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Conditions at the coal mines were blatantly unsafe. Governor Emmet J. O'neal had been in office for two months. He had argued loudly for improvements in conditions for the mining industry.

On that particular morning, a large amount of odorless gas is believed to have accumulated deep inside one chamber of the mine. It may have been a blasting accident. At any rate, an explosion occurred; the surviving miners were entombed!

Rescue efforts were halted due to the afterdamp, a collection of gases, carbon dioxide and nitrogen that forms following an explosion. In the initial efforts, three bodies were recovered near the entrance of the mine before the afterdamp began to turn back the rescuers. Fans were put in place at the mine entrance, in hopes of supplying air to the trapped miners, but to no avail. There were 118 men known to be in the mine at that time.

Throughout the day, the survivors could be heard tapping on pipes, in an effort to summon help. But, help could not get through to them. As the day wore on, the sounds became less frequent and less audible. By nightfall, the sounds had stopped completely; the afterdamp had taken its toll and an eerie silence pervaded the entrance.

After the fans had cleared the air a bit more, one rescuer took a chance and entered the mine. At less than a half mile from the entrance, he found the body of a foreman named Spradling sitting on a board with his head between his knees. From appearances, he had almost reached safety, then decided to turn around to help others. He was overcome by the afterdamp and there he died. In the distance, he spotted a mound of dead miners that he estimated to be about twenty.

A government rescue train broke records in getting to the scene from Chattanooga. The president of the state board of convict inspectors, James Oakley, arrived at Banner Mine that evening.

A work train was sent from Birmingham with equipment to shore up the mine for rescue efforts.

Unlike most mining tragedies, there wasn’t a crowd of mourners at the entrance of the mine. These men were convicts from all parts of the state, most of whom had no relatives or friends in the vicinity.

Unless relatives requested the body of a particular convict, it was buried in the convict cemetery at the mine.

The Banner mining explosion took its place as the worst mining disaster in Alabama's history, claiming the lives of 121 men and seven missing.

The Convict-Lease System was finally abolished in 1928.

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