On December 19, 1907, an explosion killed 239 men and boys, many of them Hungarian immigrants, in the Darr coal mine near Van Meter. Some of the dead had come from the closed Naomi mine near Fayette City, which had exploded on Dec. 1 and killed 34. More than 3000 miners died in December 1907, the worst month in United States coal mining history. In Olive Branch Cemetery, 71 Darr miners, including 49 unknown, are buried in a common grave.
