The Barnes-Hecker Mine disaster of 1926 was the worst mining accident in Michigan history. Fifty-one men died when the mine flooded without warning on November 3, 1926, filling with water and sand in fifteen minutes. Rutherford J. (Wilfred) Wills escaped by racing ahead of the rising water and climbing a ladder 800 feet to the surface. The disaster shocked Ishpeming when news spread that a cave-in at the Barnes-Hecker mine of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, five miles west of the city, had killed fifty miners and county mine inspector William E. Hill, who was underground making an examination. Mud, water, and sand swept through the mine’s three levels and choked the shaft to within 180 feet of the surface. Seven bodies were washed to the bottom of the raise leading to the sixth level of the Morris mine and were recovered there, and that level was then blocked off to prevent flooding of the Morris mine. The cave-in depression was about 60 feet deep, and the cave-in occurred 1,600 feet from the Barnes-Hecker shaft. The distance between the Barnes-Hecker and Morris Lloyd mines was two miles, and the old lake bottom lay about midway between them.