From the June 13, 1908 edition
of the Silverton Standard:

Friday night, June 5th, the bad news was telephoned to town shortly after 8 o’clock from Gladstone that the buildings at the Gold King mine were thought to be on fire as a very large conflagration was noticed in that vicinity. … Every building at the mouth of the tunnel was doomed to destruction. A special train in charge of W.Z. Kinney was started from town shortly after nine o’clock and rushed to the scene of disaster as soon as possible but it was found that there was no way of checking the ravages of the all consuming fire. Every building in its path was destroyed. …
After the fire was over, it was thought that all the men were out of the mine and that no one was injured but a man named Fritzes who jumped from a window of the boarding house and hurt his back badly. On Saturday, however, the rumor became persistent that three miners who were in the mine at the time of the fire, were still unaccounted for. Upon investigation this was found to be true. Victor Erickson, John Fenstom, and Otto Johnson were entombed in the mine. That afternoon a rescue party was organized. Thirty or forty men were in this party headed by C.A. Waters, secretary of the Miners’ Union and W.Z. Kinney, general manager of the Gold King and at 2:30 they went up on a special train. As soon as possible they went down into the mine. They found the missing men in the four hundred level and all of them were alive at the time but by this time they found that they had more of a task on their hands than that of getting three men to the surface. The poisonous gases left by the fire of the night before and fumes accumulated … began to tell on the condition of the brave rescuers, and one by one they began to be overcome and sink into unconsciousness. … When the dead were numbered it was found that Peter McEnany and Roy Coburn, shift bosses, Alex Johnson, Gus Olsen, A.W. Burns and Victor Erickson had succumbed to the effects of the noxious gases. The first five had given their lives in attempt to rescue their imprisoned brothers. ...