way a roadside stop cannot.
Set against the wider landscape of the anthracite region, the site rewards quiet reflection rather than sightseeing. Come to remember, and to think about how the comforts and industries built on this coal were paid for, in part, by the people who marched that September day.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lattimer Massacre
Hazle Township, PA · est. 1972
On September 10, 1897, hundreds of unarmed immigrant coal miners marched near Hazleton to demand fairer wages and working conditions in the anthracite fields. Sheriff's deputies opened fire on the strikers, killing nineteen and wounding dozens more, most of them recent Eastern European immigrants. The bloodshed shocked the nation and became a rallying point for the growing labor movement and the United Mine Workers.
Eckley Miners' Village
Foster Township, PA · est. 2015
Founded in 1854 as Fillmore and soon renamed for mining engineer Eckley Coxe, this village was built to house the workers who dug anthracite coal from the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania. Many were European immigrants, and their tight rows of company houses made Eckley a classic 'coal patch' town of the late 1800s. When the collieries faded by the 1950s the community nearly vanished, only to be preserved after it served as a filming location for the 1970 movie 'The Molly Maguires' and became a state historic site.
Little Lithuania, USA
Shenandoah, PA · est. 2013
Since the late 1800s, the coal fields around Shenandoah drew Lithuanian immigrants in such numbers that Schuylkill County holds the greatest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry in the United States. Lured by work in the anthracite mines, they built churches, societies, and one of the nation's oldest Knights of Lithuania chapters to preserve their language and faith. The Rev. Andrius Stupinskas, who led one of the first Lithuanian American Catholic congregations in 1872, rests in the local St. George cemetery.
Molly Maguire Executions
Jim Thorpe, PA · est. 2006
On June 21, 1877, four men accused of belonging to the "Molly Maguires," an alleged secret society of Irish miners, were hanged here in what came to be called the Day of the Rope. Their convictions rested largely on the undercover testimony of Pinkerton detective James McParlan, hired by coal interests. More than a century later, historians still debate the truth of the labor, class, and ethnic conflicts that drove the case, and even whether the organization truly existed.