Sunshine Miners Memorial
A 13-foot-tall metal miner, with a glowing headlamp, memorializes the Sunshine Mine disaster of 1972. The statue stands behind 91 miniature tombstones, one for each miner who suffocated in a smoky fire at America’s largest silver mine. The metal-sculpted hard rock miner eternally beams his cap lamp toward the site of one of America’s worst mining disasters.
Standing at the mouth of Big Creek Canyon, the doomed miner defiantly hoists his rock drill skyward, as if trying to punch an air hole to the surface. The statue is the creation of Ken Lonn of Auburn, Washington. Mr. Lonn is a former miner and shift boss at the Sunshine mine. He worked at the “Shine” after the fire and sculpted the statue in the plant at the mine site. A poem written by Phil Batt, former state senator and retired governor of Idaho is on the base of the statue along with the names of the ninety-one miners killed in the disaster.
A miner’s day ceremony is held on the second day of May each year to honor the men who died at the Sunshine Mine.