Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Mines are particular magnets for ghost stories, and this is among the creepier of the lot.  The “Atchison Daily Champion,” May 11, 1906:

Eveleth, Minn.--Superstition has been aroused among the miners at Eveleth and its surrounding locations by statements said to have been made by Walter Koki and Hjalmar Linna, mining partners, who were killed in the Adams mine recently. 

According to report Linna said that when he and his partner were at work in No. 4 shaft on Friday, April 6, they were met by what seemed to be a black man.  The apparition is said to have put its hands on the men and to have commanded them to go away. Linna told his friends that he was so impressed by the vision that he had determined to work in the shaft no longer. 

Koki, however, laughed at his partner's awe, and, refusing to leave the drift, joined the timber gang. The same day Koki wandered into a deserted shaft that was filled with deadly gases and met his death. He was not missed until the following Sunday, when searchers found the body. So overpowering were the fumes that it was necessary to raise the body to the surface with a hook and tackle. 

Linna was deeply impressed by the fate of his partner and talked with several countrymen about his experience with the "black man." He was told that he was the victim of a practical joker, but nevertheless he adhered to his resolution not to work in the shaft again. Linna secured a position as ore sampler and a week later he was thrown from an ore car and so badly injured that he died. 

His death caused his fellow countrymen to recall the "black wraith" which is alleged to have warned the men, and although there are many skeptics some of the miners firmly believe that the spirit will again make its appearance and if it does the persons approached will meet a certain doom.