The mine owners were enraged at his demand. In February, 1894, twelve of them banded together in an agreement that their mines would operate solely on a nine-hour three-dollar day. One of the signers was Sam Altman who sat back to see what the residents of his town would do next.
Under Calderwood’s bidding five hundred men walked out of the nine-hour mines. Bull Hill, practically in Altman’s back yard, was one of the areas most affected because a number of nine-hour mines were located there.
Calderwood organized a central kitchen at Altman to feed the out-of-work miners. He collected funds, trained pickets, assessed the working miners and addressed daily meetings. By March the Bull Hill mine owners were no longer scoffing. Winfield Scott Stratton, richest operator in the district, sent for Calderwood and offered a compromise of $3.25 for a nine-hour shift by day and the same wages for an eight-hour shift by night.
Calderwood accepted the compromise and signed a contract. A contract with a union leader was an unheard of thing in that day and stirred the whole state into editorials and epithets. It made the mine owners of Bull Hill bull-headed, and they attempted force to re-open their mines. But Calderwood made a fortress out of Altman.
He kept order but he also kept anything in the way of a scab or a mine owner out. The mine owners appealed to Governor Waite for militia which arrived and was withdrawn, leaving Calderwood in possession of Altman and Bull Hill. Unfortunately, Calderwood decided to tour the state on behalf of the miners’ cause. Without his calm wise leadership the criminal element drifted in and violence took over.
The final peace treaty was signed at Altman on June 10, 1894, after one hundred and thirty days of the strike—the longest in American history up to that time. The nine-hour mine owners gave in on the question of an eight-hour day.
The Battle of Bull Hill was over, and Altman went back to the business of mining. Later on it was the hang-out for the Jack Smith gang and saw some shootings. But mostly the town just mined until the second Cripple Creek strike occurred a decade after the first.
It maintained a steady population until that time. But after the ill effects of the second strike, mines shut down and miners moved out. In 1910 its population had dropped to one hundred. After that it fell off consistently until there was no one.
Altman is unique in our collection—and in the United States—as the scene of the first major strike war and of the first workers’ victory—a truly unique presage of the twentieth century.
